Polluted and ignored
Talk about air pollution in India and everybody thinks of the four metropolitan cities. But the ambient air quality in even smaller cities and …
Fabled Fruits!
Taking off from its climatic range - Himalayan to tropical - India has much to offer in terms of fruit diversity. Large varieties of major fruits …
A tale of two peoples
Just as Brazil and Nigeria lie Geographically parallel to each other along the Atlantic, the fates of their seem sealed in a similar fashion. …
The last frontier
The Earth's overexploited seas are in danger of turning into the Last Frontier. In giant, demonic trawls, the World's oceans are being …
Puppets on purse strings
At the International Conference on Finance for Development (ffd) held last month in Monterrey, Mexico, rich countries once again rejected new, …
The chemistry of living death
THE world's biggest industrial disaster has been rendered today its most trivial. Criminal corporate culpability and governmental concern for its …
A perfect world
A majority of the earth's ecosystems today are in a state of 'accelerated death', one that can be traced to activities structurally linked with …
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 …
Hot and anxious
Global climate change is today a spectre which allows for no ostriches. Scientific data is piling up to indict human activity as the source of …
Lost Eden
For over 2 months now, the hills of Simlipal in Orissa have been inundated by fierce monsoon showers. Thick foliage dripping water on the …
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 …
The power game
Non-governmental organisations (NGOs) have become increasingly influential in the past 50 years. Awareness of human rights and social and …
The double-edged sword
Picture this: A doctor draws out cells from a foetus to diagnose if it will develop into a normal child. A simple and quick test of the sample …
Will the Aral Sea ever come back?
"Forgive us, Aral. Please come back." These words written in chalk, on a ship sftKk in a sandy wasteland, which was once the bustling shore of …
Criminal waste
Reduced to filthy, foul smelling cesspools, with mosquito larvae arawing their lazy, intricate patterns on the green surfaces, the same takes …
Negotiations on biological resources inch forward
The conservation and sustainable management of biological resources was high on the international agenda in February 2004. Representatives of …
Only connect?
Telecommunications and the television (TV) broadcasting sectors have been most instrumental in ushering in what is called the 'Information society'…
Wild & fragile
The Western Ghats in the south of India have forests which are, for some plant species, their exclusive home on this earth. No wonder then, that …
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 …
Born dead
In the story from the great Indian epic, Mahabharat , the legendary hero Arjun was once telling his wife Shubhadra how to penetrate the …
Chipko: an unfinished mission
In 20 years, Chipko has acquired many facets, primarily as a conservation endeavour by the poor, a struggle for local control of natural …
Cola major gets a taste of panchayat power
A multi-billion-dollar transnational corporation has had to blink first in an eyeball-to-eyeball dispute with an obscure panchayat of Kerala. On …
Eyeing the coastlines
Further dilution of the rules safeguarding the Indian coastal ecosystem has just been proposed. Under the guise of providing land to poor …
In search of the missing
In the undivided Koraput district of Orissa, there exist 190 villages that have slowly been pushed off the map of India. Hurled by fast-track …
A midsummer dream
Anyone will tell you that follow-ups are not a story. Journalism is not about following stories of specific villages and how they fare year after …
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