Feature Article

If the State holds on to the market logic and sees the challenge in land acquisition as a problem of individual will of the “affected families” whose consent has to be taken (even when it is of a high order, i e, 80%), then it can be expected that the State and its apparatus will create political conditions (read repress people, as has been the experience in the Fifth Schedule Areas) to receive the consent of individual families.

While there are some positive features in the Land Acquisition Bill – the inclusion of both acquisition and rehabilitation in the same legislation, and provision for the displaced to receive a share of the appreciation in value over time – the regressive features dominate and threaten to make acquisition by industry a far more easy process that will leave the current occupants with little more than a large compensation.

After recognising the main reasons to be hopeful about the new Land Acquisition Bill, this commentary critiques two significant structural problems in the proposed legislation: first, the definition of “public purpose”, especially the “informed consent” provision that has been included; second, the price setting mechanism, especially the possibility of an exponential escalation at the metropolitan edges and the creation of certain bizarre rural-urban boundaries.

Both civil society and government have travelled a long way on the Lokpal Bill. The official Bill is a much improved version of earlier efforts. Most of the key elements for a strong and effective law are in place. What remain are differences on whether the Lokpal should cover all civil servants, at the centre and the states, and whether the office should also redress public grievances. A huge Lokpal will lose focus and itself become an oppressor; a more nuanced approach is thus called for. Civil society groups need to bridge their differences and carry the Bill through its last stage.

In the last three decades, 12 lakh ha of forests have been diverted for other purposes, including for regularising encroachments, irrigation, power and mining projects. Most diversion proposals get approved because the forest bureaucracy is complicit in promoting them and uses every underhand means to do so. A system designed to protect forests has thus become a major mechanism for their destruction. And the Ministry of Environment and Forests is reluctant to deal with these systemic flaws.

Illegal mining in Goa calls for urgent steps to expose the extent of the violations as well as a stronger law. (Editorial)

The snowball Earth hypothesis postulates that the planet was entirely covered by ice for millions of years in the Neoproterozoic era, in a self-enhanced glaciation caused by the high albedo of the ice-covered planet. In a hard-snowball picture, the subsequent rapid unfreezing resulted from an ultra-greenhouse event attributed to the buildup of volcanic carbon dioxide (CO2) during glaciation1.

Globally, soil organic matter (SOM) contains more than three times as much carbon as either the atmosphere or terrestrial vegetation. Yet it remains largely unknown why some SOM persists for millennia whereas other SOM decomposes readily—and this limits our ability to predict how soils will respond to climate change. Recent analytical and experimental advances have demonstrated that molecular structure alone does not control SOM stability: in fact, environmental and biological controls predominate.

Environmental contamination by pharmaceuticals is reaching alarming levels and is set to rise. New partnerships between drug companies, the public-health sector and those who deliver environmental sustainability are urgently needed to tackle the issue. (Correspondence)

Excess phosphorus is polluting our environment while, ironically, mineable resources of this essential nutrient are limited. James Elser and Elena Bennett argue that recycling programmes are urgently needed.