Arnab Goswami’s Aravalli Warning India Can’t Ignore
Television anchor Arnab Goswami (Image X.com)
A Supreme Court definition, corporate appetite, and a fragile ecology collide—putting India’s ancient mountain shield at risk
By TRH News Desk
New Delhi, December 21, 2025 — When television anchor Arnab Goswami thunders that a 2-billion-year-old mountain system is being reduced to a technicality, he is not merely making noise—he is articulating a fear many environmentalists have whispered for years. The Aravalli range, among the oldest geological formations on Earth, is being hollowed out not by ignorance, but by interpretation.
At the heart of the controversy lies a legal definition: only landforms above 100 metres qualify as “Aravalli hills.” Everything below, by implication, becomes expendable, said Goswami. He added that “bulldozers may roll in, mining leases may multiply, and governments can claim clean hands by pointing to judicial wording.”
“By this logic, just 8.7% of the Aravallis—1,048 out of 12,081 hills—remain protected,” he argued.
Goswami’s central argument cuts deeper than courtroom semantics. Neither governments nor courts created the Aravallis; they inherited them. “A living ecological shield stretching nearly 700 kilometres across Rajasthan, Haryana, Delhi and Gujarat, the range regulates groundwater, arrests desertification, and acts as a natural barrier against pollution,” he added.
The anchor gave a warning: Destroy it, and the consequences will not be theoretical: water conflicts will intensify, heatwaves will worsen, and Delhi’s air will become even more unbreathable.
The irony is glaring. On one hand, vehicles are restricted in Delhi to fight air pollution. On the other, the very ecosystem that protects north India’s air and water is deemed disposable. Goswami’s question is blunt but valid: does this duality make sense?
This is not an anti-development argument. It is a call for accountability. Development that erases civilisational heritage is not progress; it is vandalism with paperwork. If India dreams of becoming “Viksit Bharat”, it cannot afford to become an environmentally amputated one.
Saving the Aravallis is no longer an environmental cause—it is a people’s imperative.
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Upreti is right. Absolutely right. The verdict will only encourage “non-sustainable” destruction. It is like saying Ganga ceases to be a river below 10 metres depth. The verdict is against right to life, a healthy life. Verdict must be revisited. We have destroyed our lungs. Let us not destroy the lungs of the North.
Upreti is right. Absolutely right. The verdict will only encourage “non-sustainable” destruction. It is like saying Ganga ceases to be a river below 10 metres depth. The verdict is against right to life, a healthy life. Verdict must be revisited. We have destroyed our lungs. Let us not destroy the lungs of the North..