The Great Nicobar project is being sold as development, strategy and national interest. But behind the glossy presentations lies one of the most disturbing examples of how environmental laws, scientific assessments and ecological safeguards can be bent to suit political and corporate ambition.
Congress MP Jairam Ramesh has now openly called the entire Environmental Impact Assessment process around the Great Nicobar mega project a “mockery.” His accusation is not about small procedural lapses. It is about whether India’s environmental governance system itself is being hollowed out for mega infrastructure projects.
The ₹72,000 crore to ₹80,000 crore Great Nicobar project includes a massive transshipment port at Galathea Bay, an international airport, power plants, townships and tourism infrastructure. It is projected as India’s strategic answer to global shipping routes near the Malacca Strait. But the island where this is planned is not empty land waiting for bulldozers. It is one of the planet’s richest ecological zones, home to ancient tropical forests, coral systems, leatherback turtles, endemic wildlife and vulnerable indigenous communities like the Shompen and Nicobarese tribes.
What Jairam Ramesh exposed is deeply alarming. Environmental laws require comprehensive multi-season EIA studies for such ecologically sensitive regions. Instead, crucial biodiversity and ecological surveys were reportedly conducted in mere days or weeks. One turtle survey lasted only a few days. Biodiversity assessments themselves admitted that much of the dense forest remained unexplored and that “what is hidden may be even more valuable.” Yet despite incomplete data, the project was pushed forward.
That means decisions affecting one of Earth’s rarest ecosystems may have been taken without even fully understanding what exists there.
This is not science. This is clearance management.
The government claims the environmental damage can be compensated through afforestation elsewhere, including parts of Haryana. But replacing ancient island rainforests with plantation drives hundreds of kilometres away is ecologically absurd. Old-growth tropical forests are not replaceable Lego blocks. They are complex living systems evolved over thousands of years with unique biodiversity, water cycles, carbon storage and ecological relationships. Planting saplings elsewhere cannot recreate what is destroyed forever. Even experts and former environmental officials have called this “bogus equivalence.”
The scale of destruction is staggering. Estimates indicate nearly 8.5 to 9.6 lakh trees could be affected. Independent researchers fear the actual ecological loss could be far greater because dense rainforest systems contain far more biodiversity than government numbers capture. Coral reefs may need relocation. Leatherback turtle nesting grounds face disruption. Indigenous tribal reserves face fragmentation. Scientists and rights groups have repeatedly warned that this project risks irreversible ecological and cultural destruction.
And this is the larger issue India must confront honestly.
Environmental Impact Assessments were meant to protect democracy from reckless development. They exist so that science, public consultation and long-term ecological thinking are not bulldozed by short-term political prestige projects. When EIAs become rushed paperwork exercises designed to justify predetermined outcomes, the law itself becomes theatre.
Development is necessary. Infrastructure is necessary. National security matters. But no nation becomes strong by destroying irreplaceable ecosystems through manipulated science and opaque governance. Real strategic thinking balances ecology, indigenous rights, climate realities and national interest together. Authoritarian models treat environmental safeguards as obstacles to be neutralised.
As women's rights organizations are Criminally Silent
🚨 Women are being treated like animals
🚨 Maharashtra is getting famous for dealing with women's rights
🔥 In a shocking incident reported on Thursday, a 28-year-old woman was allegedly murdered by her husband in broad daylight near Balurgi village in Afzalpur taluk of Kalaburagi district
🔥 The deceased has been identified as Shaila, a native of Baramati in neighboring Maharashtra.
🔥 The accused, her husband Akshay Jadhav, has been taken into police custody
Op Sindoor #IPLSchedule Annamalai
Kenya Zimbabwe Modiji
उत्तर प्रदेश के शाहजहाँपुर जिले के पुवायां थाना क्षेत्र के नाहिल गाँव में पाल समाज के बुजुर्ग को जातंकवादियों द्वारा सरेआम “मुर्गा” बनाना, पैरों में माथा रगड़वाना और डंडा लेकर गाली-गलौज व धमकी देना अमानवीय और बेहद चिंताजनक है। किसी भी बुजुर्ग के साथ इस तरह का अपमान सभ्य समाज में स्वीकार नहीं किया जा सकता।
इससे भी अधिक भयावह बात यह है कि जातंकवादियों ने खुलेआम ऐलान किया है कि यदि किसी ने पीड़ित की मदद की तो उसके साथ भी ऐसा ही व्यवहार किया जाएगा। यह कानून-व्यवस्था के लिए सीधी चुनौती है और क्षेत्र में भय का माहौल पैदा करता है।
सबसे चिंताजनक तथ्य यह है कि 7 मार्च को हुई इतनी गंभीर घटना के बावजूद अब तक किसी भी आरोपी की गिरफ्तारी नहीं हुई है, जो पुलिस-प्रशासन की कार्यप्रणाली पर गंभीर सवाल खड़े करता है।
हम @UPGovt से मांग करते हैं कि इस घटना में शामिल सभी आरोपियों की तत्काल गिरफ्तारी की जाए, पीड़ित बुजुर्ग और उनके परिवार को सुरक्षा प्रदान की जाए तथा दोषियों के खिलाफ कड़ी कानूनी कार्रवाई सुनिश्चित की जाए, ताकि पीड़ित को न्याय मिल सके और समाज में कानून का भरोसा कायम रहे।
@CMOfficeUP@myogiadityanath
URI attack—BJP Govt
Kargil attack—BJP Govt
Pulwama attack—BJP Govt
Amarnath attack—BJP Govt
Pathankot attack—BJP Govt
Kashmiri Hindus exodus—BJP Govt
Pahalgam Terrorist Attack—BJP Govt
Today, HUGE Security Lapse in Delhi. Blast reported in Delhi at Red Fort.
Intelligence & security failure by @BJP4India -led state & centre.
The BJP has failed to protect the country & its citizens. It can only knows how to do politics in the ‘name of religion’.
& Accountability = 0, HM @AmitShah Must resign.
#LalQila #RedFort #DelhiBlast