Shailendra Yashwant

Sep 13, 2024 | deccanherald.com | Shailendra Yashwant

The Kerala government's plans to build an 8.7-kilometre tunnel from Anakkampoyil in Kozhikode to Meppadi in Wayanad to ease the infamous traffic congestion on weekends and holidays on the Thamarasserry Ghat Road (NH 766) is a vanity project which must be scrapped in the light of the July 30 landslides, the largest in India’s recorded history that claimed nearly 250 lives, with hundreds still missing and thousands permanently displaced from their homes.

Sep 8, 2024 | freepressjournal.in | Shailendra Yashwant

Many believe that the laying of the foundation stone of the Vadhavan Port Project in Dahanu Taluka, India’s first Supreme Court-notified “eco-fragile area”, marks the beginning of the end of biodiversity-rich forest and coastal waters, but also of a great idea, an important enviro-legal precedent, and a 30-year-long saga of a few people’s resistance against “unwanted development”.

Aug 11, 2024 | freepressjournal.in | Shailendra Yashwant

“Faith is like Himalaya mountains which cannot possibly change – Mahatma Gandhi,” said the graffiti painted on a portion of a school wall, that was washed away in last year’s Glacial Lake Outburst Flood event, which devastated everything in the path of the Teesta River in the Himalayan state of Sikkim in India. For a long time now scientists, experts and residents have warned that the Himalayas are changing in more ways than one.

Jun 16, 2024 | freepressjournal.in | Shailendra Yashwant

Of the many ongoing conflicts around the world, Russia’s war on Ukraine and the relentless conflict between Israel and Hamas — that have killed thousands of people, displaced millions, destroyed billions of dollars worth of infrastructure, and devastated forests and water bodies — are now under scrutiny for the release of an unprecedented amount of carbon emissions into the atmosphere.

May 26, 2024 | deccanherald.com | Shailendra Yashwant

Since the start of this century, India has lost 19 per cent of its total tree cover, much of the loss has been a consequence of wildfires, which affected  of forest per year — more than twice the annual average of deforestation. According to the Desertification and Land Degradation Atlas of India, published by the Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro), 97.84 million hectares of land in India were degraded in 2018-2019.