n Chhattisgarh activist Himanshu Kumar has been on a fast-unto-death from June 1 at Jantar Mantar protesting against the increasing acquisition of huge swathes of forest land by mining companies in Chhattisgarh depriving indigenous tribal communities of a decisive say to their own natural resources.

n Prof. G.D. Aggarwal, former head of the civil and environmental engineering department of IIT and (former) member secretary of the Central Pollution Board, has been on an intermittent fast-unto-death to save the Ganga from 2009. On several occasions, when the condition of this octogenarian deteriorated, he was admitted to a hospital first in Hardwar and then in 2012 at AIIMS where he was subjected to force-feeding.
n Swami Nigamanand died in 2011 after having undertaken a four-month-long fast to end sand mining in the Ganga river. Members of the Matri Sadan Ashram, of which Swami Nigamanand was a member, complain that the local police, succumbing to the pressure of the mining lobby, continues to drag their feet in this case with no arrests having been made so far.
n In 2012, a young IPS officer, Narendra Kumar, was brutally crushed to death under a stone laden tractor trolley in the town of Banmur in the Chambal district of Morena, which has shot into notoriety because of the strong nexus between local politicians and the sand mining mafia. Despite Kumar’s wife belonging to the IAS cadre, his case too has made little progress.

Have all these incidents made any dent in the illegal functioning of this powerful lobby? Not really. Since only three days ago, three labourers in the village of Pendra, which falls in the Badwani district of Madhya Pradesh, lost their lives working in one such 40-foot deep sand pit. Mendu Bai, the wife of the one the labourers told the police administration that over 300 labourers were employed in this pit which was run over by sand due to unprecedented rains.
Have these deaths helped clean up our rivers, especially with water experts warning that all our major rivers, including the Ganga, Yamuna, Narmada, Betwa, Krishna and Godavari, could dry up due to unprecedented sand mining. Sand, incidentally, is vital for the health of a river because it acts like a sponge recharging water tables and maintains water flows.
Unfortunately, even Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has thrown in the towel, warning that “time was running out to save the Ganga”. Dr Singh, who heads the National Ganga River Basin Authority, expressed horror at over 2,900 million litres of sewage being discharged into the Ganga every day, but has done little to stop it except increase financial outlays to the states of Uttarakhand, UP, Bihar and West Bengal failing to put mechanisms in place to monitor this flow of monies.
Is the situation any the better with our ground water reserves? Large-scale ground water excavation has shown that our bread basket states of Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan are losing ground water at a much faster than can be replenished by aquifers. But despite the ministry of water resources spending billions of rupees on sham irrigation facilities, they have not got down to the crucial task of mapping all our key aquifers in order to get a comprehensive idea of just how much of water is available within the country.
Is the situation any the better vis-à-vis our wildlife? Tiger deaths reached an all-time high in 2012 when India lost 88 tigers according to data released by the National Tiger Conservation Authority. This was the highest number of fatalities in one year preceded only by the bloodbath that took place a decade ago when we lost 71 tigers in 2001.
Mortality rates were highest in the Corbett National Park and in the Tadoba Tiger Reserve in Maharashtra. Both Maharashtra and Karnataka recorded 14 tiger deaths each while Uttarakhand reported 12 deaths followed by Madhya Pradesh with eight deaths last year.
Has the premier National Tiger Conservation Authority learnt from last year’s bloodbath? Seven tigers have been reported dead in Uttarakhand in 2013 with three tigers found dead in the Corbett Tiger Reserve in a matter of one week (May 27-June 4).
We are one of the few countries with a sizeable elephant population. But a decline in their habitat is posing a serious threat to these gentle giants. Despite the elephant task force set up by the environment ministry having identified 88 corridors used by wild elephants, their space is shrinking rapidly.
The most criminal act of negligence has been the killing of over 55 elephants by speeding trains. The largest elephant casualty took place when five elephants were killed by passing through rail tracks in the Ganjam district of Orissa last December.
But did the ministry of railways or the environment ministry learn anything from this high casualty figure? Speed restrictions are not in place and nor have signage boards been provided to pre-warn the train drivers. Five days ago (May 31), three elephants were killed by a speeding passenger train near of the forests of Marghat in West Bengal because the driver failed to spot them.
This is not to say that the state of our 3,500 elephants in captivity is much better. Many of these elephants are used to bless pilgrims visiting these temples. More than a quarter of these elephants have been diagnosed as suffering from TB, a disease which they have infected by from the very pilgrims they are supposed to bless.
Forest officials claim that these animals are housed in poor conditions and need to get a much better diet. They also need more care and that is the essence of why saving the environment is a losing battle in India.
The institutions that should take care of our magnificent forests, rivers, animals and biodiversity are indifferent or corrupt. The government has spent billions of rupees fighting the Naxalite-Maoist menace and yet they have failed to grant autonomy under the Fifth Schedule to the very tribes who have protected these forests for centuries.
Across the country, forests are being handed over for mining, as is the recent case of Hasdeo Arand in Chhattisgarh. The very area which was declared a no-go zone has now been okayed. We stand to lose one of our densest sal forests. No wonder our tribals are fuming. Once our rivers dry up, so will the rest of our countrymen.