Junk food is junk by its very definition. But how bad is it and what is it that companies do not tell people about this food? This is what the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) laboratory checked. The results were both predictable and alarming.

It was a trade exhibition abuzz with the restrained chatter of busy suited executives at company stalls making contacts and finalising deals. Nothing out of place except that this trade was about renewable energy technologies, which have unconventional reasons for growth. First, these technologies are seen as the most economical and feasible source of energy for millions of people unconnected to the electricity grid and having no electricity to light their houses or cook their food. This energy poverty is disabling and needs to be eradicated. Introduction of decentralised and improved technologies paves the way to catapult the poorest of the households into the most modern systems. Secondly, these technologies—from wind and solar to biomass—provide cleaner low-carbon energy options to combat climate change. These are future systems critical for survival of all.

Water is life and sewage tells its life story. This is the subject of the Citizens’ Seventh Report on the State of India’s Environment, Excreta Matters: How urban India is soaking up water, polluting rivers and drowning in its own excreta. It has a seemingly simple plot: it only asks where Indian cities get their water from and where does their waste go. But this is not just a question or answer about water, pollution and waste. It is about the way Indian cities (and perhaps other parts of the world that are similarly placed) will develop. It is about the paradigm of growth that’s sustainable and affordable.

GLOBAL trade wars are turning green and, across the world, battles are raging to enforce environmental decisions through the power of trade restrictions and embargoes on the countries deemed responsible for environmentally unfriendly products.

In 1992, when the world met to discuss an agreement on climate change, equity was a simple concept: sharing the global commons—the atmosphere in this case—equally among all. It did not provoke much anxiety, for there were no real claimants. However, this does not mean the concept was readily accepted. A small group of industrialised countries had burnt fossil fuels for 100 years and built up enormous wealth. This club had to decide what to do to cut emissions, and it claimed all countries were equally responsible for the problem. In 1991, just as the climate convention was being finalised, a report, released by an influential Washington think tank, broke the news that its analysis showed India, China and other developing countries were equally responsible for greenhouse gases. Anil Agarwal and I rebutted this and brought in the issue of equitable access to the global commons. We also showed, beyond doubt, that the industrialised countries were singularly responsible for the increased greenhouse gases.

Just consider. Every time petrol prices are raised, oil companies end up losing more money. Simply because the price differential between petrol and diesel increases further, and people gravitate towards diesel vehicles. More the use of diesel, more the oil companies bleed. Worse, we all bleed because diesel vehicles add to toxic pollution in our cities, which, in turn, adds to ill health and treatment costs.

The environment is holding up growth and economic development. This is the common refrain in circles that matter. So when the Group of Ministers tasked to resolve the issue of coal mining in forests asked for a report on what needs to be done, it was told that the best would be to dismantle green conditions, almost completely.

As I write this my city Delhi is drowning. It started raining early this morning and within a few hours the city has come to a standstill. The television is showing scenes of traffic snarled up for hours, roads waterlogged and people and vehicles sunk deep in water and muck.

Khan Market in boulevard Delhi is said to be the most expensive real estate in India, maybe even in the world. But in this richest shopping destination, buyers do not want to pay for parking their vehicles.

My article last fortnight about people’s fight against POSCO has brought me interesting responses. They call for clarifications and further discussion. The question is about the value of current livelihoods of the people of coastal Odisha. Is earning from betel nut farming being exaggerated to reinforce the romantic and misinformed view that people are fighting projects because they are better off today? The equally valid question, then, is: why are the people so apparently poor if they are earning Rs 10-17 lakh per hectare (ha) each year as I had said?

Once again there is a food safety scare. A deadly strain of E coli bacterium has hit Germany, where it has taken the lives of 25 people and affected another 2,300 till date. German food inspectors on the trail of the source of contamination ha­ve as yet made two errors—blaming Spanish cucumbers and then organic bean sprouts—but no breakthrough.

“This magazine is not a product of a desire to capture share of the information market. It is a product of a need and desire to fill a critical information gap.”

We were on a beach. Somewhere close to Puducherry. The sight was surreal: half-smashed houses with wide open fronts, people still living in them. The devastation was caused not by a sea storm or a cyclone, but by the eroded beach. The sea had crept up to the village; there was no protection between the sea and the village.

Two major events happening at two ends of the world—Japan’s natural disaster and nuclear fallout and unrest in Libya and other countries of the region—have one thing in common. Energy. The fallout from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, hit by earthquake and then the tsunami, has not yet been contained. As I write this, news is breaking about possible contamination of the seawater surrounding the damaged installation. Fears are it could lead to groundwater contamination and radioactive toxins in the food and fish. Last week there was a scare when Tokyo’s water was reported to have iodine 131 in excess of safe limits. Nobody really knows how badly the core of the reactor is damaged. Nobody’s clear how Fukushima’s problems will be buried.

As I write this piece, the finance minister has dispatched the Union Budget 2011. The press is busy reflecting the views of business and industry lobbies, as they quibble over duty exemptions, insist on financial stimulus and other incentives, and cry for big-ticket reform—foreign direct investment in retail and insurance.

Some hundred people, men and women, were gathered on the hill. Many more, I could see, were trudging up. Their faces were resolute. I asked why they were opposing the cement plant.

Last fortnight we discussed the clandestine endgame afoot at Cancun to change the framework of the climate change negotiations to suit big and powerful polluters.

The definition is contested as the answer has immense economic implications. If bamboo is a tree or timber, it belongs to the forest department and can be auctioned to the paper and pulp industry, often at throwaway rates.

