Indian Environmental Research Articles

Continuous monitoring of outdoor natural gamma absorbed dose rate in air: a long-term study in Kolkata, West Bengal, India

AbstractThis study contributes to the overarching Indian Environmental Radiation Monitoring Network initiative, concentrating on the continual assessment of the gamma absorbed dose rate in outdoor air attributable to natural gamma radiation in Kolkata, West Bengal, India. Over a span of fourteen years (2011–2024), data were gathered from 32 monitoring sites within the city utilizing permanently installed Geiger-Mueller detector-based environmental radiation monitors. This paper offers an analysis of extensive findings from long-term monitoring efforts. The absorbed gamma dose rate in outdoor air varied among the monitoring sites, ranging from 78 ± 5 to 137 ± 4 nGy h− 1, with a mean value of 107 ± 12 nGy h− 1. The estimated mean annual effective dose due to outdoor natural gamma radiation ranged from 0.10 ± 0.01 to 0.17 ± 0.01 mSv y− 1, with an overall mean of 0.13 ± 0.01 mSv y−1.

Colonial Exploitation and Beyond: Revisiting Indian Environmental History and Historiography

Colonial Exploitation and Beyond: Revisiting Indian Environmental History and Historiography

Long-term monitoring of outdoor natural gamma absorbed dose rate in air in Bengaluru, Karnataka, India.

This research forms a part of the comprehensive Indian Environmental Radiation Monitoring Network program, focusing on the continuous measurement of absorbed dose rate in outdoor air due to natural gamma radiation (cosmic and terrestrial) in Bengaluru, Karnataka, India. Over the course of a decade (2013-2023), data were collected from 41 monitoring locations in the city using permanently field-installed Geiger-Mueller detector-based environmental radiation monitors. This paper presents an analysis of the extensive long-term monitoring results. The mean absorbed gamma dose rate in outdoor air across the monitoring locations ranged from 84±9 to 156±4 nGy.h-1, with a calculated mean value of 124±15 nGy.h-1. The estimated mean annual effective dose due to outdoor natural gamma radiation varied from 0.10±0.01 to 0.19±0.01mSv.y-1, with an overall mean of 0.15±0.02mSv.y-1.

Monitoring of outdoor natural gamma absorbed dose rate in air in Hyderabad, Telangana, India.

The Indian Environmental Radiation Monitoring Network continuously monitors the outdoor natural gamma absorbed dose rate in air at different locations throughout India by employing Geiger-Mueller (GM) detector-based field-installed environmental radiation monitors (ERMs). Hyderabad, Telangana, India is known to have high natural background radiation levels due to the presence of high concentrations of primordial radionuclides in its granitic rocks. There are a total of 59 ERMs installed at various locations across Hyderabad. Long-term monitoring data of these locations are presented in this paper. The mean values of outdoor natural gamma absorbed dose rate in air at the monitoring locations were found to vary in the range of 104-258 nGy.h-1 with a mean of 193±40 nGy.h-1. The mean annual effective dose due to outdoor natural gamma radiation was estimated to be 0.24±0.05mSv.y-1. Analysis of the long-term seasonal variation of outdoor natural gamma absorbed dose rate in air showed that the same was lowest during monsoons.

Book review: Mukul Sharma, Caste and Nature: Dalits and Indian Environmental Politics

Mukul Sharma, Caste and Nature: Dalits and Indian Environmental Politics. Delhi: Oxford Academic, 2018, 336 pp., ₹1,100. https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780199477562.001.0001

Countrywide monitoring of absorbed dose rate in air due to outdoor natural gamma radiation in India.

The Indian Environmental Radiation Monitoring Network continuously monitors, throughout India, the absorbed dose rate in air due to outdoor natural gamma radiation, by using Geiger-Mueller detector-based standalone environmental radiation monitors. The network consists of 546 monitors spread across 91 monitoring locations distributed all over the country. In this paper, the countrywide long-term monitoring results are summarised. The measured mean dose rate of the monitoring locations followed a log-normal distribution and ranged from 50 to 535nGy.h-1 with a median value of 91nGy.h-1. Due to outdoor natural gamma radiation, the average annual effective dose was estimated to be 0.11mSv.y-1.

