Editorials: 14-July-2025

 

The Hindu Editorials

Smoke and sulphur: On sulphur dioxide emissions, public health There cannot be different environmental standards within India 

The axe has dropped. The Environment Ministry has exempted (1) the majority of India’s coal-fired plants from mandatorily (2) installing Flue Gas Desulphurisation (FGD) systems, which are designed to cut sulphur dioxide (SO2) emissions. In effect, this undermines (3) its own mandate from 2015 that required all such plants — there are about 180 of them now, comprising 600 units — to install these systems. While these were expected to be in place by 2017, only about 8% of the units have actually installed FGD — nearly all by the public-sector National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC). SO2 is among the gases monitored by the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) as exposure beyond a degree can be harmful. Less appreciated is its propensity (4) to form sulphates in the air and contributing to particulate matter pollution. In general, India’s average ground-level SO2 measurements have been below the permissible (5) levels — one among several reasons that there has not been a sense of urgency in implementing FGD norms. The official reasons are the limited number of vendors in India, high installation costs, the potential rise in electricity bills, and disruptions due to the COVID-19 pandemic. While the latest deadlines flew by in 2024, the Environment’s Ministry’s decision — it follows consultations with scientific institutions and new commissioned studies — is a sharp disavowal (6) of the current policy. An expert appraisal (7) committee says that Indian coal is low in sulphur; SO2 levels in cities near plants with operational FGD units do not differ significantly from those without these units, and all of these were anyway well below permissible levels. The committee had said that concerns about sulphates are unfounded (8). It also argued, echoed by the Minister for Power, that sulphates had a beneficial side-effect in suppressing (9) warming from greenhouse gas emissions. Thus, reducing sulphates would actually worsen warming and compromise India’s climate goals. While IPCC assessments do account for the heat-suppressing action of sulphates, nowhere is it projected as an unalloyed (10) good. 

A minority of plants, about a fifth — those within a 10 km radius of the NCR; in cities with a population of over a million, or known to be in pollution hotspots — must install FGDs by 2028. This seems to suggest that what determines their installation is the location of a coal plant and not whether FGDs are effective or SO2 is harmful. This is a rare instance when there are different environmental standards within India on controlling exposure to a pollutant. While it is not unscientific to revise understanding of the harms or benefits of substances, this needs debate in the public domain before a policy is changed. Otherwise it amounts to undermining India’s commitment to scientifically informed public health.

Need for a revamp: On the Ahmedabad air crash probe, aviation safety India’s aviation industry must review crew resource management 

The preliminary (1) report flowing from the investigation into the crash of an Air India Boeing 787-8 at Ahmedabad, on June 12, 2025, has a focal point now. Released in the early hours of July 12, 2025, a month after the accident, the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau’s 15-page document has highlighted the fuel control switches of “Engine 1 and Engine 2” having “transitioned (2) from the ‘Run’ to the ‘Cutoff’ position, one after another, with a time gap of one second”. That this happened just after flight AI171 had begun to lift off from the 3,505-metre-long runway, leading to the engines beginning to decrease from their take-off values as fuel starvation (3) hit, has accentuated (4) another detail. How did two separate switches that are guarded by brackets, feature a metal stop locking mechanism and have separate systems for redundancy move to ‘cutoff’? And why? The element of bafflement (5) by one crew member, and denial by the other pilot, over the cutoff, has compounded (6) the issue, more so in the absence of the full and raw transcript of the cockpit voice recording. However, in the midst of the crisis, what must be acknowledged was a display of airmanship (7), with a partially successful relighting of the GEnx-1B70/75/P2 engines, which ended with the call of May Day. 

While the key details in the report have evoked appeals by a pilot body for a revamped (8) probe, especially to ‘stop the bias towards pilot error’, the investigation team must now stay the course to ensure that there is a sound, comprehensive and transparent investigation. There has also been focus on an FAA Special Airworthiness Information Bulletin of 2018 that concerns the potential for disengagement (9) of the fuel control switch locking feature, and applicable to the Boeing 787 aircraft family. In a reaction to the preliminary report and its findings, there has been some expert commentary on the topic of crew well-being, but in a counter to this, the Indian Commercial Pilots’ Association has said that “pilots undergo extensive psychological and professional screening… and operate under the highest standards of safety”. However, the subject of Crew Resource Management and Line Oriented Flight Training may need to be revamped, more so with this being an unusual incident of dual engine failure. Finally, despite the preliminary report’s pitch of there “not being recommended actions that concern the aircraft type and the engine manufacturer”, India’s expanding civil aircraft fleet requires greater vigilance (10) in terms of maintenance and operations. Airport funnel zones and obstacle limitations must be reviewed too as it is a given that air crew and passengers have safer flights. 

