India does not seem to lack for promises to plant trees. What it seems to lack, apparently more significantly, is something else: functional forests. This is the rather troubling conclusion to emerge from the latest performance audit of the Green India Mission (GIM) by the Comptroller and Auditor General. The mission was envisaged as one ...

A festival that is known to be related to the planting of trees and appreciation of nature has become an environmental protest symbol in Uttarakhand this year. Instead of celebrating the festival of Harela with tree saplings plantations, the environmentalists, locals, and the activists marked the day of “Black Harela” in protest against the cutting ...