00:00We have Chetan Agarwal also joining us, founder of Climate Spring Innovation, Integrity and Transparency, someone who has been fighting for the Aravallis.
00:09In what will be seen as a big relief to protesters and environmentalists, Supreme Court has also stated the verdict that limited the definition of the Aravalli range and decided against imposing a complete ban.
00:20And in fact, Supreme Court puts its own November 20th judgment in abeyance. Many would say it's unprecedented, unheard of.
00:30Whether definition of Aravalli is restricted to 500 meter area creates a structural paradox where conservation area is narrowed.
00:38My question is that to you, Chetan Agarwal, has it broadened the scope of non-Aravalli area where regulated mining can be conducted?
00:47Thank you, ma'am. Just to clarify, I'm an independent forest policy analyst and not the description that was provided for me.
00:58I think that's another Chetan Agarwal.
01:02I stand corrected, sir. Thank you.
01:04I think this is a welcome change of turn of events where the court took this up on their own, maybe responding to all the concern which was voiced by TV, by print.
01:20And they've heard the voice of the citizens about such a brazenly bizarre order that to say that height is a criteria and hills below a certain height are not Aravallis or no, they will no longer be Aravallis.
01:34And the observations which have been made in the order, they've made, you know, five or six observations and then they've said there should be an impartial, fair, independent expert opinion that must be taken.
01:48So these are very strong words.
01:50And then the order goes on to say there has to be a high powered committee of domain experts.
01:56So it seems that the court is contrasting the, you know, the composition of the earlier committee with what it proposes to do.
02:04The earlier committee had six, five secretaries, one joint secretary, it was chaired by the MOEF secretary and it had three kind of technical experts.
02:16So I think the court is certainly taking it very seriously.
02:19And it has also picked up the criticism from the press that maybe 90% of the hills would be left out, out of 12,000 hills, about only 1,000 would be above 100 meters.
02:36And in fact, this number is also an underestimate because this only considers the hills which are more than 20 meters high.
02:43If you include the hills between zero and, you know, less than 20 meters, that's another lack.
02:48So actually, it's a very kind of bizarre situation which had arisen.
02:55And that's why there was so much, you know, opposition to this report and this order.
03:01And this is very welcome.
03:05Mr. Agarwal, would you also say that today the Supreme Court putting its own order, previous order on hold, staying it,
03:13will be seen as a huge victory for the people who were, you know, climate activists like you, citizens, citizens who decided to take it up as their own movement.
03:25Yes, and basically, it's not a final kind of victory.
03:32It's basically, it's been held in abeyance, recognizing that there are issues and ambiguities and clarifications are required.
03:39So, it's a big relief, but now the devil is in the details of, you know, how the new committee will be formed, how independent it will be, how effective it will work.
03:52We don't want the situation of, you know, old wine and new bottles and the same outcome coming from a committee which is engineered by the government perhaps.
04:02So, I think that fear still has to be dealt with.
04:07Thank you for joining us, Chetan Agarwal there, talking about the larger order which has come in from the Supreme Court, which has stayed.
04:16The previous order that it gave on the definition of a ravelle is that...
