Impotent plan?

Imampur village is in Nagar taluka of Maharashtra's Ahmednagar district, a rain shadow area. For more than two years now, the agriculture department has been implementing a watershed project here, using egs money. But when dte visited Imampur, it found out that while an entire hillock was covered with continuous contour trenches (ccts ), there was no tree plantation. Why?

Meltdown

Stunted stunt Driven by IT, plagued by it

Jobs Jobs Jobs

Jobs are what all Indians want. Governments know this. But they do not know how to create jobs. The problem is that the much-touted mantra of economic growth does not generate jobs. In fact, the reverse is quite true: India suffers from the growth-without-jobs syndrome.

On privatising water

Wherever they exist India's urban elite splash on subsidies B Ashok a regime of pro-rich subsidies have ensured India's urban elites happilly benefit from organised water supply and sewage treatment services, wherever they exist.

Cancun redux

Cancun: a paper tiger jurgen maier

Peace isn't elusive

Tourism...handicrafts...agriculture...forests... lakes - Jammu & Kashmir's (j&k) basis of survival for ages. They still constitute 98 per cent of the state's economy and sustain 90 per cent of its population. Kashmir's economy is nothing but a sensitive and organised use of its ecology.

By hook, crook or vision

The 1980s and early 1990s were a time, the world over, of increasingly stereotypical confrontations between industry and environmentalists. Ecological considerations formed no part of industrial productive strategies, argued environmentalists. Industry treated the ecosystem as a vast self-replenishing raw material procurement facility, and as a convenient dumping site. Nonsense, thundered industry captains. They would not be blackmailed by bird-lovers; nothing could compromise profit-margins.

The anatomy of congestion

From barrels to battlefields

The US President George W Bush is raring to launch an attack on Iraq. Whether it has weapons of mass destruction or not, Iraq certainly has the world's second largest reserves of petroleum after Saudi Arabia. Thanks to UN sanctions, it produces a mere fraction of its potential. The US, on the other hand, is the world's largest consumer and importer of oil. It is certain whatever else, the desire to control Iraq's oil lubricates the US war machinery.

Ecotourism: Scrambling for paradise

Seeking nirvana Rich, restless and willing to pay