📍Dire Projections According To Asia Weather Report!

The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) which is the UN System’s authoritative voice on Weather, Climate and Water, released its Asia Climate Report for 2025 on 17 June 2026. According to this rather grim report, Asia is in for some rocky times.

The main findings were extremely high heat, devastating uneven rainfall causing floods and severe droughts accompanied by dusty storms which expanded the area prone to desertification. And of course, rapidly melting glaciers.

According to the WMO report “Asia is impacted by rising temperatures, warming ocean waters, higher sea levels and retreating glaciers. Heavy rainfall, flooding and drought have a heavy economic and human cost, while extreme heat, dust storms and glacial flooding are

becoming major hazards.”

Exceptional monsoon and tropical cyclone-related rainfall caused devastating flooding in many countries, including Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Vietnam. Climate turbulence, predicted as one of the markers of climate change is to be seen clearly in the Asian region .The report highlights the impact of both too much and too little rainfall. Most parts of Asia received above-average rains in 2025, with exceptionally heavy monsoons. In Pakistan it was 23% above the long-term average. The flooding caused over 1,000 deaths mostly in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province where more than 230,000 houses were destroyed and over 3 million people impacted severely.

Severe flash floods caused significant damage in North India and Nepal and 142 lightening deaths were reported during the storms with furious thunder and lightening. There were devastating floods in Sri Lanka and Bangladesh too which caused plenty of damage to homes. In Viet Nam, multiple episodes of flooding resulted in at least 200 deaths and about 2 billion US$ in economic losses. Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia suffered very heavy rainfall and severe flooding due to Cyclone Senyar.

On the other hand, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan in Central Asia as well as the countries of West Asia saw scanty rainfall and protracted dry conditions. There was a long drawn out drought in Iran as well which triggered severe water shortages and prolonged, harsh dust storms.

With respect to temperatures, Asia has warmed faster than the global average in recent decades. The warming trend during 1991–2025 was approximately twice that observed during 1961–1990. The annual mean temperature in 2025 was found to be almost 1 degree C above the 1991–2020 average, indicating a steady rise in global warming.

China, Japan and South Korea suffered extreme heat conditions. All three recorded their highest ever summer temperatures. South Korea experienced such intense heat and the soil temperatures rose so high that the potato crop actually “cooked” in the ground. The harvest was ruined because the potatoes had turned soft and mushy.

Kazakhstan in Central Asia witnessed unprecedented heatwave conditions during which the temperatures soared, reaching up to 14°C above normal and Bahrain recorded ten consecutive days of above 40°C temperatures. Wild fires due to hot and dry winds raged through South Korea from March to May 2025. The 20 separate blazes ended up killing some 32 people.

Asia is warming twice as fast as the global average, driving record-breaking water temperature increase across the continents oceans and seas. The amount of heat stored in oceans in Asia has reached the highest level so far. Ocean temperatures have been increasing steadily for the last 35 years, hitting a new record in 2025. Sea level rise in the Asian region has also reached its highest level after the same 35 year period. Nearly all regional waters—including the Indian Ocean, Western Pacific, and Caspian Sea experienced severe marine heatwaves affecting over 10 million square kilometers.

The rates of sea-level rise in the Indian Ocean were much higher than the global average as registered along the Indian coast. Rising ocean heat is destabilizing ocean currents and marine life and driving up sea levels. Worryingly, the ocean water is becoming more acidic specially in parts of the Arabian Sea, Bay of Bengal and the tropical part of the Indian Ocean. This has obvious repercussions for the safety and survival of marine life. Sea level rise is not unconnected to the fact that glaciers in Asia are melting rapidly. The catastrophe in Nepal in late August of 2026 was a horrific reminder of glacier melt but the steady meting of glacial ice has been happening over the years as seen in so many Asian glaciers receding.

