Category Center for Environment, Climate Change and Sustainable Development

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Mission Mausam(2024-26): From Weather-Aware to Weather Ready Nation

India’s tropical climate makes it highly vulnerable to extreme meteorological events, complex monsoon patterns, high humidity, and rapidly changing weather conditions, making accurate weather prediction particularly challenging. To strengthen the country’s forecasting capabilities, the Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES) introduced Mission Mausam, a central sector scheme approved by the union cabinet on 11 September 2024 with an outlay of ₹2,000 crore over two years (2024-26). It was formally inaugurated on 14 January 2025, the 150th anniversary of the India Meteorological Department (IMD) (MINISTRY OF EARTH SCIENCES, 2024).

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Punargeham (2019): Evaluating Coastal Erosion Rehabilitation and Climate-Induced Displacement in Kerala

Punargeham is Kerala's flagship relocation programme for fisher families living within 50 metres of the High Tide Line (HTL). Implemented by the Fisheries Department under the broader LIFE Mission housing framework, its core premise is simple: where the sea keeps taking land, the state should help families move rather than rebuild in the surf zone.

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India’s Updated 2026 Nationally Determined Contribution (2031–2035): Charting the Next Phase of Climate Action

India’s updated Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) for 2031–2035 sets out next phase of climate action under the Paris Agreement, building on earlier commitments while balancing economic growth, energy security and climate resilience. The Union Cabinet approved the updated NDC on 25 March 2026, and India subsequently submitted it to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The updated framework strengthens three measurable mitigation targets covering emissions intensity, non-fossil electricity capacity and carbon sinks, alongside broader commitments on adaptation, sustainable lifestyles, climate resilience and inclusive development (Press Information Bureau [PIB], 2026; United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change [UNFCCC], 2026).

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Dumpsite Remediation Accelerator Programme (DRAP), 2025.

The increasing problem of legacy waste in India has necessitated an urgent need to focus on dumpsite remediation. The Government of India has set the target of “Lakshya Zero Dumpsites” to be achieved by 2026 under the Swachh Bharat Mission - Urban 2.0 (SBM-U 2.0). To hasten the progress, MoHUA launched the Dumpsite Remediation Accelerator Program (DRAP) in November 2025. DRAP is a dedicated one-year program with a goal to double the current pace of remediation at priority dumpsites through better site-level planning, oversight, and financial support (MoHUA, 2025a; MoHUA, 2025b).

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Why Do Similar Livelihood Assets Produce Unequal Resilience?

Two families may live in the same forest landscape. Both may have land, family labour, livestock, traditional knowledge and community networks. Yet after the same crop failure, wildlife loss or employment shock, one household manages to recover while the other slips deeper into insecurity. Why?

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India’s Green Subsidies: Building an Industry, or Just Paying for What Was Already Coming?

In 2020, India rolled out the Production Linked Incentive scheme with a simple pitch: pay manufacturers for every additional unit produced above a baseline, and watch domestic industry grow. That logic was later extended to some of the country's most climate relevant sectors, including solar photovoltaic modules and advanced chemistry cell batteries, tying manufacturing growth directly to India's energy transition and its broader push for self reliance under the Atmanirbhar Bharat banner.

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Uneven Access: Mapping Disparities in Basic Urban Amenities Across Indian Cities

An average can hide a great deal. According to the 2011 Census, 70.6 per cent of urban households in India had access to piped water [1]; but only around 62 per cent of those used treated piped water [2]; and almost 13 per cent of urban households continued to practice open defecation [3]. Such statistics give a comforting impression of progress at the national level. But they tell us nothing about where such progress is lacking. This policy approach views such deficiencies as shortages in pipes, toilets, and wastewater facilities. In this blog post, I will try to demonstrate why such framing is inadequate. It becomes clear from research that in addition to the physical deficiency, there exists an institutional issue as well. Municipalities differ widely in terms of the things they can do in a legal sense, the amount of resources available for spending, and even in the availability of personnel to manage constructed infrastructure. Such inequality is just inequality of capabilities at the household level.

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