Global talk not backed by local walk: Cong slams Modi govt's record on environmental issues
Congress on Saturday listed the Narendra Modi government's «failures» on environmental issues, claiming that its «global talk is not backed by local walk» and when the INDIA bloc «takes over in June», the regressive steps of the current regime will be rolled back. The party's general secretary and former Union environment minister Jairam Ramesh alleged that the last 10 years of the Modi government have been a disaster, not just for India's people and democracy, but also for the environment and those who depend on it.
«The prime minister, who famously said that the 'climate is not changing, we are changing', has systematically destroyed protections for the environment in India,» he alleged.
Ramesh claimed that the key patterns are to strip local communities of any power over their forests and make it easier to hand forest land over to the Modi government's «crony corporate friends».
He listed 10 «failures» of the Modi government on environmental issues.
These are, «the disastrous Forest (Conservation) Amendment Act, anti-Adivasi Forest Conservation Rules, dilution of the Biological Diversity (Amendment), secretive amendments to the Environment Protection Act, legalisation of projects after violation of forest clearance, weakening Environmental Impact Assessment norms, destruction of independent environmental institutions, rising air pollution, Wildlife Protection Act weakened, and coal mines were given on corporate lobbying», he said.
Ramesh said the Forest Conservation Act of 1980 is a critical law to protect
