'Caught up in the maelstrom of divisive politics, India is silently but surely sliding into an environmental abyss under Prime Minister Narendra Modi's watch. The latest EPI ( Environmental Performance Index) report released on the sidelines of the WEF conclave at Davos puts us at third from the bottom- at 177 out of 180 countries, a decline of 36 places since 2016 ( when we were at 141). We do even worse in the index of air quality, at 178 out of 180.