On a brief visit to Pakistan this week I noted that the recent floods have left deep impressions on the country’s policy and political leadership. They spoke about the scale of devastation, human suffering and the massive challenge of rehabilitation. They also noted, interestingly, that in their view there was a link to climate change.

Our control over our food and our health requires inventive institutional reordering and new ideas about the way food regulations work.

The Forest Rights Act of 2006—also known as the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act—came after considerable and bitter opposition from conservation groups.

There is no question that India desperately needs to generate more power. The energy indicators say it all. It has the lowest per capita consumption of electricity in the world. This when access to energy is correlated with development, indeed with economic growth.
 

The Bhopal question has one more angle: why was there so much public and media outrage over this 25-year-old issue? Why did the national media focus on this story, which till now had been consigned to the backrooms where only noisy environmental activists live?

Should India import and reprocess the world’s growing mountains of junk and toxic garbage? Should this become our business opportunity, capitalizing on the fact that rich countries need cheaper and more efficient ways of dealing with their waste—everything from electronic to medical?

Climate change negotiations—cold after the freeze at Copenhagen—have warmed up again.In early April, negotiators met in Bonn, Germany, on the possible agreement that could be signed at the meet scheduled in December 2010 in Mexico.

There is a buzz about green buildings. But the question is: what does one mean by building green? And how does one design policies to make the green homes of our dreams?

There I was, zipping down bustling Ahmedabad. The bus stopped at a station, designed so the doors of the bus and the station open simultaneously to let passengers out and in. People were walking to the station, buying tickets and waiting.

Visiting the US, one thing came home to me: the country has very little political will to cut greenhouse gas emissions. Policy makers and media professionals talk about the climate change crisis.

We know what the conference was supposed to agree upon: drastic emission reduction targets by industrialized countries and actions supported by finance and technology by emerging countries such as India.

Take a map of India. Now mark the districts with forest wealth, where the rich and dense tree cover is found. Then overlay on it the sources of streams and rivers that feed us, our water wealth. Upon this, further locate mineral depositsiron ore, coal, bauxite, all things nice that make economies rich. Dont stop here. Mark on all this wealth another indicator: districts where the poorest people of our country live. These are also tribal districts. So you will find a complete match. The richest lands are where the poorest people live.

Let me be straight: As the clock ticks to Copenhagen, how low is the world prepared to prostrate to get climate-renegade US on board? Is a bad deal in Copenhagen better than no deal?

If it's broken, don't fix it. That's the new motto of the government: forget it and build another. Do not sort out details. I am talking of what the government believes will form the spine of regulation in future.

The flavour of the day is 'authorities': separate, independent institutions not bound by departmental morass, not tied down by procedures or personnel--the bane supposedly of any implementation or regulatory initiative. I think it is time to review this gelato of current governance.

It was in early 2008 that my colleagues at the Centre for Science and Environment had tested household paints for lead content. The issue was not new. Lead in paints had been widely indicted across the world for being a silent poison--particularly when used on walls and items that children would lick or chew.

Last fortnight a dominant image on TV screens was drought. This fortnight, vast parts of the country drowned in water. An uncertain, unpredictable and variable monsoon is still impacting us. Late rain has delayed or jeopardized sowing; or intense rain has thrown life asunder and flowed away rapidly, creating months of (future) scarcity. Regional variations are huge, too. So there is drought in otherwise moist northeast and in paddy-growing Punjab and Haryana. A different monsoon, perhaps signalling the climate-changing times ahead.

The to-be-or-not-to-be question of our age. Given the crisis that confronts us--inequality and poverty in our immediate midst and growing climate insecurity in our world--we have no choice but to change. But how will this change be afforded? If we cannot find an answer to this one, what we will get is a lot of talk and little action. In fact, we will regress, literally and deliberately.

The new (old) government is back. The question is if it has learnt its most important lesson: how to enjoin its political agenda to the agenda of government.

About 24 years ago, I was in a house in a small village some distance from Udaipur town in Rajasthan. A government functionary was explaining how an improved chulha (cookstove) worked-- they had installed it in the kitchen. At that time, India was waking up to forests being devastated. It was believed then (wrongly, as it turned out) the key reason was poor people cutting trees to cook food. It was also being understood smoke from chulhas was carcinogenic and that women were worst hit by this pollution. The answer was to design improved chulhas--for better combustion and with a chimney.

The world's cheapest car, the Nano, rolls out in India this week. Manufacturer Tata Motors says it will change the way Indians drive, for the inauguration places the personal car within the reach of people who once could only dream of owning one. Indeed, the Nano has been marketed as an 'aspiration'--the right of every Indian to a car. No quibble here. There is no question an affordable car is better than an expensive one; or that a small car, being more fuel efficient, is better than a big one.

The world's cheapest car, the Nano, rolls out in India this week. Manufacturer Tata Motors says it will change the way Indians drive, for the inauguration places the personal car within the reach of people who once could only dream of owning one. Indeed, the Nano has been marketed as an 'aspiration'--the right of every Indian to a car. No quibble here. There is no question an affordable car is better than an expensive one; or that a small car, being more fuel efficient, is better than a big one.

The world's cheapest car, the Nano, rolls out in India this week. Manufacturer Tata Motors says it will change the way Indians drive, for the inauguration places the personal car within the reach of people who once could only dream of owning one. Indeed, the Nano has been marketed as an 'aspiration'--the right of every Indian to a car. No quibble here. There is no question an affordable car is better than an expensive one; or that a small car, being more fuel efficient, is better than a big one.

