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“Vidhi Seva Evam Samajik Utthan Samiti” has successfully conducted its second Webinar on the topic “INTERPLAY BETWEEN COVID-19 AND ENVIRONMENT”. There were about 100 Participants who participated in the Webinar. Looking into the current situation it was imperative to organize this webinar to highlight the importance of Environment for Human existence. Since time immemorial it is evident that humans have been taking environment for granted to satisfy personal greed which is illegitimate. The Webinar aims at highlighting how negative approach towards Environment has made us land in the current situation.
The event started with the valuable insights by our Chief Guest “Dr. Anil Prakash Joshi” who is a renowned environmentalist and his outstanding contribution in the field of environment has made him Padma Bhushan and Padma Shri awardee. We were honoured to have him on our virtual platform. He emphasized on how the society as well as the government neglected the prominence of environment for the sake of development. He said “manushya ne bhojan ki hade paar ki hai isliye prakrati humse rusht hai”. He highlighted that Covid-19 has given us all a wakeup call to mend our relationships with the mother Earth. He pointed that younger generation should take responsibility in their hands for sustainable development of environment. He discussed the idea of “Gross Environment Product” which can be considered as the most significant idea to track the development in relation to Environment. He added the way GDP centers the development rate of the country, in the same manner GEP can be considered as a parameter to keep check on the development of Environment and it should be implemented on the National Level. He ended on the note by appreciating our efforts for organizing such events which is the need of the current situation
The event was taken forward by the Ms. Nabeela Siddiqui who is working as a Teaching Assistant at Dharamshtra National Law University, Jabalpur. She has got great understanding in the field of Environmental laws. Her lecture focused on the “Draft Environmental Impact Assessment” notification issued by the environment ministry in March, 2020 highlighting the major loopholes of the notification and suggesting measures that can be taken in order to protect the environment in totality. She said at the outset, finalizing this draft amidst pandemic is bizarre because it restricts meaningful dialogue among the stakeholders on a complex, cardinal and comprehensive piece of legislation. She added various facets of the new draft notification utterly disregard environmental jurisprudence, pushing regressive environmental policy, aimed at relaxing the procedure to give fast-track clearance to industries. She explained the concept by mentioning various important sections. She mentioned deadline for the public consultation process has been reduced which would greatly impact participation from all stakeholders. The time period for the conducting of public hearing has been reduced from forty-five days to forty days. Public has to submit their responses to any application seeking EC within twenty days from the earlier thirty days. This would negatively affect public discourse as there would not be enough time to prepare suggestions and views especially while adhering with the norms of social distancing. She raised questions on the idea of hypocrisy in the society by giving examples of Dihing Patkai (Assam) where clearance for coal mining is initiated which will affect the elephant reserve and the gas leak in a Vizag factory that lacked environmental nod. She concluded by leaving a major question that laws are being diluted but at the Stake of what?
The session was concluded by Ms. Soumi Chatterjee, Assistant Professor of Law at Noida International University. Her lecture centered on how this pandemic is interconnected with the environment. She explained how virus originated in animal population. She pointed as to human interference has invited such a situation in the country. She added that there are several provisions for protection of environment but implementation of the same is a major issue. She gave example of north east areas which is losing tree covers over the last 18 years. Coal mining setting of industries and factories are primarily blamed for loss of forest cover in Meghalaya. She said the greed of money is promoting these activities by giving easy environmental clearance. In her lecture she talked about various issues such a loss of habitats, depleting air Quality, etc. She quoted various data throughout her lecture for easy understanding. She concluded by saying that instead of shifting the burden we need to understand our responsibility that we owe towards environment.
I, on the behalf of the entire organization sincerely thank all the Speakers for joining virtual platform of “Vidhi Seva Evam Samajik Utthan Samiti”.
By:
Priyanka Singh
LLM (National Law University, Odisha)
