Farming communities, forest dwellers, tribals with their rivers, mountains and other natural bounties are in the first line of impact from climate change. The worst part is that the most vulnerable are also the least privileged to save themselves from such havoc. The Indian government has put a strong voice on the global stage of climate discourse but are the climate policies covering the most remotely located climate change affected population?

To understand the impact of climate change on the ground and what policy support it will need, we talked with journalist and author Hridayesh Joshi.

Hridayesh is a freelance journalist and also contributes to CarbonCopy Hindi - a dedicated news website for environment and climate change reporting. A journalist for close to two decades, Hridayesh has written a definitive account of the Kedarnath flood tragedy in his book The Rage of the River. Hridayesh is considered one of the foremost environment reporters in the country with his ears always on the ground.

Time stamp:

0:00 - Podcast intro

1:19 - Intro of guest

2:18 - Hridayesh's journalism journey

8:27 - Evolution of climate reporting in India.

11:36 - Understanding of climate change in rural areas?

14:07 - Impact that rural communities face across India, due to climate change

20:21 - Contradictory phenomenon of rural migration linked with lack of infra development but too much infra leads to ecological damage

29:35 - Climate reporting being devoid of stories of the affected

33:48 - Failure in understanding climate change among policy makers as well as local communities

37:24 - Educating people about climate change & identifying its impact

46:40 - Policy support needed from government to disseminate knowledge about climate change

53:28 - Sensitising policy making to the hazards of climate change, making eco-friendly policies

01:02:25 - Adaptation strategies used by rural communities for tackling climate related impact

01:08:26 - Podcast outro

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