The world's cheapest car, the Nano, rolls out in India this week. Manufacturer Tata Motors says it will change the way Indians drive, for the inauguration places the personal car within the reach of people who once could only dream of owning one. Indeed, the Nano has been marketed as an 'aspiration'--the right of every Indian to a car. No quibble here. There is no question an affordable car is better than an expensive one; or that a small car, being more fuel efficient, is better than a big one.

The world's cheapest car, the Nano, rolls out in India this week. Manufacturer Tata Motors says it will change the way Indians drive, for the inauguration places the personal car within the reach of people who once could only dream of owning one. Indeed, the Nano has been marketed as an 'aspiration'--the right of every Indian to a car. No quibble here. There is no question an affordable car is better than an expensive one; or that a small car, being more fuel efficient, is better than a big one.

The world's cheapest car, the Nano, rolls out in India this week. Manufacturer Tata Motors says it will change the way Indians drive, for the inauguration places the personal car within the reach of people who once could only dream of owning one. Indeed, the Nano has been marketed as an 'aspiration'--the right of every Indian to a car. No quibble here. There is no question an affordable car is better than an expensive one; or that a small car, being more fuel efficient, is better than a big one.

The world's cheapest car, the Nano, rolls out in India this week. Manufacturer Tata Motors says it will change the way Indians drive, for the inauguration places the personal car within the reach of people who once could only dream of owning one. Indeed, the Nano has been marketed as an 'aspiration'--the right of every Indian to a car. No quibble here. There is no question an affordable car is better than an expensive one; or that a small car, being more fuel efficient, is better than a big one.

A year ago, in this very column, I discussed the myopia of budget 2008, which did not touch upon events then beginning to unfold. Since then we have seen the world collapse and, perhaps, even change forever.

Which cooking oil is best for us? Why do I ask? Are we not bombarded with advertising messages telling us there is a healthy oil that is good for the heart? They talk of monounsaturated fatty acids (mufa), and polyunsaturated fatty acids (pufa) and of course, catch-us-words like omega properties. I am sure you, like me, try to understand this scientific jargon and conclude that any oil that has all these elements, must be good. Then we presume if we are being told the product is healthy, somebody must have verified the claim. If not, we depend on food regulators of the rich world.

I spent a week at the climate change conference in Poznan, and realized the world is in deep trouble and deeper denial. Worse, the denial is now entirely on the side of action. It is well accepted that climate change is a reality. Scientists say we need to cap temperature increases at 2C to avoid catastrophe, which means capping emissions at 450 ppm. We know global average temperatures have already increased by 0.8C and there is enough greenhouse gas in the atmosphere to lead to another 0.8C increase. There is still a window of opportunity, a tiny one, to tackle the crisis.

After months of downward spiral, the dreaded r-word must be uttered. The world's major economies are into a recession. Equally recessive is the response of leaders who, after working extremely hard to privatize and deregulate, are falling upon a Keynesian idea, first applied after the 1929 Great Depression in the us, requiring governments to spend huge amounts of public money to bail out the economy.

Earlier this year, I called the Union budget myopic (see Down To Earth, March 31, 2008). Let me reiterate why. The Union budget did not take into account the fact the world was beginning to face new challenges, all of which were devastating, and related. One, the rising cost of our food--you will recall subsequently prices did go up and food riots took place in many parts of the world.

Let's cut to the chase. If we are serious about climate change then we have to be serious about changing (drastically) the way the world generates and uses its energy. But even as the rich world talks glibly about 'decarbonisation' of its economy it has done precious little to reinvent its energy system and to wean itself from its fossil fuel addiction. Between 1990 and 2005, emissions from fossil fuel have actually increased, in these countries. In this period, their emissions from energy industries have increased by 24 per cent and from transport by a massive 28 per cent.

Jambudwip is a tiny dot in the Bay of Bengal. A few years ago, it hit headlines when wildlife activists dragged fishermen, who used the landmass to dry their fish, to the Supreme Court. A case was filed regarding 'encroachment' of this island, partly covered by mangroves. The apex court's central empowered committee (cec), which advises it in all forest matters, got into the act. Its report to the court was clear: fish drying was a non-forest activity, so disallowed under the Forest Conservation Act (1980).

In Sikkim, bowing to local protests, the government has cancelled 11 hydro-electric projects. In Arunachal Pradesh, dam projects are being cleared at breakneck speed and resistance is growing. In Uttarakhand last month, 2 projects on the Ganga were put on hold and there is growing concern about the rest. In Himachal Pradesh, dams are so controversial that elections were won where candidates said they would not allow these to be built. Many other projects, from thermal power stations to Greenfield mining, are being resisted.

We were standing in Sarova village, not far from Raipur, the capital of mineral rich Chhattisgarh. All around us we could see some black stuff scattered on the ground. The villagers told us that the sponge iron factory owner was giving this away as a 'gift' and would even transport it to their lands. They refused to say if they were being paid to dump this reject on their land. But they did whisper to me that the land on which we were standing, laden with black reject belonged to the brother of the sarpanch. The sarpanch they said was earlier against the factory's pollution.

In the first week of April this year, a group of men came and stood outside the Centre for Science and Environment (cse), New Delhi. They carried placards with offensive slogans directed at me. We understood the 'protesters' were ostensibly from an ngo we believed was a front for the pesticide industry. We also understood the picket to be the latest in a dangerous pesticide industry mindgame.

Did the Nobel Prize committee make a mistake when it gave the 2007 Peace Prize to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and former us vice president Al Gore? I wonder. My disquiet is not because the prize recognized and put climate change at the centre of global debate. It stems from the fact that the Nobel Prize has held up, as champions, an organisation and individuals that are cautious, conservative and play strictly by the book when searching for answers to tackling climate change. There is nothing wrong in being so.