Environmental Law With Non-Human Features in India: Giving Legal Personhood to the Ganges

Against the wider backdrop of a global acceleration of Right of Nature (RoN) legal provisions, this article focuses on recent Indian court cases that created legal personhood for the Ganges and Yamuna rivers, to explore why and how this form of legality was created. Based on anthropological fieldwork, the article then critiques contemporary assertions that simply present the Indian judgments as infiltrations of Hindu cosmology into the legal framework, basically ‘saffronisation’ of Indian environmentalism. Deeper analysis reveals the need for interdisciplinary, historically grounded study of processes of law-making and pertinent court rulings produced in Indian environmental jurisprudence.

Indian Environmental Ethics

A better understanding of the environmental problems require to rest on some basic issues such as the metaphysical foundations must be brought into alignment with ecology which is the principal basic science of the environment and an ethical theory must be enlarged so as to include within its purview both nonhuman natural entities. Environmental ethics is one surrounded by several new kinds of functional philosophies, which arose during the seventies. That is, it may be understood to be an application of ingrained orthodox philosophical categories to emergent everyday environmental problems. Indian philosophy has an eagle eyed lenses of viewing the relation of humans with nature and how human beings should behave with the nature/environment. The root of environmental issues can be traced back to the days of Vedic and Upaniṣadic period of Indian Philosophy along with the period of Purānas, Rāmāyana, Mahābhārata and Manusmriti. The plugs on intrinsic values, the core of environmental philosophy, were rarely discussed in Vedas and Upaniṣads. However, the concept of it, though not like western terminology, can be understood from different metaphysical entities; four Purusarthas of Indian philosophy and Ahimsa from Gandhian Philosophy contribute significantly to the Indian environmental ethics.

Environmental impact of technological advancements and environmental policy regulations in automobile sector

The major element contributing the air quality of any location in India is directly proportional to the number of vehicles being operated in the city. Taking Delhi as an example, the main contributor to high pollution in Delhi is attributed to the huge number of four wheelers and traffic. The vehicular emissions depend highly on the type of vehicle being operated. A direct petrol or Diesel Engine has more emissions as compared to Hybrid Automobiles, which in turn have much more air pollution contribution as totally battery-operated Cars. We will show how these dynamics work at a more basic level. Furthermore, these benefits of low air pollution seen at the front shadows a lot of other problems [2] at the back, which also we will discuss further in the paper. The main Environmental Policies are framed relating to the Technological advancement available. A brief interface of the dynamics between Technological and policy evolution of Indian Environmental Policies across years

Association of non-tuberculous mycobacteria with Mycobacterium leprae in environment of leprosy endemic regions in India

Non-tuberculous mycobacteria (NTM) are environmental mycobacteria found ubiquitously in nature. The present study was conducted to find out the presence of various species of NTM in leprosy endemic region along with Mycobacterium (M) leprae. Water and wet soil samples from the periphery of ponds used by the community were collected from districts of Purulia of West Bengal and Champa of Chhattisgarh, India. Samples were processed and decontaminated followed by culturing on Lowenstein Jensen (LJ) media. Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) was performed using 16S rRNA gene target of mycobacteria and species was confirmed by sequencing method. Indirect immune-fluorescent staining of M. leprae from soil was performed using M. leprae-PGL-1 rabbit polyclonal antibody. The phylogenetic tree was constructed by using MEGA-X software. From 380 soil samples 86 NTM were isolated, out of which 34(40%) isolates were rapid growing mycobacteria (RGM) and 52(60%) isolates were slow growing mycobacteria (SGM). Seventy-seven NTM isolates were obtained from 250 water samples, out of which 35(45%) were RGM and 42(55%) were SGM. Amongst all the RGM, we isolated M. porcinum, M. psychrotolerans, M. alsenase, M. arabiense and M. asiaticum from Indian environmental samples. M. fortuitum was the most commonly isolated species of all RGM. Out of all SGM, M. holsaticum, M. yongonense, M. seoulense, M. szulgai, M. europaeum, M. simiae and M. chimaera were isolated for the first time from Indian environment. M. intracellulare was the commonest of all isolated SGM. Presence of M. leprae was confirmed by indirect immunofluorescent microcopy and PCR method from the same environmental samples. Phylogenetic tree was showing a close association between these NTMs and M. leprae in these samples. Several NTM species of pathogenic and nonpathogenic in nature along with M. leprae were isolated from soil and pond water samples from leprosy endemic regions and these might be playing a role in causing disease and maintaining leprosy endemicity in India.

