The Government of India has launched the fifth National Marine Fisheries Census 2025, set to conclude in December 2025. The marine census, along with the port-led development programme of Sagarmala, are both key components of India’s ‘Blue Revolution’ push to exploit oceanic and coastal resources.
As the census notification states, it is officially aimed at digitising the census process moving away from manual data collection, and collecting information by using mobile applications and drones at fishers infrastructures: harbours, jetties and fish landing centres.
While census goals and programmes were intended to improve fisher welfare, they systematically complemented efforts to promote aquaculture (fish farming in a controlled environment as opposed to simply fishing in natural settings) and capital-intensive mechanisation instead.
The marine fishing communities largely practice small-scale fishing. Due to the competition introduced in fish production by aquaculture and displacement by infrastructure projects such as port-led development, they have become migrant labourers working part-time in various industries as workers. They fish in the season when the fish are abundant, staying in their villages. In other seasons they travel to other states for fishing. Most such small-scale fishers lack support from the local government and recognition under any formal organisations. India's New Fisheries Census Risks Erasing Traditional Fishing Communities - The Wire
The annual fishing ban imposed by the government between April and June (ostensibly to ensure fish breeding) itself shows there is no continuity of fishing throughout the year. And there is no clear definition of fish workers and how they will be identified.
The current Marine Fisheries Census 2025 collected data through trained instructors from fisheries infrastructures while prioritising registered farmer’s organisations and self-help groups, and by using digital headcounts and drone-mapped crafts at harbours and jetties from the total production. This process sidesteps the very communities it claims to represent.
In the past 20 years, the government has taken many steps to invest in and utilise marine resources for infrastructure development. Since 2015, this focus has increased and has become a core centre for India’s coastal infrastructure development under ‘Sagarmala’, with around Rs 8 lakh crore expected investment in infrastructure. Since then, marine fishers have been facing the threat of displacement and dispossession while losing access to the sea. Now, with the 2025 census, there is yet another attempt to cement the erasure of their traditional identity and belongingness.
by Ramu Avala
29/12/2025
Long before the Aravallis of Gurugram, Faridabad, or Alwar became the subject of environmental litigation, Delhi’s Ridge absorbed decades of ecological damage. Even before Independence, villages such as Naraina and Khampur were quarried extensively to supply stone for the construction of Lutyens’ Delhi. After 1947, extraction intensified. For decades, areas like the Bhatti Mines in South Delhi supplied silica sand, stone, and other minerals that fuelled the city’s rapid expansion.
The Aravallis and Why Environmental Justice Requires an Honest Reckoning - The Wire
Much of this mining was poorly regulated, and in many instances, outright illegal. Over more than 40 years, entire hill systems were hollowed out, permanently weakening Delhi’s natural defences against pollution, heat, and water scarcity.
Protecting the Aravallis requires more than green rhetoric and selective prohibitions. It demands an honest reckoning that begins where the damage began.
Delhi must first set its own house in order: by initiating a transparent inquiry into long-pending mining recoveries, fixing administrative responsibility, and acknowledging the true environmental and financial costs of its past actions.
Only then can India build a coherent, just, and constitutionally sound framework for conserving the Aravallis across state boundaries – one that treats the range as a single ecological entity, not a patchwork of political jurisdictions.
by Paras Tyagi
30/12/2025
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tp_sGpYZ_78 Senior Advocate Dushyant Dave Slams Delhi HC’s Sengar Verdict, Says He Will Quit Law Dave expressed his deep disillusionment with the judiciary, revealing his decision to 'quit law in July 2025' after 48 years of practice. The High Court suspended Sengar's sentence on the grounds that he was not a 'public servant' under Section 5 of the POCSO Act at the time of the offence. Dave argued that an MLA is a person in authority and trust, making the judgment legally unsustainable and a shock to the collective conscience. He also drew parallels with the Aravalli verdict, warning that such rulings erode public faith in the justice system.