India has added two more swanky symbols to bolster its first-world ambitions: the Rajiv Gandhi international airport in Hyderabad and the gleaming Bengaluru international airport in our software capital. But look beneath this glitzy faade and you will find another instance of development on the cheap. We refuse to admit that our dream of world-class infrastructure is not grounded on the hard reality that we are a rich and poor country at the same time. As a result, we do not think differently and plan for solutions that suit our needs.

It was the mid-1980s. Environmentalist Anil Agarwal was on a mission: track down the person who had conceptualized the employment guarantee scheme in Maharashtra. His search--I tagged along--led him to a dusty, file-filled office in the secretariat. There we met V S Page. I remember a diminutive, soft-spoken man who explained to us why in 1972, when the state was hit with crippling drought and mass migration, it worked on a scheme under which professionals working in cities would pay for employment in villages.

Last fortnight, when the world's richest Indian Lakshmi Mittal visited Kolkata, the city of his youth, he was thrilled to see change. Mittal told the media that the biggest difference he saw was the many flyovers dotting the city skyline and "disciplined traffic". This is great progress, he told journalists, who promptly reported that the tycoon had given the city's road and traffic management a big thumbs up. I was also in Kolkata that day. But all I could see was lines and lines of traffic, belching black smoke, honking madly.

The Bali conference on climate change is over. But the fight against climate change has only just begun. The message from Bali is the fight will be downright brutal and selfish. Let us cut through the histrionics of the Bali conference to understand that as far as an agreement is concerned, the world has not moved an inch from where it stood on climate some 17 years ago, when negotiations began. The only difference is that emissions have increased; climate change is at dangerous levels. Only if we drastically cut emissions, will we succeed in avoiding a full-blown catastrophe.

Sometimes, a fortnight can mirror a year. With the year-end approaching, a flashback is usually in order. But recent events have made completely clear to me where we are and where we are headed.

US President George Bush played host to a party of the top polluters of the world called to discuss climate change. He exhorted his guests that the world needed to act and called for a "new approach" to reduce emissions. But if you think that he has changed his mind about the science which has established the reality and urgency of climate change, think again. Or if you think he has changed his position that his country will not take on commitments to cut emissions because the American lifestyle is not open to negotiation, think yet again and again.

I smelled the air of Bangalore last week. It was foul. I remembered how in the late 1990s, when Delhi's air was dark and dirty, we had run an advertisement in the newspapers "Roll down the window of your bullet-proof car, Mr Prime Minister, the security threat is not the gun it is the air of Delhi." Since then Delhi introduced compressed natural gas, it increased the number of buses, it got better quality fuel. With all this, the air got less dirty and less toxic. But now with each passing day, the city adds just below 1,000 new private vehicles.

The botted water industry is global in nature. But it is designed to sell the same product to two completely different markets one water rich and the other water scarce. The question is whether this industry will have different outcomes in these two worlds. Or will we, for two opposite reasons, agree that their business costs us the earth and that it is not good for us?

The government is being severely criticised for the wheat it is now planning to import. Rightly so. India's season for wheat ended a few months ago. When the crop was being harvested the government dithered on the price it would pay farmers; it floated tenders for import of wheat; it insisted on taxing the purchased wheat. At the end, farmers were paid Rs 850 per quintal, a price which included a 'bonus' of Rs 100. This was when the open market price was over Rs 950 per quintal and the international price--quoted in various tenders--was Rs 1,050 per quintal and above.

Industrialist Ratan Tata has reportedly written to the prime minister cribbing about delays in implementing big buck projects. In his capacity as the chair of the government's investment commission he says over us $50 billion is tied up because of delays in allocating land and resources. His list includes major steel, thermal power, mining and aluminium projects of powerful houses--South Korean corporate Posco, uk's Lakshmi Mittal and India's Essar, Reliance, Jindal and, of course, Tata itself.

My worst fears are coming true; and that has more to do with the politics of climate change than its reality. While concern on global warming reaches a crescendo, the world, instead of finding resolutions, is hurtling towards discord and dispute. Let us be clear we do not have time to waste on bad politics and bad politicians.

I wrote last fortnight about how mining in Goa for iron ore was ripping its forests and devastating its people. I wrote of the violence and protests I saw in its villages, where miners were pitted against people angry at the loss of their cultivable lands and their water bodies. I had asked then what are we doing? I ask this again.

We were standing between a massive mine and a stunning water reservoir. Local activists were explaining to me that this iron ore mine was located in the catchment of the Salaulim water reservoir, the only water source for south Goa. Suddenly, as I started clicking with my camera, we were surrounded by a jeepload of men. They said they were from the mine management and wanted us off the property. We explained that we had come on a public path and that there were no signs to indicate that we were trespassing. But they were not in a mood to listen.

Call it is one of the unknown Indian ironies. Over many years, the Indian state, through its public irrigation agencies, has systematically taken over the management of surface water systems. It has taken over the job of building irrigation systems--dams, reservoirs and canals--then maintaining these and supplying water. This has meant that over the years it has taken over water resources from the hands of village communities. The irony is that even as the state has vested this power in itself, people have taken water under their control.

Every society must understand how the excreta it produces is managed. It teaches us many things about water, about waste, about technologies to clean, economics and politics of who is subsidised to defecate in our societies. But, most importantly, it teaches us humility. We know so little about our own world. If we knew better, we would understand why we are failing to ensure our present and why we will all need to do things differently, if we want to safeguard our future.

