Delhi Times logo

Delhi Times Journo Requests

Discover current journo requests from Delhi Times journalists and editors. Connect with media professionals seeking expert sources and commentary.

Never Miss a Delhi Times Journo Request

Get instant alerts when Delhi Times journalists post new journo requests. Join the community of sources landing media opportunities daily.

Recent Delhi Times Journo Requests

Port & River Engineers - Incomplete Works Causing Coastal Island Loss

I took this photograph on Ghoramara Island in the Hooghly estuary. Those two palm trees are standing at the edge of land that is disappearing. Today, my investigation into why was published in The Times of India. The answer is not climate change. Not rising seas. In 1981, a seven-part port engineering scheme was drawn up for the lower Hooghly. Its goal: keep the approach channel to Haldia Dock Complex deep enough for cargo ships. The engineers understood that their plan would concentrate destructive tidal force against three inhabited islands downstream. So they included a protection wall for those islands — Unit VII: "Protection of Bedford and Ghoramara Islands." It was never built. RTI documents from Kolkata Port Trust reveal what was built instead: just three of the 7 planned units, including a underwater guide wall, 156 hydraulic structures in the channel running directly along those islands' shores — concentrating the current against them — while the protection wall around three islands (two of them inhabited) was abandoned. Two of those islands do not exist anymore. Hamburg University warned in 1998 that a 21-month window remained to act. Five tenders were floated. All five failed. No wall was built. When asked what caused the islands to disappear, Kolkata Port Trust replied: "Growth / decay of Islands is a natural process." Their own 2008 internal document listed the 156 structures they had built in that channel. Two islands — Lohachara and Bedford — are permanently gone. Ghoramara, where I took this photograph, is rapidly losing land mass. It is projected to shrink further by 2032. They were called the world's first inhabited islands claimed by rising seas. The documents say otherwise. Read the full investigation in The Times of India: https://lnkd.in/gzBWHfQs If you have encountered similar cases — port or river engineering projects whose incomplete execution affected inhabited coastlines — I would very much like to hear from you. Tuhin Ghosh Sunita Narain Stefan Rahmstorf Damian Carrington Climate Central, Inc. Carbon Brief IPCC UNESCO UNEP-WCMC United Nations Environment Programme Finance Initiative (UNEP FI) UNEP Copenhagen Climate Centre WWF-India Mongabay India Down To Earth Greenpeace 350.org Amitav Ghosh #CoastalErosion #Ghoramara #Lohachara #ClimateChange #SeaLevelRise #InvestigativeJournalism #EnvironmentalJustice #ClimateJustice #CoastalErosion #Sundarbans #India #WestBengal #Hooghly #RTI #Accountability #EnvironmentalJournalism #IslandLoss #CoastalCommunities #HumanRights #Journalism #PublicInterest#Hooghly #Sundarbans #India #ClimateJustice #EnvironmentalJournalism #RTI #PublicInterest #Journalism

indiatimes.com logoindiatimes.com