Dr. VK Bahuguna

  By; Dr VK Bahuguna (The writer is former Director-General of ICFRE Ministry of Environment & Forests)   The civil services play crucial role in the efficient governance of any country. The civil servants are well trained professionals and are supposed to have three basic traits viz. domain knowledge, human resources management skills and the capacity to organize, visualise and see through the functions and roles of an organization. When the British established full control over Indian sub-continent after the First War of Independence in 1857 they started feeling the necessity for organized civil services. Lord Cornwallis the then Governor-General of Bengal Presidency is called the “Father of Indian Civil Service” as he felt the need of a well trained civil service to consolidate the British rule in India. The Indian Civil Service (ICS) was created after the enactment of Government of India Act 1858. The Indian Civil Services Act of 1861 provided that c...

By: Dr VK Bahuguna (The writer is former Principal Secretary, Government of Tripura) Indian Himalayas are spread over 13 States i.e. Jammu & Kashmir, Ladakh, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Arunanchal Pradesh, Nagaland, Mizoram, Manipur, Meghalaya, Sikkim, Tripura, Assam and West-Bengal, covering 5, 31,250 sq km area which is around 16.6 % of the country’s geographical area. The term Himalayas derived from Sanskrit connotes Hima meaning ‘snow’ and ‘alaya’ means ‘abode’, is one of the most magnificent young mountain system in the world. It forms the Northern boundary of India. It forms a 2500 km long Arc covering Tibet, China, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bhutan and Nepal. Himalayas help us in preventing the Monsoon winds to cross further north as also stops the dry and cold winds of Central Asia entering India. In recent years Himalayas are witnessing increasing natural disasters leading to huge loss of human life and other resources. The recent disasters in Himachal Pradesh and Uttar...

  By: VK Bahuguna (The writer is the former Principal Secretary Government of Tripura)   For past few days the Supreme Court monitored Amrapali Real Estate project of Noida NCR is in the eyes of storm and making big news in the media especially when 8 labourers have died a few days ago due to collapse of a lift in under construction Amrapali Dream Valley Project in Noida. The Noida police had arrested a General Manager of the Girdhari Lal Construction Company who was awarded the work by the National Building Construction Corporation (NBCC). The stalled Amrapali Projects in NOida are being completed by the NBCC a Central Government Public Sector Unit under the direction of the Hon’ble Supreme Court of India. The Supreme Court came into the picture after some buyers filed a writ in the Supreme Court accusing Amrapali promoters of swindling hard earned money of around 45,000 flat buyers of Noida is rated as the biggest housing scam in the history of post independent India a...

                         By: Dr VK Bahuguna The author is former Director- General of ICFRE, Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, Ministry of Environment, Forest and climate Change Government of India,   Forest Certification is the buzz word these days in most of the discussions in India at the policy and other levels as many people and organizations are jockeying around the government of India for a system to certify the wood produced in the country as Forest deforestation has direct links with the growth of population and industrial growth and development.  In the recently ended G 20 summit Chaired so ably by India and the Prime Minister Narendra Modi the world leaders promised to work for protection of environment and nature as a shared responsibility for a better world to live. Ever since the first meet on global Environment in 1992 in Rio de Janeiro In Brazil, the world leade...

  Assessing the Amendments in Forest Conservation Act 1980 By: Dr VK Bahuguna (The writer is former IFS officer and was the Director-General in the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, Government of India) The Parliament during the just concluded Monsoon session had passed the Forest (Conservation) Amendment Bill 2023 to pave way for modification of its regulatory regime in conservation of forest resources in the country based on the experience gained during last forty years or so of existence of Forest Conservation Act 1980. The beauty of the Forest Conservation Act is it is not a prohibitory Act but is a regulatory mechanism for the use of forest lands for the non-forest purposes. According to an estimate since 1980 in the last 42 years around 10 lakh hectares of government forest land had been diverted for developmental, the annual rate of diversion since 1950 was 1.5 lakh hectares with a total of 4.5 million hectares of forests were diverted for agriculture...

  Ecotourism opportunities in India- Ladakh shows the way By: VK Bahuguna Ladakh is nothing less than a paradise on earth for the nature lovers and the tourists. After the abrogation of Article 370 and 35A on 5 th August 2019 the government of India constituted Ladakh as a Union Territory (UT). It was the fulfilment of long standing demand of people of Ladakh for a separate UT status. The entire UT is situated above 9500 feet with state Capital Leh is situated at a height of around 10,000 feet. The geographic area of the Ladakh is 96701 sq km (of which around 38,000 sq km is under Chinese occupation since 1962 war). The population of the UT is a little over 3 lakh. Ladakh is a paradise for the nature lovers and for those who like mountain adventure, is a part of the large Tibet Plateau and is now fast witnessing rapid stride in all around development. It is strategically a very vital part of India’s defence establishment. The famous and greatly venerated Sindhu River is the mo...

