New raj wars the old
Its high time the panchayati raj institutions in India reviewed their actual role in spelling out developmental processes
Crimes against the environment
The Environmental Crimes Bureau (ECB) of New Jersey in the US is a state agency that is entrusted with the job of taking action against those …
Reaction time
Electronic conferences can speed up decision making which lengthy, costly and conventional deliberations cannot
Locking horns with the bull
International agreements like the Basel Convention are not enough to defeat corporate agendas firmly rooted in the stock market
No laughing matter
Activists are increasingly resorting to attention-grabbing techniques to bring development issues into the public domain
Agenda for people's participation
Two new amendments to the Constitution promise greater effectiveness in civic administration and urban planning; but is that enough?
Southern solutions?
Sustainable industry could emerge in the South if it does not repeat the follies committed by Northern nations during their industrialisation process
For a new deal
The role of non-government organisations (NGOs) in the international arena is changing. They have to devise new strategies to consolidate their …
Bridge to nowhere
Sweden and Denmark, two of the world's most eco-friendly countries, compromise on environment to go ahead with the construction of Europe's …
Speak up!
As Brazil's energy industry undergoes an overhaul, consumers must take a more active role in protecting public goods
Budgeting for science
The government should not only increase funding for science and technology but overhaul institutions of research
Shades of equity
Negotiators from developing countries lack the strategy to put equity on the global climate change agenda. But the US has already begun to define …
Nature's whims and fancies
Early flowering of mango trees, rain constellations going haywire, disappearing nor'westers, shifting seasons - all these unusual phenomena can …
Trade-off- human rights and the market
The clarion call of open markets could override the North's 'insistence' on linking trade with human rights and environmental issues
Heart to heart
A tongue-in-cheek report of a conversation overheard at a bar during a meeting of the Commission for Sustainable Development.
Physics journal fosters spirit of enquiry
Physical Review, which began in 1893 as a monthly journal of indifferent repute, has evolved into a standard for the international physics community.
People are not the planet's pollutants
The consumerist tendency of our society has resulted in the branding of population explosion as the villain in a world that has place for everyone'…
Education must boost unity, end superstition
Learning in the present social context should lay more stress on inculcating social and ethical values that would bring Indians closer to each other.
Growing old in the wild
The conventional belief is that animals don't live into old age, but succumb much earlier to "unnatural" causes. Recent research, however, …
Only males need apply
With an increasing number of joint forest management projects being implemented, it is vital that forest departments become more gender sensitive.…
Defining environment stories
In the Western approach to stories on the environment, topics are wrapped in neat packages: from rainforests to big dams. But writing on rural …
Early education is the key to reducing birth rate
Every rupee invested on four years of primary education for girls would yield returns worth Rs 10 of investment on advertising contraceptive …
Truth is what my father taught me
A look at today's environmental issues through the eyes of two well-known poets, exclusive to Down To Earth
Have we forgotten Rio already?
India has failed in the basic work that it needed to do even before going to Rio -- define the pathway of sustainable development for itself
Bring scientists out of their ivory labs
There have been many a slip between developing technology and applying it to everyday life