The Aravallis are a priceless gift, acting as a wildlife habitat, a water recharge zone, and a shield against desertification. But for the government and private players, it’s a prime piece of real estate, ripe for exploitation.
In their series for NL Sena, Newslaundry’s Ayush Tiwari and Basant Kumar answered the questions of just how the Aravallis are being plundered, and by whom. On January 17, they interacted with subscribers on Newslaundry’s Discord server to detail their experience of working on the reports.
While explaining the causes of environmental degradation, Ayush said, “People do not have jobs. There is an unemployment crisis and they have been pushed to the point of desperation. And it manifests itself in that they’ll sell their land so that their kids can have jobs, which is a chain reaction of how one issue affects the other.”
Discussing why people choose to ignore issues related to the environment, Basant says, “There are very few people who choose ethics over money and there are very few people who know the importance of saving the environment.”
Listen.
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The Plunder of the Aravallis project was made possible by Rajdeep Adhikari, Shubham Kesharwani, Kunju Nayak, Abhimanyu Sinha, Himanshu Badhani, Masood Hasan Khan, Tanmay Sharma, Puneet Vishnawat, Sandeep Roy, Bharadwaj, Sai Krishna, Ayesha Siddiqua, Varuna JC, Anubhuti Varshney, Loveen Vuppala, Srinivas Rekapally, Avinash Maurya, Pavan Nishad, Abhishek Kumar, Somsubhro Chaudhuri, Sourav Agrawal, Animesh Chaudhary, Jim J, Mayank Baranda, Pallavi Das, Mayuri Walke, Saina Kathawala, Asim, Deepak Tiwari, Mohsin Jabir, Abhijeet More, Nirupam Singh, Prabhat Upadhyaya, Umesh Chander, Somasekhara Sarma, Pranav Satyam, Hitesh Vekariya, Savio Varghese, Asutosh Mourya, Nimish Dutt, Reshma Roshan, Satakarni, and other NL Sena members.
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