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From protests to where in 2012?

Issue Date: Jan 15, 2012
2011’s person of the year, according to Time magazine, is “the protester”. Clearly, this is the image that has captured the world—from dissent against the lack of democracy and repression in large parts of West Asia to anger against economic policies in vast and disparate parts of the world. People, all over, are saying enough is enough. But what will happen to these voices in the coming years? Will the movements of protesters be enough to change the way the world runs its business? Do these movements even know what they want?

The bogey of green clearances

Issue Date: Oct 31, 2011
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.

Shifting sands of (mal) development

Issue Date: May 15, 2011
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.

Think differently, Mr Finance Minister

Issue Date: Mar 15, 2011
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.

How to approach environmentalism

Issue Date: Jan 31, 2011
2010 was a loud year for the environment. High profile projects—from Vedanta to Posco and Navi Mumbai airport to Lavasa—hit the headlines for non-compliance with environmental regulations.

Bullets are not the answer to development

Issue Date: Apr 30, 2010
The massacre of 76 policemen in Dantewada by naxalites is reprehensible. Yet we cannot brush aside the underlying poverty, deprivation and sheer lack of justice that are breeding tension and anger in vast areas of rural, tribal India.

2010: choose your future today

Issue Date: Jan 31, 2010
A new decade. For me¤ three decades of work in environment. I wonder: have matters improved since the early 1980s¤ when I began? Or¤ are things worse off? Where do we go from here?

Can we afford not to change?

Issue Date: Jul 15, 2009
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.

Elections 2009: Where is the green party?

Issue Date: Apr 30, 2009
Whenever election to India's Lok Sabha approaches, two questions tend to emerge: When will India get a green party? Are environmental issues important in our elections? The answers are interlinked; they relate to the nature of the Indian electoral system as well as the nature of India's environmental concerns.

Our smaller future

Issue Date: Mar 15, 2009
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.
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