After the North and South Poles, it is mountainous Asia, with the Tibetan Plateau at its core, that holds the largest ice volume in the world. The glaciers here spread over approximately 100,000 sq km have been in steady retreat since the 1990s. Higher than usual temperatures and diminished winter snowfall have driven the spiralling glacial melt. According to the 2025 United Nations report, glaciers in the Hindu Kush Himalaya (HKH) region are projected to lose 30% to 50% of their volume by 2100 if emissions are low and up to 80% if current high-emission trajectories continue. 

Glaciers in the eastern and central Himalayas, such as Nepal and Bhutan, are shrinking much faster than those in the west due to higher warming and decreasing snowfall. All in all, a fairly grim picture.

📍Israel destroys the seeds of the Palestinian People

The monstrous cruelty of the Israeli regime conducting its genocide in Gaza has been there for the whole world to see. One aspect of their treacherous conduct has not been so visible as others.

On July 31 2025, the Israeli Zionists destroyed the Seed Bank in Hebron which housed the seed varieties of the local foods that the Palestinians eat. These seeds were collected and stored by Palestinian farmers to ensure the food security of their people. 

The Seed Bank was the result of many years of hard work to collect and conserve the genetic diversity of Palestinian crops and the community knowledge of that diversity to achieve food sovereignty and keep native seeds in Palestinian hands. It was this food autonomy and food sovereignty that the Israelis wanted to destroy so that Palestine would lose its food and its future.

 

⌲ Look at South Korea!

As we ponder over our abysmal failure to either increase or improve our forest cover, let us look at what South Korea has done to restore and build its forests. Remember the Comptroller and Auditor General of India told Parliament in August 2026 that the Government had failed to meet its targets to increase and improve forest cover in India, by nearly 98%. A 98 percent deficit? spoken plainly, zilch had been done. 

Now to Korea. During the 35 years of Japanese rule in Korea the country’s forests suffered severe and deliberate destruction due to aggressive commercial logging and extraction of timber for use by Japan during the two world wars. Worse was to follow when what forests were left were to face the depredations of the Korean War. By the end of the wars, almost 80 percent of Korea's forests were destroyed or severely degraded. 

To the credit of the war ravaged South Korean government, it made forest recovery a national imperative, initiating a centrally coordinated afforestation campaign in 1973. Through large-scale planting, public engagement, and intensive post-planting care, forest cover and quality steadily improved. By 2020, the overall volume of all living trees in South Korea’s forests had increased nearly 30 times from its degraded state. That is a stupendous achievement! 

South Korea borrowed an implementation-management strategy from industry used for problem solving and continuous improvement. It involves four iterative stages, Codified as PDCA: Plan → Do → Check → Act

1. Strategic planning (Plan)

2. Implementation (Do)

3. Performance evaluation (Check), and 

4. Corrective action (Act)

It was used successfully in reforesting South Korea. It’s a template anyone can use. Is the IndianGovernment listening?

📍Supreme Court favours the Great Indian Bustard!

 

In a petition filed by the conservationist M.K. Ranjitsinh to protect the critically endangered Great Indian Bustard (GIB) and Lesser Florican from dying by hitting overhead power lines, the Supreme Court delivered a judgement in favour of protecting the birds. What a welcome step!

 

The ruling recognized that the "right to be free from the adverse effects of climate change" is an autonomous, self-determining right. That this right derives from the two fundamental rights granted in the Constitution of India, Article 21 and Article 14.

 

→ Article 21 grants every individual the Right to Life and Personal Liberty. The Supreme Court bench read this to say that  A stable, healthy climate is an essential prerequisite to enjoying a meaningful life.

 

→ Article 14 grants the Right to Equality. The Supreme Court read in this case that Disproportionate climate burdens on vulnerable communities violate equal protection of the laws.

 

The Great Indian Bustard locally called Godawan is the state bird of Rajasthan where it is considered a symbol of pride and grace. It is revered by local communities, especially by the nature loving Bishnois. The Godawan is one of the heaviest flying birds in the world and is a flagship species of the arid and semi-arid grasslands of the Indian subcontinent.

the news: https://www-barandbench-com.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/www.barandbench.com/amp/story/law-firms/view-point/judicial-responses-to-climate-change-constitutionalising-right-to-clean-environment-and-protection-against-effects-of-climate-change?amp_js_v=0.1&_gsa=1#webview=1&cap=swipe 

📍It's raining Jargon.

