The Media Resource Centre (MRC) dovetails its efforts with other CSE units to help disseminate information and establish a sustained and interactive contact with the mass media. The objective is to bring into sharp focus environmental and sustainability issues in national and international media and polity.
Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) offers a free feature service to media organisations across the country. This service has been operational for more than four years now, and is steadily being accepted as a trusted source for topical news stories and opinion pieces on hotly debated issues of environment, science and health.
CSE’s work on Urban RWH The first step: To make households, industries, institutions, and urban mohallas, all recognise the importance and value of rainwater harvesting for their own lives.
Community based rainwater harvesting - the paradigm of the past - has in it as much strength as it ever did before. A survey conducted by CSE of several drought-struck villages found that those which had undertaken rainwater harvesting and/or watershed development in earlier years had no drinking water problem whatsoever and even had some water to irrigate their crops.
Traditionally, water was seen as a responsibility of citizens and the community collectively took the responsibility of not only building but also of maintaining the water bodies. Since independence, the government has taken control over the water-bodies and water supply. This, over time, has led to the neglect of the water bodies and catchments areas. People have become used to getting water at the turn of a tap and are no longer interested in maintaining water bodies. However, there is still hope as concerned citizens across the country have come together to fight to halt this degradation of urban water bodies. In state after state, citizens and NGOs have filed legal cases for protection of urban lakes. Public interest litigations (PILs) have been filed for the protection of the water bodies in many cities.
The association of CSE with Bangladesh was started in 2008, when Bangladesh Environmental Institutional Strengthening Project (BEISP) requested us to conduct a training programme on EIA for the officials of Ministry of Environment and Forests. The sectors covered in the EIA training programme were coal mining, pharmaceutical, pul and paper and coal based thermal power plants.
Our country is in the throes of rapid industrialisation, which is often accompanied with massive environmental and social burdens, principally borne by communities living in the vicinity of project sites. Monitoring tools like Environment Impact Assessment (EIA), therefore, assume great significance in ensuring sound economic development without compromising on environmental and social costs.
The biggest challenge that confronts cities today is the intractable problem of automobile dependence. As the automobile dependence continues to grow, it is adversely affecting the quality of urban life. Congestion, unsafe roads and pollution remain their bane. Unless accompanied by policies to restrict the growth in car and motorised two-wheeler travel, cities will run hard only to stand still.
Transport sector is the largest user of oil – nearly half of the total consumption, and is poised to make India’s oil security even more precarious. Asian Development Bank projects that the total fuel consumption of on-road vehicles in India in 2035 can be six times over that of 2005 level. Explosive growth in personal vehicles and steady shift of freight transport from railways to roadways will incite ravenous appetite for energy.