  This article is in connection with a report in the media about 105 retired Civil Servants under the guise of “Constitutional Conduct Group” have questioned this Bill like they have been doing on some other issues. Analyst and a large number of people are concerned about the veracity and authenticity of their purported arguments on the proposed amendments; and Centre for Resource Management and Environment which comprises of 8 senior most IFS officers and two popular NGOs are fully committed to conservation of environment and forests and all other natural resources. At the outset we would like to stress that people largely support the Amendment as it is needed and is necessary in view of experience gained since past more than four decades of its implementation. I have personal experience of it both in the Ministry as well as in the States. The country had to strike a balance for effective implementation of any Act and this Act is not an exception. 2. Many of these so called ...

                                National Pension Scheme Versus OPS-  a Cleft in the palate!   By: Dr VK Bahuguna  These days the political battle to capture power in the next year’s Lok Sabha election is hotting up and after the Congress had won the Himachal Pradesh and Karnataka state assembly elections the focus is now on the incoming state assemblies elections and 2024 Lok Sabha election. The opposition confabulations for putting up single candidate against the BJP are high on the pitch. Similarly the BJP is also active in trying to stitch alliances with splinter opposition groups. The chorus of Old Pension Scheme (OPS) among the government employees is also assuming feverish pitch after the Congress and other opposition parties have milked it in the state Assemblies elections along with the freebies being announced for capturing power. After the Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan, Pu...

  Voters perspectives for the 2024 Lok Sabha Elections   By: Dr VK Bahuguna   The cacophonies of political leaders have started all over India for the next Lok Sabha elections to be held in the year 2024. This time the fractured polity of the country has also reached abroad where the Congress leader Rahul Gandhi has been giving vitriolic anti Modi speeches and inviting the people abroad to help protect Indian democracy. On the other hand Prime Minister Modi had addressed the Indian Diaspora in Sydney about his governments’ achievements in last 9 years recently while on an official tour to Australia during May 2023 and his party has started the campaigns in right earnest with Amit Shah claiming that BJP will win 300 seats. The Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar who ran the state government for more than 20 years with BJP is now spearheading a movement along with R Chandrasekhar Rao Telangana Chief Minister to unite the opposition and strategising to unseat the BJP led...

  Indian Democracy- Re-look needed By: Dr VK Bahuguna   We are in the 75 th year of independence and have grown from 30 crore in 1947 to 142 crore in 2023. People are happy that the country has got a new swanky Parliament building. Our generation who were born after the independence are particularly lucky that we have not seen the days when our parents and forefathers were ruled by the foreign powers, faced severe hardships and who were longing for the freedom and a bright future for their children. Much water has flown in river Ganga since the mid night of 14 th August 1947 when the erudite Jawaharlal Lal Nehru gave the historic famous ‘Tryst with Destiny speech’ one of the best speech ever given by Pandit Nehru in the constitution Assembly igniting the fury of hope for a bright future for the people and the country. The Constitution Assembly enacted the Constitution of India and adopted it on 26 th January 1950 and thus India that is Bharat became a Republic and our j...

नए संसद भवन के उद्घाटन पर - भारतीय लोकतंत्र और उसके राजनीतिक वर्ग का आकलन   द्वारा: डॉ वीके बहुगुणा   देश के लोग भारतीय स्वतंत्रता के 75 वर्ष को ' आजादी का अमृत महोत्सव ' के रूप में मना रहे हैं और सभी भारतीय 28 मई 2023 को प्रधान मंत्री श्री नरेंद्र मोदी द्वारा नए संसद भवन के ऐतिहासिक उद्घाटन के साक्षी बने। लोकतंत्र के इस नए मंदिर का उद्घाटन हालांकि एक अनावश्यक विवाद से घिर गया क्योंकि 19 प्रमुख विपक्षी दलों ने इस आधार पर उद्घाटन समारोह का बहिष्कार करने का फैसला किया है कि नए भवन का उद्घाटन राष्ट्रपति द्वारा किया जाना चाहिए न कि प्रधान मंत्री द्वारा। यह ऐतिहासिक और सुंदर भवन कानून निर्माताओं द्वारा देश को चलाने के लिए भविष्य की बहस का स्थान होगा। यह दिन अंग्रेजों द्वारा ' काउंसिल हाउस ' के रूप में बनाई गई पुरानी राजसी गोलाकार इमारत के एक युग के अंत का भी संकेत देगा और   जिसका 18 जनवरी 1927 को उद्घाटन किया गया और 1935 के भारत सरकार अधिनियम (ब्रिटिश संसद द्वारा अधिनियमित सबसे लंबे अधिनियमों में से एक) को ध्यान में रखते हुए अगस्त 1935 में 321 धाराओं और 10 अनुसूच...