Vital drip

Water ATM

As dawn breaks, two queues start forming at the only petrol pump in Lakshmangarh, a small town in Rajasthan’s Alwar district. One, obviously, is of people waiting to get their vehicles’ fuel tanks refilled. The other is in front of a simple metal box mounted on the petrol pump’s boundary wall. People like to call it ATM machine.

Keeper of grains

Agents of change

First comes chick

Redemption from litter

Letters - August 31, 2012

Organic elitism Big cities and towns are seeing a spurt in restaurants and shops selling all forms of organic products but the story of the livelihood of small farmers remains bleak (‘Organic universe’, July 16-31, 2012).

A promising pathway

Now that the Rio+20 summit is over, experts and the public at large have got busy analysing its outcome document. The media has already declared the conclave on sustainable development, held in the Brazilian city of Rio de Janeiro between June 20 and 22, a failure.

Letters - August 15, 2012

It’s business as usual

Future compromised

In the morning of June 19, bleary eyed negotiators left Pavilion 3 of Riocentro to return to their hotel rooms to freshen themselves up. A long round of intense negotiations had taken place the previous night to finalise the outcome draft of the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, also called Rio+20.