The Indian Express Editorials

First Editorial: Express view: Lend a hand
There are at least three reasons why India should consider stepping up its funding of Mexico-based CIMMYT

The Mexico-headquartered International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) — synonymous with Norman Borlaug, the “father of the Green Revolution” — is seeking financial support from India. This comes as the Donald Trump administration has shut down the US Agency for International Development, which provided $83 million out of CIMMYT’s total $211 million revenue grants to fund its global breeding research and development programme in the two cereal crops. CIMMYT basically wants countries such as India to fill the void left by the US that, under President Trump, has adopted a transactional approach to foreign policy; it no longer sees value in cultivating soft power or projecting a positive image of the US on the world stage. There are at least three reasons why India should consider stepping up its funding of CIMMYT, or even the Philippines-based International Rice Research Institute (IRRI).

The first is that the money these organisations require isn’t all that big. A country with $700 billion in official foreign exchange reserves can afford more than the $0.8 million and $18.3 million that it gave to CIMMYT and IRRI respectively in 2024. The second is the international goodwill this creates, consistent with the leadership role that India is increasingly taking within the Global South and given that it is also acting as a bridge with the developed North: There can be no peace and stability without food security. Third, India has stakes in both organisations that played a stellar role in turning it from ship-to-mouth to self-sufficient, if not surplus, in wheat and rice. But the challenge is to grow these crops using less water and fertiliser, besides making them tolerant to rising temperatures, salinity and other abiotic stresses. Breeding today for tomorrow’s climate is a strategic imperative for a country that cannot, beyond a point, depend on others to feed 1.7 billion mouths by 2060. This extends to maize too. As Indians consume more animal products with rising incomes, the demand for it as feed — and now also as a fuel grain — will only go up.
But it’s not only CIMMYT and IRRI. India must simultaneously strengthen its national agricultural research system that has suffered from a lack of resources (too little money spread across too many institutes), leadership and sense of purpose. The Green Revolution owed its success as much to Borlaug as to MS Swaminathan, the Indian Agricultural Research Institute and a minister like C Subramaniam, who could make tough calls based on scientific opinion and what the situation demanded. Contrast this with the present procrastination, whether on commercialisation of genetically modified crops or allowing under-pricing of fertilisers, water and electricity. The Indian farmer today faces practical problems that only science and applied research, not subsidies, can address.

Second editorial: ‘Campus Mothers’ at IIT-Kharagpur: Mental-health support must not come dressed in stereotypes

Care isn’t a woman’s work alone. The initiative is well-meaning, but without inclusivity and training, it may miss the mark.

An unrelenting academic culture, the isolation of hyper-competitive environments and a system fuelled by ambition that has little room for outliers — across India’s premier institutes of higher education, the mental-health crisis has become a tragic thread in a widening pattern of student distress. Against this backdrop, the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kharagpur’s proposal to launch a “Campus Mothers” initiative — appointing female mentors from among the women residing on campus, both faculty and non-faculty, to provide informal emotional support to students — presents itself as a compassionate intervention. However, its framing — the troubling tendency to offload responsibility and caregiving on women — raises concerns about gender stereotyping and carries the risk of substituting deeper, more difficult structural reforms with symbolic gestures.

To its credit, IIT-Kharagpur’s proposal is part of a growing acknowledgement within elite institutions that student wellbeing can no longer be treated as an afterthought. In 2025 alone, Kharagpur has reported three student suicides. In May, a 10-member committee was set up for a detailed intervention plan; efforts are under way to introduce AI-based support tools; and moves to ease attendance norms and reduce academic pressure have shown early promise. These efforts must be expanded, not eclipsed by a programme that conflates care with maternal instinct. By designating only women to serve as “campus mothers”, it inadvertently thrusts a disproportionate emotional burden on women on campus, often already balancing their own personal and professional challenges. It also reduces complex emotional labour to a function of gender. There are other conceptual deficits. The initiative has been conceived as an additional layer of social intervention to buttress formal mental-health services. But mental-health assistance is not a matter of intuition or goodwill. Rooted in the complications of gender, class, caste, language, and identity, it requires professional training, ethical grounding, and clear institutional frameworks to help students navigate systemic inequalities. Even with the best intention, informal mentorship can slide into moralising, paternalism, or breaches of trust. What the fraught journey of young adults trying to come to terms with their distress needs is a safe, confidential space to unpack their traumas.

This is not to say that community support within campuses is unimportant. Meaningful engagement can build trust and a sense of belonging, especially for first-generation learners venturing out into the world on their own. A more inclusive and thoughtful model that invites faculty, staff and residents of all genders to serve as trained “campus mentors”, for instance, would reflect the span of empathy, equality, and shared responsibility. It would ensure that care does not come sheathed in stereotypes and send out the message that nurturance is not a woman’s job alone; that kindness, and emotional intelligence are universal values, not gendered traits. IIT-Kharagpur has begun the conversation. It must now deepen it.

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