It's raining Jargon. Close on the heels of Heatflation, comes Climateflation,. This definition refers to a permanent rise in the cost of living driven by the impacts of climate change and the economic responses to it. 

Coined by the economist Isabel Schnabel in 2022, the term portrays how environmental breakdown and extreme weather turn temporary price spikes into long-term inflation.

Holding up Climateflation are three junior flations:

👉 Carbonflation: Costs resulting from impacts of heatwaves, floods, and droughts that destroy agriculture and infrastructure.

👉 Greenflation: Higher costs associated with transitioning to renewable energy and retrofitting old infrastructure

👉 Fossilflation: price shocks in fossil fuels driven by external dependency, geopolitical conflicts, and energy bottlenecks.

📌 RTI Law Turned On Its Head!

(from the archives)

A combination of intimidation and mindless application of the letter of the law threatens to dissuade citizens from putting the RTI Act to use. And politicians are only happy to offer solutions that further dilute the law's purpose. Suman Sahai and Swati Gola note examples from Chhatisgarh that point to the need for a program for rights literacy.

Recently, BBC News carried a feature reporting the prohibitive cost of obtaining information through the Right to Information (RTI) Act in India. A farmer in Chattisgarh who had asked for information on paddy purchases in his area was given a bill of Rs.1,82,000 for costs that were allegedly incurred for photocopying the official documents relating to the purchases. The documents filled an entire room. In another incident, a resident of Bilaspur district, Chattisgarh was told to pay Rs.75,000 for information he had requested on the positions available for schoolteachers.

The village council official of Bilaspur said that they did not have the money to provide information to people. In Chattisgarh, a person who demands information has to pay Rs.2 for every photocopied page of official documents. Authorities say that ever since the law was passed, the poor have risen to demand information from the government but the government does not have money to supply it. The Chief Minister of Chattisgarh has stated that well-to-do people are using the poor to get information free from the government (the fees are waived for the poor below the poverty line). He urged that the law be changed to allow the officials to examine whether the requested information is useful for the person asking for it.

It is not hard to see that the applicant was seeking the status and availability of the positions for schoolteachers. What, then, motivated him to photocopy the application forms of 9000 candidates, and bill the petitioner for this mindless act?

These incidents should not have happened. They are geared to defeat the purpose of the RTI Act, which is essentially to introduce transparency in governance and to check corruption. These actions can be attributed to one of two reasons. The first, a deliberate attempt to intimidate those seeking information so that misdeeds and corruptions are not exposed. The second, which is far more likely: that there is lack of familiarity with the law and no application of mind to the provisions of law in order to enable people to access information.

• A huge bill has been handed over to a poor farmer whereas it is clearly provided under proviso to S. 7 (6) of RI Act that the fee shall be reasonable and information should be provided for free to persons who are living below the poverty line. Thus the act of State Public Information Officer is in clear contravention of the provisions of the law.
• The information officer is required under S. 7(3) of the RTI Act to intimate the applicant how much it will cost to prove the information alongwith the calculations made to arrive at the amount. He is further required to inform the applicant of his/her right to review the decision regarding the amount of fees charged or the form of access provided as well as the particulars of the appellate authority. Instead of applying his mind, the SPIO has handed over an enormous bill running into lakhs of rupees to a poor farmer. This is in clear violation of the legal provision.
• The law gives ample discretion to the Central or State Public Information Officer under S. 7(9) to assess whether the form in which the information is sought would disproportionately divert the resources of the public authority. Accordingly the SPIO should have sought clarification from the applicant as to what particular information he/she wished to have. He should have facilitated the applicant’s request for information and intervened if the information sought was unclear and would result in bulk copying of documents. Instead of providing a stack of photocopies without application of mind to its relevance and which resulted in avoidable expenditure of public resources, the applicant should have been guided and informed of the expenditure and be given the alternative to inspect the files and file notings and then take the photocopies of only the most relevant portions.
• The claim of the official that the government has no money to provide the information is inadmissible and holds no ground. The cost of photocopying an official document is charged at Rs2/- page, which is not a reasonable amount. Photocopy machines are already installed in government departments and can be used at nominal cost. Even if the photocopying is done at a commercial establishment, the costs vary from 50-75 paise per page at the most.

