Newest Biggest Deal
In Kyoto, in 1997, nations of the world agreed the Clean Development Mechanism (cdm) was a competent way to combat climate change. The process …
Bamboo rising
Five years after it was implemented, the Forest Rights Act finally takes root. Communities across the country rush to claim rights over forests …
Tibetan landscape may soon disappear
In the 1980s, when very few people visited Tibet, Michael Buckley, an Australian settled in Canada, wrote the first Lonely Planet guide to the …
What goes down must come up
It is a crime. Numerous factories deliberately inject untreated effluents directly into the ground, contaminating underground aquifers. Down To …
Tribunal on trial
It has been four years since the National Green Tribunal (NGT) Act was passed by Parliament for effective and expeditious disposal of cases …
Clash of the cyberworlds
In an increasingly digital world, the issue of Internet freedom and governance has become hugely contested. Censorship and denial of access occur …
Troubled Beautiful Minds
They are there—each residential area has its mentally disturbed people; each family has anecdotes of crazy relatives. Nobody wants to …
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 …
'It is strange that government promotes products which directly cause cancer'
Pankaj Chaturvedi, associate professor and head and neck cancer surgeon at Tata Memorial Hospital, Mumbai, was recently honoured with the Judy …
Organic thread
Even as Bt cotton invaded Indian fields in the past few years, some farmer groups kept pushing for organic cotton. In 2009-10, production in …
GM crop benefits are all in future
Nearly 40 years ago, Marc Van Montagu of Ghent University in Belgium, along with fellow researcher Jeff Schell, discovered that Agrobacterium …
Sponge iron’s dirty growth
In the years to come, India's expanding steel production will be largely driven by sponge iron. But its manufacturing process, based on coal, is …
Time-out
The 17th Conference of Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change met in Durban in December 2011. Negotiations were heated and …
Gentle on critical pollution
After declaring 43 industrial areas in India as critically polluted and imposing a moratorium on their expansion, the Union Ministry of …
Logjam
Whenever the Supreme Court pulls the trigger, why does it miss the target? Because governments like those of the seven Northeast states work …
Road to disaster
Fertile land is up for grabs in western Uttar Pradesh. Private developers are acquiring it to build apartments, industries, IT institutes, and …
FIGHTING FOR AIR
Weighed down by extremely high levels of particles in the air, some Indian cities seem to be coming of age with regard to vehicular air pollution.…
Sunshine sector loses sheen
About 40 kilometres from Delhi, in the bustling real estate market of Noida-Greater Noida, lies the biggest irony that the renewable energy …
Treasure in troubled land
International aid has supported the economy of Afghanistan for 12 years. With aid flow gradually declining, the war-torn country will now have to …
Green standards put india in the red
Several Western nations have decided to stipulate high environmental standards for the goods they import. The step demands the substitution of …
Housing Scheme
Hermit crabs aren't fussy creatures. Faced with a housing crunch, in many parts of the world, they have taken up abode in plastic and junk left …
Back to the pollution board
Industrialists in Agra and Firozabad are in a tizzy about the Supreme Court's order to close down more than 200 polluting industrial units near …
Models in mutilation
Modern industrial design, pandering to essentially Western consumer-led markets, has spelt doom for the environment. The author, therefore, …
Winding roads to welfare
Humans just do not live by bread alone. But to climb the steps leading to total welfare, somewhere that equilibrium between work and …
"Farmer's income is more important than foodgrain production"
Eminent agricultural scientist and chairperson, National Commission for Farmers (NCF), M S Swaminathan talks to Sourav Misra on agricultural …