The Making of Culture in Contemporary Indian Environmental Movements

This paper is about the making of culture, its problematic relation with national and global discourses on development, but more than anything else, the shifting nature of what we call culture and the place of development in it. It offers a critique of both the modernist framework, which sees culture as development’s other as well as the post-development tendency to exaggerate local cultures as the space of genuine development. Instead, it makes a case for approaching culture as a site of conformity and contestation and where development realities are produced, thus making development a temporal and discursive construct. The questions that guide this paper are whether culture exists as a fixed essence on which development works in an antagonistic relationship or development constructs culture in a complementary alliance, and whether culture is a homogeneous space of belonging or a slippery site where multiple meanings and truths scramble for legitimacy. These questions are answered by drawing from, and expanding on, existing cultural development literature, as well as by engaging with two environmental movements from India.

The Judicial Scrutiny of Environmental Risk and the Legislative Scheme of the Water Act: A Comment

This paper outlines the central role of risk management in the regulatory toolkit administering Indian environmental law. In particular, it examines the operationalization of risk management in the functioning of Water Act through the management of pollution standards, especially the extent to which standards management has informed adjudication by the higher judiciary and the National Green Tribunal. This examination of adjudication the cases is typed into cases that strictly deal with standards management, cases that deal with procedural objections to regulatory interventions to manage standards and public interest litigation cases. Though the overall number of cases are small, strict standards management cases constitute about a third of the overall number of cases arising out of the standards management provisions of the statute. Drawing on this distribution of cases the paper comments on the nature and limits of standards management as the framework of managing risk in the Water Act. Accordingly, this paper is also an introductory comment on the kind of enquiry that will make salient the framework of risk management that organizes the regulatory framework of the Water Act in particular and Indian environment law in general.

History of Indian Environmental Movement: A Study of Dr B.R. Ambedkar from the Perspective of Access to Water

The thought of Ambedkar, explicitly or implicitly, has fascinating ecological dimensions. His ideas on the relationship between human beings and nature are useful to put equity at the centre stage of environmental discourse. Environmental problems and degradation for Ambedkar are not only because of over-exploitation of natural resources, but also due to iniquitous access of different social groups to the resource base. Particularly on the issue of access to drinking water to socially marginalized sections such as Dalits, Ambedkar reflected deeply in his intellectual and activist life. This article proposes that the ecological dimension of Ambedkar’s thought offers a theory of environmentalism from below which is useful to capture differential impact of environmental problems on socially marginalized sections in general and Dalits in particular.

Environmentally Friendly Effluent Treatment Approaches of Dihydroxyl Ammonium 5,5′‐Bistetrazole‐1,1′‐Diolate (TKX‐50)

AbstractThe Indian Environmental Protection Act (EPA) came into force in 1986 after Bhopal Gas Tragedy. It stipulates that no person or industry or processor shall discharge or emit environmental pollutants in excess of prescribed standards. Dihydroxyl ammonium 5,5′‐bistetrazole‐1,1′‐diolate, abbreviated as TKX‐50, was synthesized in this laboratory. During synthesis of TKX‐50 a large volume of effluent was generated, which was acidic and hazardous in nature and therefore can damage the environment if discharged without proper treatment. Literature survey reveals that TKX‐50 effluent analysis and its treatment have not been reported so far. In order to meet EPA norms and protect the environment TKX effluent samples of different steps of synthesis were collected and analyzed for environmental parameters such as pH, chemical oxygen demand (COD), bio‐chemical oxygen demand (BOD), total dissolved solids (TDS) and bioassay test (toxicity to zebra fish survival) followed by the treatment of composite effluent. This paper presents analysis results of TKX‐50 effluent samples before and after treatment. The results of finally treated TKX‐50 effluent indicate that the same can be safely discharged on land for irrigation without adverse effect on environment. This study may be suitable for environmentalists and community of high energy materials.

