Innovative administrator

I first met R Gopalakrishnan when he was the district collector of Jhabua in Madhya Pradesh. This was in the 1980s when India was in the throes of a crippling drought. Jhabua looked like a moonscape—nothing but arid and thirsty land and desperate people. Anil Agarwal had gone there for a meeting of tribal groups, fighting for their rights over forestland. I had accompanied him.

When battered people took on the pesticide industry

Today, I want to tell you a true story of extraordinary courage. The past week, I was in Kasaragod, a district in Kerala, splendid in beauty and with abundant natural resources, but destroyed by the toxic chemical, endosulfan.

Making an informed choice

When transnational carmakers talk about giving a choice to the customer regarding the fuel that will power their vehicle, they know that the average buyer in India knows next to nothing about the dangers of diesel. And the companies do precious little to make the customers aware. After all, it is business at stake. Public health be dammed. But people find out. In a democracy, it can be quite difficult to suppress information. And when they are aware, customers are quite capable of making an informed choice.

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Budget through the years post liberalisation

1992 Will liberalisation destroy the environment?

Run up to Budget 2012-13

Union finance minister Pranab Mukherjee will present the Centre's budget for the year 2012-13 at a time when economic growth has nosedived to 6.1 per cent from a high of 9.3 per cent in the first quarter of 2010-2011. This year's budget, to be presented after the election results of the five poll-bound states are announced, happens to mark 20 years of economic liberalisation.

REVIVING WISDOM

water harvesting is no longer a subject for academic discussions or committee room confabulations. It is a living subject today for thousands of devotees whose numbers are growing by the day. Today 5,000, five years later 50,000, and 10 years after 500,000 -- that is, one rainwater warrior in every village of India.

Science for ecology

Down To Earth and the Centre for Science and Environment announce that the winner of the 2001 Green Scientist Award is V P Sharma , former head of the Malaria Research Centre.

Beyond The Billion

THE mythical clock has struck. A billion and ticking at the rate of 29 per minute, 1790 per hour... The rise in human numbers is accompanied by a host of problems. Knowledge of the carrying capacity of India's lands is extremely limited. There is no worthwhile study covering even the area of a development block, let alone a state or the entire nation.

A belief in tradition