Search

Serious attempts have been made to manage the highly populated Indian coast during the last 25 years in terms of regulating the activities and managing disasters. This has lead to formulation of various policies to maintain environmental quality and sustainably manage the coastal resources. Basically, the coastal zone needs to address the demands of all the stakeholders starting from traditional local communities, administrators, to academic researchers etc. India has faced tremendous challenges in implementing regulatory measures like Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) issued in 1991 by demarcating countries coast in to four different zones with provisions and prohibitions for various activities. The concept of Integrated Coastal Zone Management (ICZM) has been taken with the support of spatial decision-support tools derived from satellite data including national programmes on inter-sectoral approaches towards ICZM. 2004 onwards a series of disasters have reminded the necessity of having regulatory measures through implementable approaches. Subsequently, the CRZ 2011 notification has been a new addition to the list of policies using bottom-up approach as a good governance tool. The country has strengthened its potential in coastal management, disaster management and several community based field projects to enhance participation of stakeholders. This paper is aimed to critically review the processes that are made during the last two decades including the future challenges towards sustainable management of coastal zone with special emphasis on the three coastal areas from eastern, western and southern coast of India. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At the international level, India is emerging as a key actor in climate negotiations, while at the national and sub-national levels, the climate policy landscape is becoming more active and more ambitious. It is essential to unravel this complex landscape if we are to understand why policy looks the way it does, and the extent to which India might contribute to a future international framework for tackling climate change as well as how international parties might cooperate with and support India's domestic efforts. Drawing on both primary and secondary data, this paper analyzes the material and ideational drivers that are most strongly influencing policy choices at different levels, from international negotiations down to individual states. We argue that at each level of decision making in India, climate policy is embedded in wider policy concerns. In the international realm, it is being woven into broader foreign policy strategy, while domestically, it is being shaped to serve national and sub-national development interests. While our analysis highlights some common drivers at all levels, it also finds that their influences over policy are not uniform across the different arenas, and in some cases, they work in different ways at different levels of policy. We also indicate what this may mean for the likely acceptability within India of various climate policies being pushed at the international level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]