'Animals and their habitat are inseparable'
JON CHARLES COE, a landscape architect in Coe Lee Robinson Roesch Inc, USA, was instrumental in turning around the Atlanta zoo from a badly-…
'The aim of the restructuring is to create a lean, cost-efficient secretariat'
DECENTRALISATION is the new watchword at World Wide Fund for Nature International's (WWFI) headquarters at Gland, Switzerland. A restructuring …
'It is difficult to sustain a one-point literacy programme'
"Nature is not loved in India"
HARISH GAONKAR took his childhood passion for butterflies seriously enough to carve out an illustrious career in lepidopterology for himself. A …
'We must teach science in a more hands-on manner'
A professor in the department of chemistry, Delhi University, K V Sane has been instrumental in organising and directing a project on locally-…
'India is close to aquaculture disaster'
JOHN KURIEN, a faculty member at Thiruvananthapuram's Centre For Development Studies, which devotes itself to developing linkages between …
"In our village, we are the government"
At first glance, he seems just like any other Madia Gond tribal. Perhaps a little older than his age. But DEVAJI TOFA, who is only 38, is …
'Commercialisation alone can sustain non-conventional energy sources'
G V RAMAKRISHNA is a member of the Planning Commission, currently dealing with the energy sector. The former Indian Administrative Service …
Biotechnology assures leap in production
Tissue culture can change the face of agriculture, asserts Ajit Thomas, who heads a firm that has gone in a big way for biotechnology …
'I will not say Delhi is an environmental disaster'
Delhi is bursting at the seams from the pressures of rampant urbanisation. Everything that can possibly go wrong in this metro of 10 million …
'Privatisation can be a major threat to medical research'
Robin Fox, 54, the editor since 1989 of the premier international medical journal, Lancet, was in New Delhi recently for the Lancet Grand Round …
Crocodiles lend themselves very naturally to captive breeding
As far back as 1978, India's so-called "snake-man", ROMULUS WHITAKER, the man who played with reptiles as if they were spaghetti, …
'Deep sea fishing in India is already a flop'
THOMAS KOCHERY was one of the first persons in India to have taken up the issue of unsustainable exploitation of marine resources and its impact …
"India's health infrastructure was never something to be pround of"
The panic created when the plague rippled out from Surat and threatened other parts of the country exposed India's complete lack of resources for …
'Water planners ignore social issues'
Nepal is slated to be a major hydropower supplier in South Asia with the recent signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the …
What rural folk need is motivation
V B SALUNKE, a 58-year-old social worker, abandoned his engineering firm in 1972 to mobilise villagers towards community participation in the …
We can't regard forests as something without human presence
RUBENS RICUPERO, 57, Brazil's suave and diplomatic minister for environment, has an unenviable job: charting the destiny of the beleaguered …
"Water harvesting here is nota technique, but a culture"
ANUPAM MISHRA'S association with the Gandhi Peace Foundation (GPF) dates back to 1969. After working with the late Jai Prakash Narayan and the …
"Most future decisions will be business decisions"
The man who has hrought the Calcutta wetlands ecosystem to international limelight, DHRURAJYOTI GHOSH is still enchanted by challenges. As chief …
'Mass housing is a self-defeating concept'
SUHASINI AYER-GUIGAN is an architect concerned with issues of rural development and habitat. Holding a degree in architecture from the Delhi-…
'I don't expect largescale policy initiatives in the environmental sector'
JONATHAN LASH heads the Washington-based World Resource Institute (WRI) and is the co-chairperson of the Presidential Commission on Sustainable …
I hate scavenging, but what else can I do?
Rameshwari has been working as a scavenger in the pilgrim town of Ajmer in Rajasthan for the last 15 years. She abhors her work, yet she does it …
"I am neither here, nor there"
Young Saif Ali is one of a handful of bhanyara (nomadic) Gujjars of northern Himachal Pradesh who attend college. But education has led him into …
'India way ahead in tackling waste'
PAUL CONNET, professor at the Chemistry department, St Lawrence University, New York, has toured 29 countries in the last 11 years, educating …
The plague took us by surprise
ASHISH KUMAR MUKHERJEE is the Director General of Health Services (DGHS), and as the country's topmost health bureaucrat, was the man …