The year 2006 will go down as environment's watershed year. This is not because this year we have had extraordinary success in environmental management; there was also no environmental disaster per se. This year must be remembered because the task of environmental management has come to be even more contested and even more challenged. Protests against environmental degradation have grown. But so have efforts to deny environmental concerns or to dilute regulations.

IN this past month, farmer associations in Haryana and Tamil Nadu have located and burnt field trials for genetically modified Bt rice. In Chhattisgarh the state government has stopped similar trials happening under its nose. It is all too easy to deride these actions as the handiwork of some misinformed eco-fundamentalists or miscreants out to seek 'cheap' publicity. It can also be argued that these actions will impede scientific progress designed to find answers to malnutrition and food insecurity in the country.

What does the ubiquitous auto-rickshaw and the plush aeroplane have in common, other than getting us from one place to another? The auto-rickshaw, as India's largest manufacturer Rahul Bajaj will tell you, is the symbol of democratic mobility -- it provides transport for large numbers of people at what he says is affordable costs. But these vehicles are technology poor, and extremely polluting.

Urban India is beginning to explode. The question is if our cities will be able to manage this growth or will they just burst at the seams? The reason I ask this is because we still don't have a clue about what urban growth will mean for us. We cannot see beyond the glitz of the malls, the swank of the private housing apartments or guarded green areas.

What a line of attack! PepsiCo, in its advertisements to deny that it had pesticides in its drinks, said that there were more pesticides in tea, eggs, rice and apples. Coca-Cola, in its defence, has similarly argued that as everything in India is contaminated, its drinks are safe. They say this is being done to target them, because they are big brands and us multinationals. On the other hand, the pesticide industry, in its public response, wants the focus not to be on pesticides but on heavy metals and other contaminants.

In 20 years, the world has come full circle: in the mid-1980s the process of globalisation intensified with the rich countries taking the lead in interconnecting countries because it was in their interest. Now in 2006, the same rich countries find the process of globalisation -- economic and ecological -- too hot to handle. They have become a roadblock in the way of global integration. The question is where will we go from here? Can we go back in time and close the processes of globalisation?

When Parliament convenes for the monsoon session, the government plans to introduce the Food Safety and Standards Bill, 2005. I am sure the government will hope there is enough mayhem to distract the attention of legislators from the bill, which has been crafted carefully to weaken consumer protection in the face of the power of the growing business of food.

Food we know is a sunshine industry. And industry tells government that the regulatory regime is cumbersome and corrupt. This, it adds, strangles the industry. These arguments are correct.

Railway minister Laloo Prasad Yadav and former cricketer Navjot Singh Sidhu are the clowns of Indian politics. But think of the actions of the two in the past fortnight and you will begin seeing the difference. Sidhu led the protest for the Bharatiya Janata Party against the fuel price hike by riding an elephant. Effective but clearly stupid. Do excuse my intemperate language but the gall of the politicians to believe we are myopic and their complete lack of leadership in this time of crisis makes me mad.

The agriculture minister told parliament last week that 100,000 farmers had committed suicide from 1998 to 2003, a period for which his government had data. This means 45 farmers killed themselves each day across the country. There is now information that suicides may be on the increase. In the Vidarbha region of Maharashtra, unconfirmed reports talk about three suicides a day among cotton farmers, up from one a day a few years ago. But the matter goes beyond statistics.

A journalist from the International Herald Tribune asked my opinion about what he called "modern forms of lobbying" that us multinationals operating in India engaged in. He was investigating how these companies were bringing their skills of influencing policy -- from 'planting' stories in the media, to 'engaging' academics and scientists to counter debates, to 'lobbying' legislators -- to India.

Everybody knows one hand of the government does not know what the other is up to. But it does make a difference when a proposed programme of the government contradicts and, perhaps, even fatally undermines a flagship initiative. This is the case with the proposed programme of the Union ministry of environment and forests -- euphemistically called the multi-stakeholder partnership on forests -- and its impact on the prime minister's pet projects of employment generation like the Bharat Nirman project.

The news that Indian poultry in parts of Maharashtra and Gujarat have been detected with the deadly avian influenza virus may have temporarily shaken chicken eaters in the country. But it will be a mistake to believe that we have contained the problem, simply because we have culled (killed and buried) some hundred thousand birds and may vaccinate in the coming days some hundred thousand more chicken. We are simply missing the point: the mutating virus is not about birds but about the practice of 'cultivating' these birds and how it is changing in the modern food industry.

In this day of television grabs, policies are about slugfests. The logic of the grab is that any discussion must be heated, with sharply divided positions -- clear proponents and opponents. It is a caricature of the world; in it, for instance, if one is an environmentalist then s/he must be against nuclear energy, even without logic or rationale; the grab allows it so. But let's discuss India's nuclear option, not as an absolute given or the mother of all things evil but as a possible energy source in a growing and starved nation. What does the future hold?

2005 was definitely the year of the Indian tiger. The year began with the tragic news of this magnificent animal's disappearance from the Sariska tiger reserve, a protected space. This news became, appropriately, the nation's obsession. I was asked to chair a Task Force, and in three months we put out a report in the public domain. The report drew attention.

There is so much about rural India that escapes notice that one more area of neglect will not break the camel's back. I am talking about the crisis of fodder for livestock. A grim silence surrounds it. 'Grim', because in rural India, domestic animals aren't 'pets' but engines that drive the economy. They provide resilience and wealth -- people cope with adverse conditions because of their livestock. But no policy exists on how to feed these 500 million or so animals.

I remember many years ago receiving a call from a bbc journalist asking which villages in India should they visit to see the impacts of climate change. This was the early 1990s. I was puzzled and asked "is climate change here?" Finally the television crew decided to shoot urban fires in Delhi and drought in Rajasthan to tell their viewers about how India was reeling under the impact of changing climate because of increased greenhouse gas emissions.