The proposal of the Chattisgarh government to seek changes in the RTI Act that will allow officials to determine whether the information sought is ‘useful’ to the applicant is absurd, and could be judged to be malafide. The RTI Act was legislated after a great deal of debate and discussion within civil society and with officials and government departments. The result is a consensus legislation, which has at its core good governance to enable development from the grassroots up in a functional democracy. Instead of trying to derail the Act, the Chattisgarh government would do well to educate itself and train its officials to interpret and implement the law so as to achieve its goal.

Providing a stack of non-relevant information and handing over a bill close to two lakh rupees is not only a waste of public resources but appears to be a tactic to deny information and deter others from seeking information from the government. If the intention of the government official was infact to provide relevant information, it is not hard to see that the applicant was seeking the status and availability of the positions for schoolteachers. What, then, motivated him to photocopy the application forms of 9000 candidates for the post, and bill the petitioner for this mindless act?

The objective of the RTI Act is to improve transparency in public working but the incidents mentioned above reveal the resistance of the bureaucracy to open their functioning to scrutiny. They are unwilling to provide information, and when they have to they resort to creating hurdles by senseless application of provisions of the Act. These incidents underline the great need for a public information campaign to engender a rights literacy program so that the public can become aware of its rights and have full knowledge of the legal provisions through which it can exercise its rights.

This article appeared in India Together on 13 June 2006 -https://indiatogether.org/letterlaw-rti/

📍World Rivers Day (27 Sept 26)

Given the way nature is being degraded in the name of “development”, a movement has begun across the world claiming that Nature has Rights like people do. Included in this movement is the backing for the Right of Rivers. 

The Universal Declaration of River Rights says that rivers have :

• The Right to flow unhindered along their natural course.
• The Right to maintain their ecosystem functions and the health of their habitats.
• The Right to maintain and preserve the diversity of their flora and fauna
• The Right to be protected from pollution, and
• The Legal Right to be restored from their damaged state.

On this World Rivers Day, let us affirm the Right of Rivers and commit ourselves to the protection of this life giving resource without which survival on this planet would not be possible.

📍 Space Pharma: Making Drugs in Space

Shooting things into space is no longer just about rockets, satellites and launch vehicles or Chandrayaan and SpaceX and so on. There is a space frenzy and the newest happening thing is Space Pharma – the manufacturing of drugs and medicines in space. Earnings from the space economy are projected to be huge. Market professionals are anticipating that it could surpass $1 trillion by 2040. While settled industries like semiconductors and fiber-optic cables will be the biggest earners, Space Pharma is emerging as a significant player.

A number of precision drugs like monoclonal antibodies, steroids, antibiotics among many others, may now be coming from space. A number of pharmaceutical companies in recent times have been heading straight to the lower orbit of the earth to manufacture medicines. So what is the reason for going all that distance, you may ask, why not continue to produce drugs on earth as always? The answer is Microgravity. Microgravity is the state when the pull of gravity is not very strong since gravitational force gets weaker when objects are far apart. This microgravity condition is very enabling for the pharmaceutical sector as we shall see.

When pharmaceutical products are manufactured on earth, they face challenges from the force of gravity. How? because of a process called sedimentation when heavy particles settle below and smaller, lighter particles float on top. This disrupts the drug synthesis process because the mixture of compounds that goes into making a drug remains uneven. Fluids sink, making the mixture uneven. Unevenly distributed particles in compositions create problems

with dosage.

