Articles by Geetanjoy Sahu

The National Green Tribunal—a specialised environmental institution constituted 10 years ago—has transformed environmental regulation and governance in India. Yet, the NGT’s success has been tarnished in several areas. What used to be a progressive, the innovative green tribunal now is inconsistent in adjudicating environmental litigation pitched against huge infrastructure projects. The tribunal is also struggling because of the lack of human resources and administrative support for its existence. The past 10 years of the NGT can be largely summed up as a story of procedural success in environmental decision-making tainted by institutional erosion and selective adjudicative decisions.

The Vidarbha region of Maharashtra presents a unique case in the implementation of community forest rights where much of the region’s potential community forest rights claims have been recognised in the name of gram sabhas under the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006. The key factors like the collective action of gram sabhas, the role of non-governmental organisations, grassroots organisations, and state implementing agencies, and their collaboration in advancing the implementation of cfr are explained here. There is need to support the upscaling of cfr across India, and to analyse the broader implications for forest resource governance at a national scale.

The various dilutions, contradictory policies and litigations challenging the constitutional validity of the Forest Rights Act reveal the range and depth of opposition from an entrenched forest bureaucracy on the one hand and non-state actors on the other. The lack of implementation support to it also indicates a refusal of the political system to embrace the historic opportunity created for democratic governance of forests in India.

A detailed analysis of the working and living conditions at the Alang-Sosiya ship-breaking yard raises several questions about the Gujarat model of development. This paper aims to identify the major challenges in implementing rules for the protection and improvement of workers' rights at the micro level through an in-depth analysis of ship-breaking workers at Alang-Sosiya, and suggests measures to ensure the effective implementation of workers' rights in hazardous industries.

A study of judgments by the Supreme Court in environmental cases from 1980 to 2010 shows that a majority of them have supported the issues raised by underdogs such as environmental NGOs against the practices or policies of the powerful such as governments and industrial units. But prominent exceptions to this have been the outcomes of cases challenging infrastructure projects. This paper seeks to explain how and why the Supreme Court has frequently decided in favour of weaker parties, and to analyse the implications of this for environmental jurisprudence in India.