Pali is a textile town deep in water-scarce Rajasthan. It is well known for the cloth it produces. But it is even better known for the filth it also produces, best seen in the colours in its mostly dry river, the Bandi. Pali's pollution, and the protest of residents and neighbouring farmers, is part of the environmental movements of this country. The protests resulted in the setting up of a common effluent treatment plant, one of the first in India. This town has reinvented the polluter pays principle.

The charade over the oil price hike has been played out. On the one hand, the government pleads helplessness given the spiralling oil prices globally, on the other hand, the opposition -- right and left -- frets and fumes about increased price of diesel and petrol. They want the government to cut taxes and ask the public sector oil companies to take a further hit in their profits. In this interesting partnership of the right and the left parties, the overriding interests are that of middle-class Indians, couched in the name of the poor.

"She has never seen a tiger": this is how some conservationists questioned my credentials to chair the tiger task force when it was set up three months ago. It did not surprise me. Cola, pesticide or diesel car-making companies reacted precisely like this to our work. Discredit the messenger and hope the message also gets dismissed.

This issue of Down To Earth examines a crisis forest-rich states in India find themselves in: conserving forests is a burden states are no longer able -- or willing -- to afford. This has happened because in India, as concern for natural resources grew, the harvesting of forests stopped. For these states, revenue has dried up, but the establishment costs of maintaining forest departments -- intent on protection -- continues to climb. In the mid-1990s, for instance, Madhya Pradesh made money from its forest resources. Its revenue was higher than its expenditure in this sector.

Delhi has been waiting. For its neighbour, Uttar Pradesh (up), to release water to its swank Sonia Vihar water treatment plant. The prime minister himself intervenes in the matter. He persuades up to release water. Only to be rebuffed by up political leaders, who say their farmers and cities need water first. Delhi is already water-spoilt, they say. Elsewhere, farmers in Tonk district of Rajasthan protest against a dam whose water, they say, is 'reserved' for neighbouring cities. They want that water.

Finance minister P Chidambaram goes to Mumbai to deliberate, with its corporati, upon urban renewal, and promises sparkling growth for this bursting metropolis. On the way to the venue, he is confronted by angry slum-dwellers whose homes have been demolished to make way for the new age city. They say they are paying for this growth, which is unjust and unacceptable. The chief minister vows he will make it another Shanghai. He says this even as the city is shattered by crippling power shortages and rationing, to last till 2010.

All politicians and scientists (except George Bush and his group of climate-skeptic scientists) accept climate change is now inevitable and that it will adversely, perhaps devastatingly, impact societies and economies. Just how much damage, they do not know. Just how this devastation will occur, they are beginning to find out. Just who will be worst affected, they can only hazard a guess. But all agree that the poor in poor countries are most vulnerable.

People who understand water management will tell you that India is a traditional water economy and that it has to make the transition to a modern water economy. In other words, the water sector has to become part of the formalised economy. As with any feel-right challenge, this is normally accepted to be true.

I really hope we are proved wrong when we say there are no tigers left in the Sariska Tiger Reserve, Rajasthan. But if it is so, what is now increasingly accepted as a sad fact should actually make us extremely angry. We must know: who was responsible for this huge national loss? What amends will be made?

What should be the price of natural gas in India? Till now, gas was pumped by the public sector company, the Oil and Natural Gas Commission and piped and sold by another public sector concern, the Gas Authority of India Limited. The government administered the price. But with private players entering the fray, there is a demand for a price hike and for deregulation. Already, liquefied natural gas (lng) -- natural gas cooled to minus 160 c for easy transportation and then re-gassed for use -- is reaching Indian shores from Qatar.

Last fortnight, I wrote about my visit to a governance graveyard called the Union ministry of environment and forests. I also promised to pen a few more thoughts on the subject. Given that the government cannot be trusted to manage the country's natural resource base -- indeed, they can be trusted only to further degrade it -- a tricky question faces us: What, then, is the way ahead for India's environmental concerns? Its tricky because no easy choices lie ahead of us. But I do know this: we will have to reinvent the solutions to our environmental crisis.

I recently visited Bangalore, Chennai and Mumbai. The singular impression I have of all these cities, and of others I occasionally visit -- of course the one I live in, Delhi -- is one of noise, pollution, plastic, garbage and filth. But most of all what hits you is cities overrun by vehicles; cars, more cars. Every city is now bumper to bumper. Even Bangalore, the sanctuary city, is a car-mess.

This month, even as the Russian cabinet approved the Kyoto Protocol and sent it on to parliament for ratification, the price of oil crossed US $50 per barrel -- a 60 per cent increase in the price of this all-crucial commodity, in this year itself. I would have thought that, for climate change buffs, oil prices would have been even bigger news than the delightful Russian move.

When Neena Khanna from the All India Institute of Medical Sciences called to tell us that her patient who lives in Ballia district of Uttar Pradesh had high levels of arsenic in his blood, hair and nails, we were stunned. Why Ballia? We knew of arsenic in West Bengal and Bangladesh but not in Uttar Pradesh. What could be the reason?

In Nagpur city, women gather outside a court. In broad daylight they lynch a local serial rapist. When four women are arrested, few hundred women own up to the crime. They say they killed Akku Yadav because the local police did little to stop his criminal reign of terror; they feared the court would release him and took matters in their hand. But why am I writing about vigilante killings?

