Polymeristic world

Guardians for the future

Today, vast factory trawlers are vacuuming every living thing off the floor of the oceans. Toxic wastes are being dumped on poor communities whose governments turn a blind eye. Millions of hectares of irreplaceable primeval forests are purposely being burned every year to make way for cattle ranches.

UN reviews road safety plan

ON APRIL 19 when the plenary of the UN General Assembly met in Washington to discuss road safety, the message was loud and clear: countries must act fast to save at least five million lives and prevent 50 million serious injuries during this decade.

Kudankulam meltdown

Letters - April 15, 2012

Authority to fight hunger

A way to live with the demon

I have often wondered whether I am doing the right thing by using anything that looks like plastic or buying anything remotely associated with it.

Secretive tribunals, hidden damages

The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) appears to have generated the most number of investor-state treaties and shows that rich countries are as much at risk as developing countries. Would you agree?  Interviewee:  Gus Van Harten

India’s many investment treaties make it vulnerable

Would it be correct to say that all countries are at risk from BITs and FTAs although the treaties are targeted at developing countries? Interviewee:  Nathalie Bernas...

Whither peoples’ movements

The Rio summit proved graphically that even in Northern countries such as the US and Canada and the European countries, national and regional level movements on issues such as environment, sustainable development and toxic wastes did not find a voice either in the process leading up to UNCED or in UNCED itself.

Aryan invasion debunked

IT WAS German linguist Max Muller who in the 19th century proposed that 3,000-4,000 years ago an Indo-European (the Aryans) tribe invaded the subcontinent and brought along with it the caste system. The Aryans purportedly displaced the indigenous Dravidians, pushing them down South.