World Food Day: investing in food security for a better future

As the number of hungry people is on the rise again globally, we must invest in rural development to drive about a change

What makes 2017 Atlantic hurricane season unprecedented?

Tropical cyclones like hurricanes and typhoons are changing character due to global warming. Not only are they becoming more frequent, wind speeds are also intensifying much quickly, putting the lives of coastal communities at grave risk and causing widespread devastation.

The dark side of big data

Latest Facebook data breach episode is a reminder that rise of Big Data represents a massive engineering of society with ominous implications for notions of freedom, privacy and justice

As climate change makes hurricanes more intense, can US live in denial anymore?

Climate scientists agree on the probability that hurricane seasons like 2017 will be repeated more often as average annual temperature rises due to global warming

Farrukhabad children deaths show the rampant mismanagement in government hospitals

49 children have reportedly died in a month in Uttar Pradesh’s Farrukhabad district hospital due to lack of oxygen supply, but the case seems to be part of a larger pattern 

How to make Africa food self-sufficient, again?

Africa is the only continent that imports more food than it produces. With ground reports from 10 African countries, Down To Earth's editorial team speaks to experts and policymakers on how Africa can achieve food security

Raising superbugs

Poultry farms are reservoirs of multi-drug resistant bacteria and play a major role in their spread, shows the latest CSE study

Why does Mumbai sink almost every monsoon?

Mumbai comes to a standstill every time it receives heavy rainfall for consecutive days. Why is the city not prepared to deal with such extreme events?

Ujjwala scheme: Are cleaner cooking fuels affordable and accessible?

The Centre’s Ujjwala programme can be a game changer, but a few bottlenecks remain

Is scrub typhus the likely cause behind Gorakhpur tragedy?

Media reports suggest that the deaths could be due to scrub typhus, a disease cause by Orientia tsutsugamushi, a rickettsial group of bacteria

Unpredictable weather, unreliable insurance, unbelievable profit to companies

Farmers across India suffered heavy losses when the monsoon turned out to be a non-starter. The Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana, the government's flagship crop insurance scheme, was expected to help them tide over the crisis. It turned out to be a non-starter too

Mission Madness

In their desperation, officials are adopting coercive ways to stop open defecation. Sushmita Sengupta, Snigdha Das and Rashmi Verma look into the ethical and practical challenges in achieving the Swachh Bharat Mission

For environmental rights defenders, 2016 was the deadliest year on record

India emerged the fourth deadliest country in the world for land and environmental rights activists

Power Play

New Rules for NGT appointments will further complicate the already strained relations between the judiciary and the executive

Why farmers now dread a normal monsoon

No major agrarian reform has happened in the 50 years since the Green Revolution. A normal monsoon cannot be assumed as the only incentive for farmers to sustain productivity. It's time India offered its food producers a new deal

Save our seas

The UN's first conference to save the oceans is a grand show of intent to reset our relationship with the largest sink of carbon dioxide and the biggest receptacle for human wastes. But will governments, industries and organisations stand by the big voluntary commitments they have made? Vibha Varshney reports from UN headquarters in New York

New systems, old habits

Launched in 2014, the new-age regulatory mechanism for highly polluting industries remains a non-starter due to poor planning, hasty execution and lack of enforcement

Multi-pollutant crisis in Delhi-NCR: Ozone pollution another deadly contributor

With high pollution levels and growing heat stress due to climate change, the ozone level is frequently exceeding the standards

Naini lake is depleting, but can we undo the wrongs?

Experts believe that obstruction in the subsurface recharge and increased abstraction of water to quench Nainital’s thirst are making the lake shrink

India's burning issue of crop burning takes a new turn

The pattern of burning crop residue in India is changing. The practice is no longer limited to the post-monsoon crop of rice or the northern states of Punjab and Haryana

Waking to the chemical spill in Delhi

Lives of about 500 schoolkids were put at stake when a toxic chemical leaked in a busy slum area in south Delhi on May 6. Down To Earth finds out the lapses and highlights the pressing concerns