THE Ministry of Environment, Forests & Climate Change (MoEFCC) last week filed an affidavit in the Supreme Court conveying that it has now given the go-ahead for seven controversial hydro-electric projects in the Upper Ganga region of Uttarakhand.  These projects include the 512 MW Tapovan-Vishnugarh hydro-electric project on the Dhauliganga which was almost completely destroyed in the massive floods of February 2021, killing more than 200 people including  over 150 workers and others whose bodies are probably still interred in the ruins of the project

THE nation has been debating our collective achievements, weaknesses and failures over the past 74 years since Independence in relation to the vision of the republic’s founders and of the independence movement. This article discusses two key founding ideas which do not always get the attention they deserve or do so largely in an obligatory fashion. However, both ideas are crucial and may well determine the future of India, especially in the so-called knowledge age of the 22nd century in which we are situated but have not duly acknowledged.

MANY parts of the world experienced extremes of climate and their consequences during June and July 2021. Whereas definitive attribution of particular weather events to specific causes has always been difficult given the numerous variables involved, scientists have almost unanimously ascribed this summer’s events all over the northern hemisphere to climate change. Even within that context, two aspects have been noteworthy. First the intensity, indeed ferocity, of the climate events and their impacts.

THE space race was once between the Soviet Union and the United States. It is now – on the surface – between the three billionaires, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson. Two of them rode their sub-orbital flights, meaning that they cannot be considered as space flights as they did not reach a stable orbit around the earth. Branson’s ambitions are limited, more for a market for developing the exotica of space tourism. Elon Musk and his SpaceX have been playing for the long haul, with a series of rockets and launches including to the International Space Station.

A NEW space race is on, not between superpowers, but between three billionaire businessmen with their space-based enterprises. Their goal, each in their own way, is to pioneer space tourism and to move space travel away from an exclusive activity involving select, rigorously trained astronauts often with military backgrounds to one in which, theoretically, ordinary people can participate.