In space however, there is very low gravitational force, or micro gravity where the distortions created by gravitational force are cancelled. Better drugs can be manufactured in space by taking advantage of the microgravity conditions in low-Earth orbit. This enables the synthesis of more precise complex biological molecules and purer, more uniform protein crystals.

When molecules are more uniform, they become easier to administer to patients, When crystals are a mix of different sizes, small crystals hide in the gaps of larger ones, making the liquid thicker, more viscous. This matters because viscosity determines the efficiency with which patients absorb the medicine. Viscous injectable medicines are painful to administer, when viscosity is lowered, complex mixtures become lighter and less painful to take. 

The United States is the world leader in commercial space-based drug manufacturing and is already establishing supply chains. The US is followed by the UK which is trying to capture a dominant share of the European space-pharma market. Third in line is India a new player in the space-pharma arena.

Serendipity Space is the name of India’s first dedicated Space Pharma start-up operating out of Bhubaneshwar. The company is building satellites to manufacture pharmaceutical compounds in orbit so that drug crystals can be manufactured in microgravity. These will be brought back to produce purer forms of medicines than are possible on Earth. A futuristic, new sector is developing in medicines and it is wonderful to know that India is a major player.

📌 Deforestation On Ground, Afforestation On Paper!

South Asia is among the world’s most climate-vulnerable regions. Rising temperatures, erratic rainfall, droughts and extreme weather are already threatening water, agriculture and food security. The World Bank warns that climate change could sharply reduce living conditions for hundreds of millions of South Asians.

In such a situation, expanding and protecting green cover should be a national climate priority. Yet the CAG’s latest audit of the Green India Mission tells a disturbing story. Against a target of 1.4 million hectares of additional forest cover, only about 0.03 million hectares was achieved between 2015–16 and 2024–25. Resulting into a shortfall of approx. 98% (https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/green-india-mission-fell-short-by-98-in-increasing-forest-cover-cag-11912065). This should ideally be read a 100% only you know.

The Hasdeo-Arand landscape in Chhattisgarh is a particularly stark example. In June 2026, the environment ministry granted in-principle forest clearance for diversion of 1,742.6 hectares for the Kente Extension coal block, followed by environmental clearance later that month. The proposed Great Nicobar Island infrastructure project involves an integrated transshipment terminal, airport, township and associated development across a large area. Government documents record an in-principle approval for diversion of 130.75 sq km of forest land.

Moreover, between April 2023 and March 2026, 71,023 hectares of forest land was approved for diversion to non-forest purposes across the country. The reality it seems is that we are failing to create forests while continuing to sacrifice existing ones. Planting saplings cannot compensate for destroying mature, biodiverse natural forests. Climate policy must begin with protecting the forests we already have.

📌 Engineering Crops, Distorting Trade!

(from the archives)

When technological change has the potential to put the livelihoods of hundreds of millions of people at risk, it must be regulated differently from other products in a free market. Blindly promoting innovation, as is now being done with genetically engineered crops, is self-defeating, writes Suman Sahai.

Many crops of developing countries have a global value because of the special chemical compounds they contain like aromatic or other oils. In recent years, however, biotechnology and agribusiness companies have found ways of obtaining some of these valuable compounds through genetically engineered (GE) crops. As a result, genetic engineering is providing alternative ways for developed societies to procure commodities that have traditionally been supplied by developing countries. Naturally, the shift in trading patterns threatens the economic base of farmers who have traditionally grown the crops from which these products were made.

The production of High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS) from corn, a major GE crop bred for industrial applications like this, has undermined sugar prices and distorted sugar markets for cane sugar producers of developing countries like India. Coconut is another victim of genetic engineering. Coconut provides high value oil used for edible and for industrial purposes. The main advantage of this oil is the high lauric acid that it contains. The US alone imports upwards of US$ 350 million worth of coconut and palm oil annually. Now genetic engineering is creating GE canola to produce the same special high lauric acid oil as coconut. This research will have highly negative economic implications for farmers in coconut producing regions.

