Scorching salt

As the world celebrates yet another Environment Day, groups of marginalized people in some part of the globe or the other get evicted from their …

Food vs fuel

India must focus on rainfed farming

There was a time when it was said that the Indian budget was a gamble on the monsoons. That is not the case any more, with industrial production …

Poor enforcement, weak laws make poaching an easy game

Salman Khan might be in the arclights because of his poaching misadventures. But many people routinely get away with killing protected animals; …

Saga of two villages

Sukhomajri was a dirt-poor village in Haryana. It started pulling itself out of its hole in the late 1970s, making a dizzying ascent to …

Empty Promises

The high-level conference at Rome was called to find a way out of the global food crisis. A series of consultations with experts preceded this …

Interstate dirty dumpers

Industrial units illegally dump hazardous waste in remote fields, often crossing state borders, to dodge the law and cut costs. ravleen kaur …

Deep waters

Puducherry's plans for a new port have prompted unprecedented protests. Allegations of a huge land grab facilitated by procedural violations and …

Goa must grow...but how?

On January 26, 2007, the government of Goa withdrew its newest blueprint for the development of the state, called the Regional Plan 2011. …

Hiware Bazar - A village with 54 millionaires

Hiware Bazar, a village in Maharashtra's drought-prone Ahmednagar district, was sliding into an abyss after degrading its environment. But in …

Climate change conference- World leaders fail to act again

The 12th Conference of Parties to the UN climate convention saw the setting up of an adaptation fund to help poor countries. Ritu Gupta …

No public transport?

Cars are swamping roads at an unprecedented rate, outstripping the increase in road space. The results are congestion, reduced mobility and …

30,000 farmers demand Hirakud dam water

Western Orissa is witnessing an upheaval. In the eye of the storm is the Hirakud dam. Over 300,000 farmers dependent on its water for irrigation …

How green is your building?

The building's green credentials have been recognised internationally, most notably by the us Green Business Council (usgbc). The Washington-…

Food processing industry takes a toll on country's health

Eating at home isn’t the in thing anymore. Hanging out is hip, especially in the mushrooming fast food joints that blister the skylines of …

Cockpit

In early December 2007, the country prided itself on providing the world with a road map to check the highly pathogenic avian influenza virus H5NI.…

The hockey-stick curve

The problem of and solutions to climate change. The imperatives of transition on the eve of the Bali meet

Small car revolution Who cares about congestion, pollution

The ultra-cheap small cars in the pipeline will tilt the skewed balance against public transport and two-wheelers irretrievably. The result will …

Meaning of 'forest' set to change in India

How should a 'forest' be defined in India? The Union ministry of environment and forests is currently preoccupied with this question. Placing …

Private vehicles eating into scare public land

Private vehicles are clogging city streets, as they grow at a frightening pace. Hidden subsidies help park them on scarce public land and …

Rising sea levels and tidal erosion eating up Sunderbans

Rising sea levels are real. A trip to the Sunderbans, in the Bay of Bengal, shows how devastating it can be in tandem with insidious tidal erosion.…

Reservoir of dams

Arunachal Pradesh is awarding hydroelectric projects to private companies at the breakneck speed of one every nine days without proper scrutiny. …

A Renewable Crisis

The last time there was a major push for renewable energy alternatives to polluting fossil fuels was in the aftermath of 1970s oil shock. And then,…

Bird populations in India dwindling at alarming rate

Sponge iron industries are killing fields

The sponge iron industry is growing fast and polluting alarmingly. K Radhika in Chhattisgarh and Maureen Nandini Mitra in Jharkhand and Orissa …