Terms of un-endearment

What should be the new terms of engagement?

Shadowy presence

A haze of pollutants, the size of the US, covers a part of the Indian Ocean sky creating fears of acid rain, low rainfall and a change in …

For the love of air

International experts meet to develop a blueprint for future action to improve air quality in Delhi

A watery affair

The real issues of global water management took a backseat as crisis-mongering and anti-dam protests hijacked the Second World Water Forum at …

Playing with facts

An affidavit filed in the Supreme Court by the Indian automaker TELCO suggests a misinterpretation of the WHO's views on air pollution. The …

Battling climate change

Technologies exist to arrest global warming. But the political will to implement them is missing

Talking in riddles

A recent protocol on compensation to victims of hazardous waste permits the generators to go scot-free

Green politics

Is your government signing away your future rights to the world's natural resources?

Strangers in their own land

The final notification of the Great Himalayan National Park has jeopardised the livelihood of a tribe of migratory pastoralists. It has also …

Whose responsibility is it anyway?

Two years after the Supreme Court directed the setting up of two independent fuel testing centres in Delhi, one is yet to be commissioned

Failing to come clean

It is unclear whether the Indian government supports the transfer of nuclear energy technology under the climate convention's Kyoto Protocol

Battle for turf

If the South wants to protect its interests against the power of the Bretton Woods institutions and WTO, it will need its own, equally powerful forum

Polluter says' principle

GEF should have been a liability fund, rather than a 'guilt fund' set up by the North to make up for the global damage it had caused

MAIght of OECD

A no-holds-barred treaty on investments would hand over the world on a platter to MNCs

Free, not fair

Does a country have the right to demand that its domestic standards on environmental protection be applicable to all countries?

Wood-headed proposal

After almost 10 years of fighting for or against a forest convention, there is not even a common view on why forests are under threat and what …

Toxic travellers

Developing countries are wary of the proposed treaty as chemicals like DDT are still used in many malaria-prone regions for vector control

Rio's stepchild

Northern countries still see desertification as a local problem caused by population pressures rather than international trade patterns and …

Biodiversity

To energise the biodiversity convention, the world will have to first deal with difficult countries like the US

Boiling point

Climate change negotiations get emotional because carbon dioxide emissions are closely related to individual lifestyles - and to national …

System error

The death of India's cancer control programme and the rise of cancers

Classified ?

The data is rudimentary. The analysis is poor. And is kept secret

Everybody's a Loser

The World Trade Organization's recent ministerial meet in Seattle, USA, will be remembered more for the protestors who turned the venue into a …

The sinking debate

The climate change negotiations have come to a halt over the issue of sinks. Neelam Singh discusses the associated complications

Forest war

Naxalism started as a movement against land alienation. Today it has become a popular movement against natural resource alienation, …