The poverty of policy

It is often said that the next war in the world will be fought over water. I do not know if this prophecy will come true. But I do know that skirmishes and even full-fledged battles over water are here to stay in India. And I also know that these battles are not innate to our country. They are deliberate and willful creation of governments and their policies.

Who won it?

In a strange twist to the raging lumber dispute between the us and Canada, both nations have interpreted a recent World Trade Organisation (wto) ruling on the issue as a vindication of their respective stands.

In A Spot

the Union ministry of environment and forests ( mef ) has recently circulated draft rules on industry siting, a decade - and-a-half after the guidelines were first formulated. Choice of industrial sites has caused more conflict, between project proponents and the local people who will be potentially affected, than any other environmental issue. If the draft becomes a law, the rules will heighten this conflict.

Dying for a lake

"i am proud to die for the rights of the fisherfolk." These were the last words Bacchanidhi Behera uttered before he succumbed to a police bullet in the firing in Orissa's Sarano village in Khurda district on the night of May 29-30.