Grassroot Politics and Green Illusions: Exploring the Discourse on Environment, Governance and Democracy in Independent India

Environmental discourse in India has always competed in the theatre of its democracy with the help of two powerful actors-the state with its agenda of development in technocratic environmental discourse and the indigenous population represented by civil society with a democratic environmental discourse. Conflicting binaries crowd out this space-development and environment, scientific and cultural, traditional and modern and so on. This paper attempts to trace the Indian environmental consciousness giving space to any alternative or counter environmental discourse that the Indian civilisation might have experienced. The problem of western scientific perspective and its utilisation as a way of culture and a means of power from the colonial times and the privileging of science over other forms of knowledge is examined. The authors analyse the politics of environmentalism as a movement and ideology post independence, and the role of civil society whose powerful articulation of environmental causes have consistently been against the Indian state. According to this assumption, colonialism, modernity and development are exclusively responsible for the degradation and exploitation of nature, marginalising the tribal dweller, the peasant and the rural Indian. The inadequacy of the modern scientific discourse to articulate environmental conflicts has brought in grassroot movements and a powerful dialectic contests to eliminate the opposing argument. The paper concludes that a meaningful framework of Indian environmentalism can rest on a stage where science, democracy and governance have aligned their language and interests.

Ethics of Nature in Indian Environmental History: A Review Article

AbstractThis article considers the formation of moral and ethical worlds in India, drawing largely on cases reporting on modern times, as people interact with or imagine the landscapes in which they live. Questions of ethics, and how they are animated in practical existence through the experience of emotional ties and affective attachments to nature, near and far, have not always informed the writing of environmental history in India. In contrast, scholars in disciplines other than history have often paid attention to ethical and religious ideas about landscape and nature. This review argues that ethics of nature are developed in historical processes of community formation and identity-expression or self-making that occur in and through the imagination and experience of the natural world in religious and political action. Historical perspectives on these topics are useful and necessary, even as careful examination of how affect and worship shape attitudes to being in particular landscapes can enrich the understanding of meaningful relations to landscape and nature in environmental history. The argument is developed by a close examination of a handful of recent studies that have provided an empirical basis for this synthesis, review, and conceptual elaboration of the ethics of nature in India. The article considers the formation of ethical ideas and practical values of nature in realms of worship, natural resources management, rural development, conservation science, natural resources policy, and legal disputes relating to nature protection in India.

An Ecological Turn in American Indian Environmental Ethics

An Ecological Turn in American Indian Environmental Ethics

Digital Earth – A sustainable Earth

All life, particularly human, cannot be sustainable, unless complimented with shelter, poverty reduction, provision of basic infrastructure and services, equal opportunities and social justice. Yet, in the context of cities, it is believed that they can accommodate more and more people, endlessly, regardless to their carrying capacity and increasing ecological footprint. The 'inclusion', for bringing more and more people in the purview of development is often limited to social and economic inclusion rather than spatial and ecological inclusion. Economic investment decisions are also not always supported with spatial planning decisions. Most planning for a sustainable Earth, be at a level of rural settlement, city, region, national or Global, fail on the capacity and capability fronts. In India, for example, out of some 8,000 towns and cities, Master Plans exist for only about 1,800. A chapter on sustainability or environment is neither statutorily compulsory nor a norm for these Master Plans. Geospatial technologies including Remote Sensing, GIS, Indian National Spatial Data Infrastructure (NSDI), Indian National Urban Information Systems (NUIS), Indian Environmental Information System (ENVIS), and Indian National GIS (NGIS), etc. have potential to map, analyse, visualize and take sustainable developmental decisions based on participatory social, economic and social inclusion. Sustainable Earth, at all scales, is a logical and natural outcome of a digitally mapped, conceived and planned Earth. Digital Earth, in fact, itself offers a platform to dovetail the ecological, social and economic considerations in transforming it into a sustainable Earth.

Book Review: Green and Saffron: Hindu Nationalism and Indian Environmental Politics

Mukul Sharma, Green and Saffron: Hindu Nationalism and Indian Environmental Politics. Ranikhet: Permanent Black. 2012. 318 pages. ₹ 795.

Access to Information as Ruled by the Indian Environmental Tribunal: Save Mon Region Federation v. Union of India

On 14 March 2013, the National Green Tribunal of India passed an order in an ongoing statutory appeal against the environmental approval granted to a hydropower project. The order related to the preliminary issue of condoning a delay in the filing of the appeal. The Tribunal attributed a significant part of the delay to the nondisclosure of complete information regarding the approval. The delay in filing was condoned as concerned authorities had not complied with the relevant environmental regulations. Although the order did not address the merits of the case, it is of great significance for the Indian environmental justice system since it grapples with one of the key hurdles in the regime – poor access to information – and thus has the potential to transform the environmental regulatory space by making it more transparent. Environmental decision‐making processes, particularly in the developing countries, are often opaque and inaccessible. India's experience in striving to improve its processes may thus provide useful lessons for other jurisdictions.