Western Ghats | The other side is not greener

The bargain is simple. There lies a long band of forest, emerald-green and falling like the pallu of a saree, all along India’s west coast. Once spanning 160,000 square kilometres, with all the embroidery of nature that cannot be reproduced, it has already shrunk to about half that size. Would you keep the remaining half? Or instead have it crawling with quarries, wind turbines, plantations, exotic real estate, and bypasses that will soon need more bypasses for fat SUVs to reach them? After 13 years and six lapsed drafts, India has yet to decide.