Columnist.
India's new Environmental Supplement Plan (ESP), drafted by its Ministry of Environment and Forests in May, came under heavy scrutiny for plagiarism recently. It was found that many sections of the ESP were copied from the American version of it. While plagiarism in itself is wrong, it is worth noting that India's Environment Ministry has admitted that it borrowed the idea (of ESP) from the U.S., and that the language of its draft is different. This is not a creative document, but a policy document, and many documents such as these borrow from one another.
Last month, anti-genetically modified organism (GMO) activists engaged in a war in the streets of India's capital. The agitation is about the genetically modified (GM) variant of mustard — DMH-11 (Dhara Mustard Hybrid 11). Why?
The decision by the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) February 9 to stop implementation and enforcement of the Obama administration's premier global climate regulation pending litigation has enormous implications, particularly for India. The Clean Power Plan (CPP), promulgated last year by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), aimed to achieve a 32 percent reduction in carbon dioxide emissions from American power plants by 2030. That goes beyond the 25 to 28 percent reduction by 2025 the Obama administration promised under the agreement reached in Paris in December. Implementation would require shutting down the country's coal-based power plants and replacing much of their output with wind and solar, resulting in steep increases in the cost of electricity.
What a Masters in Environmental Science Learned at the University
