Discuss how the contradiction between 'rapid infrastructure development' and 'disaster-risk reduction' in ecologically-sensitive areas of India can be managed, with suitable examples.

Gives a live case of the clash between local development needs and disaster-risk reduction in the Western Ghats, with a workable compromise.

• On 22 September Karnataka's legislature rejected, in its present form, the Centre's seventh draft ESA notification (27 July 2026), which covers about 20,668 sq km and 1,449 villages in 10 districts.
• Landslides and floods in Kerala (2018) and Wayanad (2024) have been linked to quarrying and land-use change, the cost of delaying protection.
• Suggest a compromise: village-level ground truthing, regulating harmful activities rather than all development, payments for ecosystem services and gram sabha participation.

Use GLOF preparedness to show how hazard risk must be built into infrastructure planning in the Himalaya, with the Chungthang breach as the warning.

• In October 2023 the South Lhonak lake outburst in Sikkim sent a flood down the Teesta that breached the Chungthang dam.
• On 3 September 2026 the Union Home Secretary asked Himalayan States to shift from response to 'risk-informed planning, preventive mitigation and community-level preparedness'.
• Hazard is often not built into approvals for dams and roads; require risk assessment of all infrastructure downstream of glacial lakes.

Use the Trishuli valley flood to show how infrastructure in fragile mountain valleys is exposed to glacial hazards, and what risk-sensitive development requires.

• The 26 August 2026 flood destroyed the Gyirong port crossing on the Nepal-China border and damaged 13 hydropower projects along a 72 km stretch of the Trishuli river.
• Risk-sensitive development: climate-proof hydropower and border infrastructure in high-risk valleys, and invest in early warning and glacial lake monitoring with data shared across the Himalaya, including with China and India.