Technology alone is not responsible; these changes are made possible by massive agricultural subsidies in the developed world for corporate farming. These are a source of grave distortion in international agricultural trade, accelerating the changes created by new technologies.

Calgene has produced a high lauric acid rapeseed by using genes from the California Bay tree. This rapeseed will ultimately displace the coconut and palm kernel oil and deprive Asian farmers of revenues. The argument that coconut farmers could nevertheless derive some income from other coconut products is weak - there are great difficulties that developing country farmers confront in finding new markets for their crops. The loss of the coconut oil income, the farmers’ principal revenue opportunity in certain regions, will inflict severe economic hardship.

Intellectual Property Rights

Access to GE technology is largely impeded by the stringent IPRs that surround it. Most of the basic technologies of genetic engineering are patented and the larger companies own these patents. These companies are reluctant to license many technologies to developing country organisations at an affordable cost. Patent laws do not require them to do so, so they are not obliged to grant any licenses if they prefer to control the technology themselves. Patent holders often refuse to license patents for key technologies to scientists and even to public sector institutions. Also, companies often seek patents not necessarily to conduct research themselves but to prevent research in areas that would threaten their monopolies. It is of concern that public research institutions are also getting into the patenting of plant technologies and research tools, further restricting access to genetic material and research data that are needed to cross complement research efforts.

Patents with an excessively broad claim are becoming increasingly problematic. They violate the ethical intent of patent law, which is to balance private gain with public good, while leaving the way open for further innovation. Excessively broad claims like the one granted to Monsanto on ‘all types of genetic transformation in all varieties of soybean’ (European Patent Number 301,749), are contrary to the original intention of patent law. They are monopoly instruments restricting useful research and therefore diminishing social welfare

Pressure back on using GURT technology

The use of Gene Use Restricting Technology (GURT), popularly known as the ‘terminator’ technology’, is being discussed again. The US under the Indo-US deal on agriculture is also putting pressure to change the IPR regime and labeling and other provisions for GE crops. GURT is in fact banned in India under the Protection of Plant Varieties and Farmers Rights Act, 2001, but there is a lot of pressure globally including at the Biosafety Protocol meeting in Curitiba this year.

It has historically been well understood that farmers own not just the crops they harvest in one season, but the seeds needed to continue their occupation as well. But with the arrival of GURT, this understanding is put at risk. The technology - which allows farmers to grow only one crop from the seeds they purchase, but does not allow the farmer to save viable seed from his crop for the next sowing - was kept in cold storage after widespread outrage at its anti-farmer focus but it is back on the corporate agenda and awaiting adoption. GURT is an example of how genetic engineering has been used not to improve a crop or bring benefits to farmers but solely to enhance the control of the seed company over the variety they have bred.

GURT is the most stringent form of intellectual property rights, where the scientific process, not the legal, has been used to give the seed company complete control. The terminator technology obviates the patent system in establishing the monopoly of the seed company on the new seed.

In the GURT technology two gene systems have been brought together to produce seeds with an in built mechanism that aborts development of the embryo so that germination can not take place and the seed is rendered sterile. The self -destructing seeds are actually hybrids produced by hybridising two transgenic plants, each containing one of the two gene systems. To control the induction sterility, a chemical switch has been built in. Soaking the seeds in a chemical like tetracycline can activate this switch. Once the tetracycline soaks into the seed tissue, it switches on one of the gene systems, which sets in motion the chemical process, which will abort the embryo. So in practice, the seed company can produce as much of the seed as they want and just before selling it to the farmer, they can treat the seeds with tetracycline to switch on the sterility inducing gene system.

When technological change has the potential to put the livelihood or other interests of hundreds of millions of people at risk, it must be regulated differently from other products in a free market. While promoting innovation is a valuable goal for modern economies, such innovation would be self-defeating if it resulted in social or economic upheaval. This is precisely the risk now posed by genetically engineered crops.

This article appeared in India Together on 24 Sept 2006 -https://indiatogether.org/getech-agriculture/