Online activism: internet games

Video games on the Internet no longer spell just mindless escapism for misguided kids. Many of the most popular games today also involve role-…

Anytime is ad time

Companies rely on advertising to convince people to buy things they don't need. They also use advertising to salve their easily hurt egos. Four …

Save the Nu/Salween river

China's plan to build a series of dams over southeast Asia's second largest river has evoked a strong response from environmental, human rights …

Advertisements: Flu good, no?

Avian influenza (AI) is spiralling out of control in Asia. So also is the spin being put to the disease. There was the spectacle of Thailand …

Consumer guide to prawns

Here's an interesting way to combat environmental and human rights impacts: don't annoy the consumers (who have no idea about the conditions in …

Review: Four films on climate change

Climate change. Two words which hold, between them, some of the most complex as well as vigorously debated issues of all times. Changing Climates,…

Book review: Commercial cultivation of medicinal plants

It is an obvious business risk for a farmer to give up growing conventional crops that have assured returns and start growing medicinal plants. …

Book review: Waterlines by Amita Baviskar

Rivers are wellsprings of life. They give birth to civilisations, sustain livelihoods and sometimes even trigger wars. Rivers inspire awe and …

Book review: Water: Perspectives, Issues, Concerns

This is a work of encyclopaedic scope. The subjects it deals with range from an in-depth study of the treatment of water in the Indian …

Origins of Indo-European languages

Now evolutionary biologists have jumped in where linguists fear to tread, namely the stormy question of when and where Indo-European languages …

EU legislation - The wrong note

The music industry is crying out loud against eu legislation for protecting intellectual property, complaining that it falls short of what is …

Book review: Inventing Global Ecology by Michael Lewis

In the 1950s and 1960s India used to import not only subsidised sewing needles and milk, but also wildlife conservation science from the US. …

My report is not an industry report: T S R Subramanian

The High Level Committee (HLC), constituted by the Union Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change (MoEF&CC) three months ago to …