Development

Entropy Law, Sustainability, and Third Industrial Revolution by Ramprasad Sengupta, Oxford University Press, 2020; pp 296 , ₹ 1,295 (hardcover).

In India, mainstream environmentalism and development situate biodiversity conservation and human well-being as mutually exclusive goals. This is contentious because a large section of India’s population has inextricable economic, social, political, and cultural linkages with its rich biodiversity. The 4-Cs framework is suggested to address human well-being within the purview of ecosystem assessment and management by incorporating multiple social-ecological variables. Examples of domains, attributes, and indicators of human well-being are examined in the context of the Forest Rights Act (2006). Further, the framework can be tailor-made to guide conservation practitioners, establish the discourse on human well-being in the field of biodiversity science, and broaden the normative understanding of human well-being as an essential outcome of biodiversity conservation.

The discourse around the forthcoming Bihar assembly elections of 2020 is rife with the usual rhetoric of development brandished by the ruling alliance, while the opposition stresses the underdevelopment of the state. This election is also driven by caste calculations. But the distinctive factor is that of the migrant workers which could prove to be a game changer.

The emergence of the Forest Rights Act reasserted the vitality of the role people play in conservation and management of natural resources and carving out legal channels for recognition of their forest rights. But, in Himachal Pradesh, the FRA suffers at the hands of a bureaucracy that has buried it under the weight of colonial power structures. The conflicting narratives from Kinnaur are discussed, where instead of being recognised under the FRA, the tribals’ identity and forest dependence are being ripped away from them.