A recent letter from a reader has disturbed me enormously. B P Radhakrishna, president of the Geological Society of India, in response to a story in Down To Earth about how drought was affecting the mango harvest in Andhra Pradesh, wrote that the problem was not the current failure of rainfall. The problem, he said, was that we had sucked the the earth so dry, that the deep-rooted mango trees, known to survive by harnessing groundwater at considerable depth, could not find moisture anymore.

I travelled in Kerala last fortnight, seeking answers. I wanted to know what government was doing to meet the drinking water needs of people in this wet-drought state. Searching in villages and academic papers, an anomalous statistic caught my eye. According to 1999 estimations of the National Sample Survey Organisation and the 2001 Census, only 11-14 per cent of rural Kerala had access to potable water supply. But the same data showed some 77-85 per cent of people had drinking water supply.

Elections 2004 are over. Was it a vote for development, social inclusion and justice? Or simply a vote against an incumbent government, flattened by sleazy and slick self-promotion? The answer is complicated, as can be expected from a country as diverse and layered as India.

Elections always teach lessons. The outcome of the 2004 polls is still a few days away but we have already learnt from media reports that the water scarcity has left a countrywide imprint. The crying need for water reverberates in villages of the water-stressed regions in central India, in rainfall abundant villages of states like Kerala and Meghalaya and in cities across India. Reports suggest that the scarcity of water is crippling much of our country. We know that each time rural communities suffer a drought, it further erodes their ability to cope and makes them weaker.

The milestone read Nimalapedu 0. We had travelled through the forest regions of Vishakapatnam, Andhra Pradesh, to this tribal village, which we knew had stoutly resisted and tamed the might of the Birlas when the latter was given a lease to mine calcite in their backyard. This was the village whose battle led, in 1997, to a historic judgement of the Supreme Court that put a stop to the greed of private companies, eager to get their hands on a lease for land in tribal areas to mine or set up a factory.

Who does the water under the ground belong to? Who has the right to exploit it? Are there limits on what can be extracted? Till three months ago, the answers to such questions were simple. Groundwater under Indian law belongs to the person who owns the land. In other words, the owner of the land is the de facto and de jure owner of the resource underneath. But as the amount of groundwater that can be exploited does not depend on the amount of land owned, in effect, there are no limits to how much can be extracted.

The World Social Forum (WSF) concluded in Mumbai. Then began the World Economic Forum in Davos. A little before these, a glitzy automobile fair in Delhi. One after the other, loud and strident images. But even as an intensely stimulating energy of dissent swelled at WSF, I kept feeling the ground was slipping from under our feet. Why do I say this when it is clear that the WSF message, the need for a fair and just world, is gaining ground?

So, as the neighbouring city of Udpaipur, also famed for its lakes, tanks and stepwells, destroyed its own water systems and water scarcity grew, it had no option but to look beyond for its needs. And the city's thirst gave politicians a chance to promise a miracle -- they would bring water from Jaisamand lake some 51 km away. It was a plan that suited engineers and contractors alike. A massive pipeline was laid.

Surreal. This is how a newspaper described the just concluded meeting on climate change in Milan. Ministers and several hundred government officials gathered to fuss over the final details of a treaty they know may never come into force.

The Sensex stock index has risen by 75 per cent since April this year. The rupee is at a three-year high. Global investment analysts Goldman Sachs predict that India is the fastest growing of the four " BRIC " -- Brazil, Russia, India and China -- economies expected to it big in the next 50 years or so. We are "feeling good", say financial planners.

When I think of the government's newly cleared Auto Fuel Policy, the image of Nero fiddling while Rome burnt comes to mind. The document apparently sets the roadmap to meet clean air targets in Indian cities -- in other words, show how to secure mobility and public health. Instead, all it reflects -- in the worst way -- the ostrich-like mindset of government scientists, planners and in particular, Indian industry captains and their cheerleaders.

Last week, on a visit to the cold desert of Ladakh, I learnt something important. It made me see the ongoing agricultural negotiations at the World Trade Organization's meet in Cancun, Mexico in a different light. I learnt that what the industrialised world is doing to our agriculture, Punjab and Haryana and the Indian government combined are doing to Ladakh's agriculture.

Last fortnight, I said I did not know how the two Cola giants would respond to our study on pesticides in soft drinks. Now I do. I have learnt how global corporations deal with public concerns.

A few days ago, most of India reeled under drought. Cities thirsted for water. Karnataka's chief minister S M Krishna -- seeing water supply in his software capital reduced to once in three days -- announced desperate measures, such as prayer. The entire country seemed to await the first emancipatory raindrop.

Why are we, as a nation, so non-serious about following through on actions? Is it the curse of a foreign language in which we act, but not think, that we pick up words and so believe the deed, too, is done? Take any major challenge that has confronted decision-making in the past and you will find this pattern: a vocabulary mastered; an intent not internalised. And policy never translated into effective practice.

Five successive years of debilitating drought. It had rained for barely a few hours last year in the region of Rajasthan I was visiting. I expected wasted lands, desolation and nearly-abandoned villages. Instead, I could see greenery, irrigated agriculture, people tending to vegetable crops and livestock. The village diary -- a one room stopshop with an electronic machine to detect fat content in the milk -- was lined with people bringing their product for sale. I found out: they had sold Rs 34 lakh worth of milk last year.

Last fortnight I wrote about the different models of water privatisation. Questions continue to haunt me, but let me try and work towards some resolution. Firstly, there is the issue of pricing of water for the relatively rich of the developing world. It is evident that urban and industrial sectors in the developing world do not even begin to pay for the water they use; indeed, they misuse it in their toilets and factories. Therefore municipalities are bankrupt and this, along with all other inefficiencies, makes them lousy service providers.

