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Home / Author / KumKum Dasgupta

KumKum Dasgupta

KumKum Dasgupta

KumKum Dasgupta is with the opinion section of Hindustan Times. She writes on education, environment, gender, urbanisation and civil society.
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Articles by KumKum Dasgupta

Policies and People | Why businesses should care about biodiversity

Many business activities, especially activities related to resource extraction and cultivation, contribute to the pressures driving biodiversity loss. But this crisis also creates an opportunity.

Updated on Mar 21, 2023 02:13 IST

Policies and People | Solar: India doing well, but states must address barriers

Rajasthan (in pic) and Tamil Nadu have started their clean electricity transition, but progress has not been consistent across all the dimensions.

Updated on Mar 9, 2023 13:11 IST

Policies and People | As the world heats up, can district cooling be a solution?

A district cooling system (DCS) is a modern, efficient way to air condition a network of buildings in cities or campuses, erasing the need for individual ACs.

Updated on Feb 10, 2023 10:36 IST

Policies and People | Solar Decathlon India: Pushing real estate to go green

Homes and workplaces are our first defence against the impacts of the climate crisis, such as heat waves, storms, and floods. India needs climate-resilient, net-zero-energy and water buildings to achieve our 2030 and 2070 goals.

Updated on Feb 6, 2023 05:07 IST

Policies and People | Joshimath crisis: Invest in mountain-specific planning

A man shows cracks in his house at Joshimath. (PTI)

Updated on Jan 13, 2023 14:58 IST

Policies and People | Heritage conservation can drive climate action

Inside the Botanic Garden stands a 230-year-old dilapidated building called the Roxburgh Building and the herbarium that once had the richest collection of plant specimens in the world.

Updated on Dec 8, 2022 13:40 IST

Policies and People | Water is key to climate action. Prioritise it

The future of water security in India is in the hands of the communities. Educate them and ensure their largescale participation.

Updated on Dec 2, 2022 09:08 IST

Policies and People | Why COP27 is important for COP15

COP15 is as important as COP27 because leaders will be in final negotiations on the Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework.

Updated on Nov 18, 2022 10:43 IST

Policies and People | As COP 27 begins, the Asian solar sector shines bright

India has seen incredible growth, increasing its share of solar capacity from 0.07 GW in 2010 to 50GW in 2021, but distributed and rooftop solar target needs a mega push.

Updated on Nov 10, 2022 13:48 IST

Policies and People | Is the wildlife act criminalising forest communities?

The CPA team studied 1,414 forest offences from 2016-20 (from registers maintained by the forest department), 780 arrests from 2011-2020, and 129 FIRs from 2016-2020.

Updated on Oct 28, 2022 11:10 IST

Policies and People | How Pune and Dhaka are tackling the climate emergency

MSRTCs first e-bus, Shivai.

Updated on Oct 21, 2022 12:08 IST

Policies and People | Mumbai-Doon: Why this green warrior is on a 2000-km yatra

Padma Vibhushan and Padma Shri awardee Anil Joshi and co-cyclists at Khalghat, Madhya Pradesh.

Updated on Oct 13, 2022 14:43 IST

Policies and People | How AI is helping India’s poor become climate-resilient

Sunny Lives.

Updated on Sep 22, 2022 13:23 IST

Policies and People | Controlling stray dog population: Vadodara shows the way

The only humane and legal way to control the stray dog population is to undertake proper and regular sterilisation drives. Cities will do well to emulate the Vadodara plan.

Updated on Sep 18, 2022 05:35 IST

Policies and People | Green finance: Miles to go and promises to keep

Addressing the opening ceremony, Bhupender Yadav said that the current pace and scale of climate finance from developed countries is not matching the global aspiration to combat the climate crisis.

Updated on Sep 12, 2022 06:58 IST

Policies and People | Why you should worry about sand mining

In addition to the loss of this precious, non-renewable natural resource, it is also responsible for the killing of people who oppose or expose such episodes.

Updated on Sep 1, 2022 11:47 IST

Policies and People | Don’t destroy the Himalayas for tourism gains

In a climate-hit world, India must do its bit — and more — to save these important and fragile mountain ecosystems, not destroy them for short-term economic and political gains.

Updated on Sep 12, 2022 13:20 IST

Policies and People | To save forests, protect those who guard them

Unlike Army men and police personnel, forest guards don’t get special allowances for hardship postings, even though they stay in the wilderness almost throughout their careers.

Updated on Sep 12, 2022 13:18 IST

Policies and People | Step up efforts to rescue SDGs

To achieve SDGs, world governments must focus on urgent transformative action and evidence-based approaches on a global scale.

Updated on Jul 15, 2022 07:38 IST

Policies and People | Don't blame only the monsoons for landslides

Rescue operations underway after a massive landslide hit the Tupul railway construction camp in Noney district of Manipur.

Updated on Jul 20, 2022 10:13 IST

Policies and People | Urban farming improves climate resilience

ULBs could provide standards for the use of terraces, balconies, and open spaces within private/cooperative housing society compounds for urban agricultural use.

Updated on Jul 2, 2022 06:43 IST

Policies and People | Cheetahs in Kuno: Who gains, who loses

Unveiling the cheetah plan, Union minister for environment, forest and climate change, Bhupender Yadav said that “Project Cheetah aims to bring back independent India’s only extinct large mammal – the cheetah.

Updated on Jun 24, 2022 10:23 IST

Policies and People | Climate misinformation: A clear and present danger

To solve the climate crisis, we must also tackle the information crisis.

Updated on Jun 17, 2022 18:50 IST

Policies and People | The Kedarnath garbage dump photo should be a wake-up call

The Healing Himalayas Foundation, led by Pradeep Sangwan (in the photograph), is building material recovery facilities in remote locations as part of its decentralised waste management plan. An MRF is a plant that separates and prepares single-stream recycling materials to be sold to end buyers

Updated on Jun 4, 2022 06:24 IST

Policies and People | Involve local communities in river-cleaning programmes

One of the ways to rejuvenate the river is to decrease the pollution load on the Yamuna, and also involve riverine communities in river-cleaning programmes.

Updated on May 19, 2022 08:50 IST

Policies and People | Involve students in monitoring climate crisis impacts

Roxy Mathew Koll, a climate scientist at the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology, Pune, teaches students how to set up a rain gauge.

Updated on May 5, 2022 11:09 IST

Polices and People | Earth Day 2022: India needs a water literacy movement

Home to a fifth of the world’s population, India has only 4% of the world’s water.

Updated on Apr 21, 2022 11:52 IST

Policies and People | Invest in cool roofs to beat the extreme heat challenge

The roof is an important component of the building envelope that directly impacts the building’s energy needs and the thermal comfort of the occupants.

Updated on Apr 15, 2022 06:45 IST

Policies and People: How India is learning to manage its waste

Officials said the 450,000 metric tonnes of legacy waste lying at the Pratap Vihar landfill is also expected to be cleared by April. (HT archive)

Updated on Mar 31, 2022 14:55 IST

Policies and People | Are marine heatwaves affecting India’s monsoons?

Marine heatwaves are periods of extremely high temperatures in the ocean, which leads to coral bleaching, seagrass destruction, and loss of kelp forests, affecting the fisheries sector adversely.

Updated on Mar 25, 2022 12:52 IST

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