National security, religion present new challenges to India's environment

Security and religion may become additional vetoes on climate change action

Each day brings even more alarming news about the continuing and even accelerated depletion of India’s environment, its rich bio-diversity and its precious ecological assets. Its rivers are clogged with plastic waste and contaminated by hazardous chemicals. The air in our cities has become toxic and dangerous and there is no light at the end of the tunnel. We have ended up at the edge of a vortex that threatens to suck our people into a spiral from which there may be no escape. And restating Mahatma Gandhi’s prescient warning, we may soon leave the earth stripped bare like locusts.