CSE does a technical evaluation of the marine environmental impact assessment report of a proposed captive minor port, to be built by POSCO India Pvt Ltd to support the company’s steel plant
CSE's landmark study on how India will reduce emissions to combat climate change. In 2009, CSE began analysing the six most emissions-intensive industrial sectors to find out how Indian industry performs – and will perform in future - in terms of reduction in emissions. These sectors – power, steel, cement, aluminium, paper and pulp and fertilizers - together accounted for over 60 per cent of India’s CO2 emissions in 2008-09.
India is poised for a rapid economic growth - an 8 per cent GDP growth rate annually over the next two decades is now considered a settled matter. But there are major resource constraints to this growth story that economists talk about but have hardly taken into account in their growth projections.
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CSE's Industry and Environment Unit addresses an array of environmental issues related to Indian industries. It conducts research and advocacy on the impact of industrial pollution and provides training in related issues. The various arms of the Industry and Environment unit are: 1. Green Rating Project - The Green Rating Project (GRP) is an effort to rate industrial units within a specific sector on the basis of their environment friendliness. The project aims at encouraging companies to adopt better environment management policies. Unfortunately, in many developing countries like India, policies and institutions for controlling pollution and degradation of the resource base are weak and still in a nascent stage.
It is 25 years of the Bhopal gas disaster—the night when chemicals spewed out of the Union Carbide factory to kill and maim thousands over generations.
It was in early 2008 that my colleagues at the Centre for Science and Environment had tested household paints for lead content. The issue was not new. Lead in paints had been widely indicted across the world for being a silent poison—particularly when used on walls and items that children would lick or chew.
I first learnt about slapp when we released a study about pesticides in colas. PepsiCo had filed a defamation case against us in the Delhi High Court and our lawyer, fresh out of law school in Bangalore, jumped as he read through the company’s petition saying this was a classic slapp case. We were bemused, knowing nothing about such legal intricacies. slapp, he explained, was an acronym in the us for ‘strategic lawsuits against public participation’.
It seems that the people who matter in this country have a simple enough formula for life and liberty. We should open up the market, create opportunity for the organised industry, mix and stir, and then the work will be done. They will tell you that this will mean taking risks. It is another matter that they will not define who and what is at risk. If you object, you will be told that you are archaic, or worse still a communist, who wants to perpetuate poverty in the country.
When we released our study on pesticides in soft drinks, our objective was clear: we needed action on regulations, which had been stymied because of corporate pressure. What we hadn’t anticipated was the response of the cola majors. Three years have lapsed since we published our first report on pesticides in colas. The response then had been immediate and vituperative. “There are no pesticides in our drinks and the Centre for Science and Environment cannot test our products” was the line taken by the cola majors.
What a line of attack! PepsiCo, in its advertisements to deny that it had pesticides in its drinks, said that there were more pesticides in tea, eggs, rice and apples. Coca-Cola, in its defence, has similarly argued that as everything in India is contaminated, its drinks are safe. They say this is being done to target them, because they are big brands and us multinationals. On the other hand, the pesticide industry, in its public response, wants the focus not to be on pesticides but on heavy metals and other contaminants.
I wrote last fortnight about how mining in Goa for iron ore was ripping its forests and devastating its people. I wrote of the violence and protests I saw in its villages, where miners were pitted against people angry at the loss of their cultivable lands and their water bodies. I had asked then: what are we doing? I ask this again.
The botted water industry is global in nature. But it is designed to sell the same product to two completely different markets: one water rich and the other water scarce. The question is whether this industry will have different outcomes in these two worlds. Or will we, for two opposite reasons, agree that their business costs us the earth and that it is not good for us?
A journalist recently called me to check if I thought that India had the same food-consumer product record as China. He wanted to know if we face the problems that are plaguing Chinese exports of late: tainted pet food, toxic toothpaste, lead-paint in toys, chemicals in textiles. It got me thinking: of China and of India and more importantly, about the phenomena we call the market.
From the highway the gravestones were visible. Thirteen headstones, rough and blunt, carved with names of each dead tribal. Each stone was placed so that together they formed a semi-circle looking down at us. In front of the 13-stone platform was a fenced area with scattered burnt sticks lying as if for the picking. I realized I was looking at a cremation ground. I also realized in shock that this must have been the place where the tribals killed in police firing were consecrated to fire and that the place has been left intact as a grim reminder.