Will future cities be friendly?

It is rather naive to delink urbanisation from the rising lifestyle aspirations and the imperatives of economic development. Opportunities, power and prestige are some of the irresistible attributes of the growing urban centres which attract migrants on a large scale. In India economic liberalisation and urbanisation have become complimentary to each other. Although the wave of urbanisation is sweeping the entire Asian subcontinent and giving it the kind of preeminence that Europe and North America enjoyed due to their industrial socio-economic set up, it is India and China which are drawing attention. It is estimated that by 2025 around 2.5 billion Asians will turn city dwellers which will be nearly 54 per cent of the world’s urban population.

Winter visitor to a cold land

With one arm in a sling and my hands frozen, my numb fingers struggled with the binoculars. I was watching birds at Sela Pass in western Arunachal Pradesh, on the way to Tawang. I had taken the trip despite the fractured wrist. Situated at 4,200 metres above sea level, Tawang was bitterly cold in December. The birds obviously felt the cold as well and early in the morning there was little activity.

Your gods are mine

When patdehri (chief priest) Halu Thanapati, 68, gets possessed, he hastily dives into the badan khaal—the yoni of Goddess Duarseni, the supreme deity of his tribe—as though to suck the rare wisdom that ensures ‘existence’ on earth.

Here comes the sun

A short time ago, a friend requested help in sorting out the fundamentals of setting up a solar photovoltaic, or PV system, for his household energy needs. My first reaction was: “Too expensive, long payback period.” But my friend was insistent, and after a while the idea started appealing to me too. After all, solar energy is in the news almost every day. I started off with some basic research on where solar energy stands in India today.

An unsteady first step

It is increasingly becoming evident that the world may not be ready for a binding international climate treaty at the ongoing climate summit in Cancun, Mexico. Global attention is now shifting towards domestic policies in the major economies.

A pause on hydropower

The decision of the Union environment ministry to allow parts of the Ganga’s tributaries to flow freely in Uttarakhand, indicates there is finally some recognition of the environmental impacts of hydel projects, long hyped as clean energy producers.

In the name of the tiger

The struggle to protect the rapidly vanishing tiger is getting murkier by the day. Up to 100,000 families are slated for displacement, ostensibly to secure India’s tiger habitats. Unfortunately, most of the relocation taking place violates the law and may end up creating more conflicts that cause the tiger’s decline.

We, the consumers

Some ways usually adopted for conservation are nature reserves, biodiversity registers, pollution control measures, carbon-trading to check climate change and technologies to clean water and air. But they fail to strike at the root of modern conservation crisis: the insatiable appetite of a consumer. This appetite that defines our day-to-day lives has taken away the ozone layer, forests, rivers and minerals. Our culture, language, nationality and even religion legitimise consumption.

Dangerous liaisons

Sri Lanka is becoming a power hungry nation. Several coal power plants with a total generation capacity of 3,200 MW are on the anvil. The country’s new energy minister, Champika Ranawaka, wants a nuclear power plant by 2025. That’s a sure sign of change: Ranawaka started his career as an activist against coal power. He was the environment minister in the last government.

BBC does a Columbus

On September 20, BBC published a report in the Earth News section of its web edition that has had the global wildlife and conservation community abuzz.