The Union Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC) has sought to allay concerns over the Supreme Court-backed uniform definition of the Aravalli hills, insisting that the move will not open the ecologically fragile range to fresh mining or construction and is limited strictly to regulating illegal extraction. Addressing a press conference, environment minister Bhupender Yadav and senior…
Aravalli: Mountain older than memory If demography can be a dividend, geography certainly decides its destiny. Few landscapes illustrate this more clearly than the Aravalli Range, an ancient chain of hills that quietly shapes water security, climate, and life across western and northwestern India.The hills that run for nearly 690 km from Gujarat through Rajasthan…
When a mountain is no longer a mountain In December 2025, the Supreme Court of India, acting on recommendations from expert bodies including the Union Ministry of Environment, the Forest Survey of India, and the Geological Survey of India, redefined the criteria for what constitutes a “mountain.” What might appear as a minor technical adjustment…