A Study on Environmental Compliance in India

Abstract

Environment has finally risen to the top of the global political agenda. The United Nations Conference on Environment and Development held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 signified international recognition of the environment as an issue that could not be constrained by the borders of nation states. But Rio also revealed deep political divisions on the world environmental stage. Those divisions were represented and articulated primarily as a North–South, rich versus poor country schism. Ironically, the ecological internationalism that was to be the breakthrough of the conference gave way to positioning in which negotiations were geared back to the interests of nation states. Yet the politics of Rio mask a different type of environmental politics, one that is much closer to home for the majority of the world’s people. The politics of environment in most countries of the world are played out not only at a different level, but also within a quite different structural framework. Environmental politics within individual nation states reflect, but also increasingly act upon, specific aspects of social relations and power structure within each country, while interests and interdependencies of the main protagonists often transcend national borders. These politics of environment are an important force in their own right as well as a window on broader aspects of political economy. There is thus a reflexive relationship between environmental conditions, discourses and activism on the one hand and changing economic, social and political relations on the other. Nowhere is this more the case than among those countries of the world where environmental and political–economic change is most rapid, notably the dynamic societies and economies of Southeast Asia whose bio-physical environment and resource base have undergone rapid degradation. This article discuss the laws which India has compliance towards saving its Biodiversity.