By Rajiv Shah I was recently forwarded a complaint by social activist Jatin Sheth , who leads Abad Amdavad , an Ahmedabad-based civic rights NGO. The organization regularly takes up municipal grievances in a city that aspires to be a cutting-edge metropolis—one eyeing to hold the Commonwealth Games , followed by the Olympics . It is quite another matter that independent international studies have ranked Ahmedabad among the environmentally least resilient when evaluated alongside 72 global cities. A few weeks ago, Abad Amdavad submitted a formal representation to civic authorities, arguing that the city’s current infrastructure and administrative apparatus fall far short of what is required to host an event like the 2030 Commonwealth Games, let alone the Olympic Games six years later. Given current ground realities, “the city’s civic condition may embarrass the nation unless urgent, structural reforms are pushed,” Sheth wrote in a letter addressed to Prime Minister Narendra Modi...
A new dataset released by the German environmental and human rights organisation, Urgewald, has shown that Indian banks cut their coal financing by 19%, from $3.5 billion in 2022 to $2.8 billion in 2025, but cautions that the fall is unlikely to be lasting, because very few Indian banks have adopted coal restrictions.