
State of India's Environment ranking: Chandigarh emerges on the top with 89.09 score
The Union Territory of Chandigarh has emerged as the national leader in the 'State of India's Environment 2025' rankings, scoring an impressive 89.09 out of 100, far ahead of all other states and Union Territories (UT) across the country.
The annual report, compiled by the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) in collaboration with Down To Earth magazine, assesses the performance of states and UTs across critical environmental and sustainable development indicators such as forest and biodiversity, climate, waste management, water resources, etc.
Chandigarh's exemplary performance reflects its commitment to sustainability and smart urban planning.
The UT's high score is driven by significant achievements, including robust waste segregation and management systems; efficient urban mobility initiatives, including electric vehicle adoption and public transport upgrades; green cover expansion and biodiversity conservation, water conservation and sanitation, clean energy transition, with increasing reliance on solar power and green buildings.
Saurabh Kumar, CCF Chandigarh and director, environment, Chandigarh administration, stated, 'This recognition is a result of collective action by our administration, civic bodies, and the residents of Chandigarh. We are committed to building a model city for the rest of the nation to emulate—one that thrives sustainably while offering a high quality of life.'
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


The Hindu
2 days ago
- The Hindu
Chittoor gears up for Yoga Day fete, 9 lakh likely to participate
The district administration is geared up for the 11th International Yoga Day celebrations scheduled at the Mesanical Grounds here on Saturday (June 21). Over 9 lakh people are expected to take part in the massive programme across 5,808 habitations in the district. Addressing the media here on Friday (June 20), District Collector Sumit Kumar stressed on the need for proper planning and prompt execution of the event. Lauding the officials, NGOs, and public groups for the State-led 'Yogandhra 2025' campaign, the Collector urged officials not to lose momentum and ensure that each venue has adequate facilities, with top priority to drinking water, snacks, toilets, and medical camps. Mr. Kumar instructed the officials to mobilise the yoga participants based on the capacity of each venue. He said that the public address systems, photo, and videography were mandatory, and the footage should be uploaded on the official app by 10 am of the same day. The Collector directed the special officers at the mandal level, municipal commissioners, and MPDOs, to participate and oversee arrangements. He said that the public representatives from village to district levels should be formally invited to give a fillip to the event. The programme will be held at the Mesanical Grounds from 7 a.m. to 8 a.m. The Collector said that Yoga instructors will be posted at all the venues to guide the participants.


Mint
2 days ago
- Mint
Chandigarh leads Centre's school education index: Check rankings of other states
Chandigarh, Delhi, Punjab, Gujarat, Odisha, Kerala, Haryana, Goa, Maharashtra, Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu and Rajasthan recorded significant improvement in performance among all states and Union Territories (UTs) in the latest Performance Grading Index 2.0 report. The report published by the Union Ministry of Education for 2022-23 and 2023-24 on Thursday details the assessment of school education across various indicators, such as learning outcomes and infrastructure. Chandigarh recorded maximum improvement and achieved a score of 703 out of 1,000, corresponding to Prachesta 1 grade. Emerging as the best-performing Union Territory, it improved its score from 687.8 recorded in the 2022-23 session. The education sector evaluation report is based on six key domains, namely, learning outcomes and quality, access, infrastructure, equity, governance processes, teacher education and training. It features data from Unified District Information System for Education Plus (UDISE+), National Achievement Survey (NAS), PM POSHAN portal, PRABAND portal and Vidyanjali Portal. It is important to note that none of the states featured in the top-scoring range, which is above 761. A total of 24 States and Union Territories improved their scores in 2023-24 compared with the previous year's data. Notably, Chandigarh leads in only two of the six domains, which are infrastructure and facilities and equity. Delhi, Punjab and Gujarat recorded a score above 600. Delhi's score stood at 623.7, indicating marked improvement from the previous 579.3. Punjab and Gujarat, other top performers, recorded scores of 631.2 and 614.4, respectively. On the other hand, Meghalaya registered least improvement in performance indicators and recorded the least score of 417.9, as per Performance Grading Index report. All of northeastern states, including Nagaland, Mizoram, Arunachal Pradesh recorded a score below 500, except for Sikkim, Tripura and Assam. Chandigarh's school education director, Harsuhinderpal Singh Brar, said, 'At the heart of this success are our teachers and the encouragement by the UT administrator and chief secretary, along with the integration between various departments,' HT reported.


India.com
11-06-2025
- India.com
What is agro terrorism, how dangerous it is and how will it change future wars? Is India at risk?
Representational Image/AI-generated Agro-terrorism: Terrorism is often called the scourge of the modern world which has metamorphosed into more lethal and deadlier forms, even as countries have developed security mechanisms to deal with terror threats. While terrorism based on religion, politics, and ideology, is commonplace, a new kind of terrorism has reportedly been uncovered in the United States, and has been dubbed as 'Agro-terrorism' by American law enforcement agencies. Agro-terrorism case uncovered in US According to reports, a rare case of Agro terrorism was uncovered in the US by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), leading to the arrest of two Chinese nationals. The federal investigating agency said a lethal strain of Fusarium graminearum– a fungus pathogen known to cause fusarium head blight, a destructive disease on wheat and barley– from the two Chinese citizens. The FBI believes the fungal pathogen was smuggled to the US from China, and was meant to be used as a weapon in what they call 'agricultural terrorism'. Notably, Fusarium graminearum is known to cause crop losses worth billion of dollars globally each year. What is Agro-terrorism? Agro-terrorism is a very rare and sophisticated form of terrorism in which terrorists, usually state-sponsored non-state actors, target the agriculture of a rival state by using pathogens like fungi, viruses, etc to destroy crops. These biological weapons are released into the fields in a clandestine manner, and over time cause large-scale damage to crops, even destroying entire yields. Fusarium graminearum, is one of the most lethal fungal pathogens known to man, and can cause crop failures of cereal crops like wheat, barley, maize. How Agro-terrorism could shape future wars? While rare, Agro terrorism is not unheard of during modern times. For examples, in 1943, Nazi Germany released waves of beetles of over agricultural land in Britain, causing large-scale damage to potato crops, with entire yields being lost in several cases. As per experts, Agro terrorism is designed to hurt the economy of an enemy nation, and trigger internal discord by engineering artificial food insecurity due to crop failures. Is India at risk? Even though India has emerged as a manufacturing powerhouse in recent decades, the countries largely remains an agrarian economy with nearly 43 percent of its 1.4 billion population still dependent on agriculture, according to a 2022-23 survey. Thus, Agro terrorism poses a major risk to India, as terrorists, backed by the Pakistani-state, could use this deadly method to engineer an artificial food crisis and hurt the Indian economy.