How MGNREGA blew Rs 10,853 crore
The “little known” success story of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) has unfolded as a disaster. …
`Religion is not doing enough to help wildlife'
George Schaller is one of the first scientists to study and rediscover several rare and charismatic species. These include the mountain gorillas …
Debate: Has economic liberalisation threatened India’s environment and natural resources?
The inaugural issue of Down To Earth (May 31, 1992) coincided with India opening up its economy. We carried a debate on how economic …
Need vs greed
There is little talk of curbing water use in urban India. Cities’ insatiable water demand, coupled with leaky pipelines, is leading to …
The best of Indian science
In this and the following issue, DOWN TO EARTH presents a review of India's ten best scientific research projects. The selection is based on the …
The drowning of a city
There are both in Delhi - criminal waste, unendurable want. And in this city of verdant veneers, nowhere does the callous politics of …
Plagued by rats
In the months of August and September 1994, panic gripped the country as news of the plague epidemic in Surat spread. Few had cared to ponder …
"Indian science is run by a mafia"
p m bhargava is the founder-director of the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (ccmb), Hyderabad. He has also been a former fellow of …
Geared to derail
Late last year, the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Indian Railways (IR) castigated the for squandering money on import deals which would …
Documenting the Northeast's tribal laws
Land is central to the tribal identity in the region too easily abbreviated 'northeast'. Jeuti baruah knows this too well. As director of the Law …
Lava-ka-Baas: The blame game
When one contests the dominant, it is of utmost importance that all actions and their outcome be above doubt. There isn't the faintest margin of …
Rain check
The column width dedicated to rain in the mainstream print media has hit an all-time high. A few days ago, television news reporters with that …
Desperately seeking experts
The environmental situation in India is grave -- our natural resources are getting depleted at an alarming rate and there is an acute paucity of …
Are human beings edging out all other life forms?
Northeast India occupies 8 per cent of the country's geographic area, and supports 3.8 per cent of India's total population (2001 census figures).…
Break the Deadlock
In 1995, many in India were outraged to learn that a university in the US was granted a patent to make and sell haldi (turmeric) for its wound …
A treaty too many
India is learning that there is a heavy price to be paid for the large number of bilateral investment treaties, or BITs, it has signed in the …
State of worry
After a long gap of 10 years, India has released the National Family Health Survey 2015-16, though only for 13 states and two Union Territories. …
"The world needs a new work culture, not just jobs"
Austrian-born Frithjof Bergmann, a professor of philosophy at the University of Michigan, USA, founded the Center for New Work in 1984 to help …
Most disease maps unreliable
Disease maps help capture distribution of pathogens and their transmission intensity. An international team of researchers has reviewed 355 of …
Pocket air sensors
Rapid urbanisation coupled with growing industrialisation has increased the levels of pollutants in the air manifold. But detecting these …
'Workers' safety is connected with the environment'
The increasing risk of industrial closure on environmental grounds seems to be stirring many trade unions in India to sensitise themselves to …
Debate renewed on blame for global warming
THE 1990-91 edition of World Resources, brought out by the Washington-based World Resources Institute (WRI), concluded developing countries as a …
Hell and high water
The incendiary Sardar Sarovar Dam project came to a head on March 15 this year, when Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA) agitators, led by the …
'Coal will dominate at least for the coming 200 years'
ALEX C TOOHEY, a chemical engineer, is the chief executive of the World Coal Institute (WCI), London. The WCI is a non-profit, non-governmental …
"We have set up a toothless pollution control board"
Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB): one would expect an organisation with a name like that to penalise polluters and care about the quality …