True growth is about overcoming hard challenges
IN THE developed world, conducting business today is also about being environmentally accountable. Governments have imposed stringent regulatory …
Deafening Noise
Constant exposure to noise can make one deaf. The major culprit is road traffic. Can one avoid noise? It’s difficult. Checking it, however, …
Tall Blunder
In 1996, industries in Delhi were hit by a series of court orders requiring them to take measures to reduce pollution 1,328 industries were …
"It is wiser for industry to invest in pollution control"
He was the archetypical activist-bureaucrat. For A N YELLAPPA REDDY, former special secretary to the government of Karnataka's department of …
The Method Behind The Madness
When the official system learns to loot the official treasury, it also targets the natural estate, the biggest property of the modern state. Good …
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 …
What's cooking in India's largest biogas plant
Methan village in Sidhpur tehsil, Patan district of Gujarat saves 500 metric tonnes of fuelwood annually. They've been doing it for the last 15 …
Pollution pays
Whenever the issue of how to end pollution is raised, it hits a block: technology. Take the case of air pollution: among other things, the issue …
The CNG imperative
More than 50,000 additional deaths will occur over the next ten years, from 2001 to 2010, from toxic particles in Delhi if the Supreme Court …
Miles to go
Is the government serious about introducing compressed natural gas (CNG) as a standard fuel for Delhi's vehicles? Have adequate steps been taken …
Cries of anguish
Most Indians are defenceless against the fine toxic particles in the air -- largely products of vehicular emissions -- and scientists are finding …
River restoration is not just an ecological act
Despite decades of restoration efforts by a rich ensemble of state-development actors, cultural heritage votaries and rights activists, the …
What it takes to clean a river
It is the tale of two European rivers. The Rhine and the Danube. No river system in the world has a density of industrial agglomerations …
Exhausting Practices
Prescribed as the antidote for all problems related to vehicular pollution, Pollution Under Control (PUC) certificates have been an obsession …
Real estate on water
Lakes were critical for Indian cities. They prevented floods and recharged groundwater. Today, these holes in the ground are either lucrative …
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 …
The lake colony
Call them the "lakers". Some 10,000 of them. Parts of the Dal (land and water) belong to them. And when they feel the need to make a …
Singapore: Breathing Easy
It's all about taming traffic: keeping a tab on the number of vehicles on the road, and promoting public transport. Singapore, one of the …
There's nothing august about Mumbai
July 26, 2005: It began raining at 11 am. In the next 24 hours, India's most populous city received 944 mm of rainfall. The resultant flood …
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.…
The political economy of defecation
This is a story about Delhi and the Yamuna, about the relationship between one of India's richest cities and one of her most revered rivers. The …
Clear as air
The grim picture of a lung scarred by pollution is of no shock value today. An ailing populace continues to throw up a phlegm of protests. To …
No land for best option: composting
Thiruvananthapuram, the capital city of Kerala, does not have a municipal waste-treatment facility. Its only plant to treat solid waste, located …
How Bellary was laid waste
Karnataka’s Lokayukta Santosh Hegde’s report is a sordid story on the rise of India’s mining poster boy, Bellary. The …
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