Recently, I met some senior British diplomats. Conversation moved to the impending war in Iraq and its "rationality". It became heated. I wish to share a piece of Bushspeak the discussion ended with, leaving me stunned. "Remember, there will be war. The us wants it. But if you are with them now, it will count afterwards." With us, or against us. No other choice.

After we released our study on pesticide residues on bottled water, an experienced science journalist called me to verify something I had said in the press conference. He wanted to know if it was really true that the government had not laid down quantified standards for pesticide residues in drinking water, let alone packaged drinking water. "You mean to say that even till date we do not have norms for what are acceptable and permissible levels of pesticide residue in water?" he kept asking.

It has been a year since Anil Agarwal, the founder editor of Down To Earth, passed away. We remember him every moment. We work as his proxies. We work his dreams; they have become ours, too. His ideas changed many around the world. He changed the way we think. But he also left behind unfinished business. His ideas have changed policies, but not practices. Not as much as his restless energies desired to.

Four oil companies -- Indian Oil Corporation, Hindustan Petroleum Corporation, Bharat Petroleum Corporation and Reliance Industries -- have signed a memorandum with industry and scientific institutions for a study on "appropriate solutions" to air pollution. They will jointly pay for this study, which they say is necessary because current approaches to pollution control lack the "wisdom of the famous adage, think global and act local".

I remember how I first learnt about global warming. It was in the late 1980s. My colleague Anil Agarwal and I were searching for policies and practices to regenerate wasted common lands. We quickly learnt to look beyond trees, at ways to deepen democracy, so these commons -- in India, forests are mostly owned by government agencies, but it is the poor who use them -- could be regenerated. It became clear that without community participation, afforestation was not possible. For people to be involved, the rules for engagement had to be respected. To be respected, the rules had to be fair.

What has President George Bush's international strategy paper released this fortnight, have to do with the British government sponsored report of the Commission on Intellectual Property Rights? Nothing technically. The first is about us foreign policy, where the president has given his country a messianic role in making the world "not just safer but better".

Dear Mr Vajpayee,
A few months ago you spoke passionately about the need to involve local communities in water management. Releasing the national water policy document, you said harnessing every drop of rainwater is a national priority and then went on to say "This is a powerful idea, whose time has come."

Even though you spoke our language, I accused you, in these columns, of doublespeak. Your government, I reminded you, did not even begin to appreciate the concept of community based water management strategies.

The new buzzword in the climate research circles is vulnerability and adaptation. Just like most of the climate discussion the words have become so dense, that their meaning is lost on most, except the most conversant and involved. It is almost as if the effort is to convolute the science and to disfranchise the ordinary in the dialogue.

Call it paranoia or plain silliness. But it is amazing. The Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) has been studying gas pricing in the country to assess how environmentally acceptable fuels can be promoted. My young colleague went to collect information from the Indraprastha Gas Limited -- the compressed natural gas (CNG) supplier for Delhi -- and found, by accident, a file lying on the table with his name and educational qualifications on it. He opened it wondering what the managing director was doing with a file on him and copious notes of their informal discussions.

In matters of global affairs today, there is one question that is never directly asked. But it is on everybody's mind, if not on the tip of the tongue. People don't ask it simply because they don't have an answer. The question defies a solution in current times. So it is best to bury it, knowing fully well there is no progress without resolving it. The question, if you have not guessed by now, is just how the world will deal with the waywardness of the us?

I never thought I would be writing an article about airports. But I am provoked to repeat what we know and to say what would not be said often in connection with the sorry state of our public spaces.

We need to give the devil his due. Finance minister, Yashwant Sinha, has drawn flak from almost all sides for his nightmare budget 2002. But there was one item, which missed most eyes, which said that the budget would provide deduction for afforestation projects on degraded non-forest land.

THIS fortnight, US president George Bush made it clear that his country would continue to pollute the global atmosphere, as before. No matter what this means for climate change, which scientists now say is getting real and worse. This is not news, because Bush has said again and again that efforts under the Kyoto Protocol to set legally binding emission reduction targets for rich countries like his are "fatally and fundamentally flawed".

What do you say when a Cabinet minister -- an articulate and vocal one at that -- refuses to appear on a television panel to discuss a serious public policy issue with you? Ram Naik, the Union minister of petroleum and natural gas and I were invited by a private television network to discuss the A R Mashelkar committee report on auto fuel policy. Naik threw a fit. The compromise was that he would go first, to defend the report and then I would go on air to discuss its implications on public health and pollution control policies.

just whom would you vote for as the greatest Gandhian in the Indian sub-continent of the post-Independence era? Our vote will unhesitatingly go to the Pakistani social scientist Akhtar Hameed Khan, in whose memory social activists from all over Pakistan met on October 12, 2000, his first death anniversary in Karachi.

to have or not to have a legally binding convention to manage the world's forests has once again taken the centre-stage in global environmental negotiations. The issue of a forest convention, as this proposed legal instrument is known for managing the world's forests, was the most contentious and divisive item on the global agenda at Rio.

Hasn't Rio clearly shown we were living under an illusion when we thought environmental concerns would make a difference in the world power structure. Why should things change now?
We have new developments stemming from a deteriorating economic position worldwide. There is a growing trend towards nationalism and fundamentalism that threatens the peace dividend gained at the end of the Cold War. We have to invest this peace dividend in the struggle against nationalism and chauvinism.

WEN LIAN TING, Malayasia's permanent representative to the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), won the epithet of "dragon lady" during the Rio summit for her unwavering opposition to the forest convention. The tough UNCED prepcom meetings, spread over a period of two years, required enormous mental and physical stamina, which Ting displayed in good measure.