What triggers desertification in India
A low down on the most important causes behind desertification in every state of the country. Addressing these will be critical to meet targets …
Beads that can heat water
With fossil reserves fast depleting, new technologies promising more efficient use of renewable energy sources, especially the sun, are flooding …
Dark zones are human-made
Groundwater sustains almost 60 per cent of the irrigated land in India. Most districts in India today have larger shares of irrigated land under …
Path lab in a tablet
Kanav Kahol, an expert on biomedical informatics, quit his teaching job in the US and came back to India to create a technology that would …
Profit from the poor
Fifty-four suicides in Andhra Pradesh have blown the lid off the social posturing by microfinance companies. Before the news of the deaths sank …
IT's underbelly
India produces about 400,000 tonnes of electronic waste each year, growing exponentially. Handling this is a great challenge. What adds to it is …
Andhra's groundwater crisis & a trail of suicides
Groundwater has failed Andhra Pradesh’s farmers. Between 1997 and 2006, about 4,500 farmers committed suicide, unable to repay loans they …
Bt-by-Bt assessment
On November 10, 2002, people wearing 'Bollgard' caps visited cotton farmer R Narsimha Reddy at his home in Aleru, a village in Nalgonda, Andhra …
Everyone is stealing germplasm
When agronomist Ralladoddi Hampaiah was advisor to the Russian government, he discovered how easy it was to take genetic resources out of India. …
What goes down must come up
It is a crime. Numerous factories deliberately inject untreated effluents directly into the ground, contaminating underground aquifers. Down …
Forest war
Naxalism started as a movement against land alienation. Today it has become a popular movement against natural resource alienation, …
New milky way
Private players are entering the Indian dairy market in a big way. Dairy cooperatives, which ushered in the White Revolution, need to expand and …
Elementary failure
Since the Right To Education Act came into force on April 1, 2010, India has been witnessing an experiment that involves parents in enforcing a …
It is a crime. Numerous factories deliberately inject untreated effluents directly into the ground, contaminating underground aquifers. Down To …
‘There is not enough milk’
Amrita Patel was part of the White Revolution that made India self-sufficient in milk. She joined Kaira District Cooperative Milk Producers’…
Private affairs
The invitation was innocuous. The Confederation of Indian Industry (cii) -- the grouping of the large and most powerful industries -- was …
Unhealthy countryside
It was once associated with the rich and urban. Today, hypertension is fast spreading in rural India. This is a cause for concern because …
Wealth of forests withheld
Forest departments across the country owe millions of rupees to communities. For 20 years communities toiled under the Joint Forest Management …
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 …
Nothing to bank on
The government’s much-hyped Direct Benefit Transfer programme has hit a roadblock. Banks have failed to meet the huge demand for opening …
Long yarn
The cotton story is a tangled tale. In many parts of India, farmers are committing suicide. It's been a while Andhra Pradesh, Punjab and now …
How government is subverting Forest Rights Act
Does this official data betray a conspiracy? Only 1.6 per cent of the 2.9 million claims approved under the Forest Rights Act recognise community …
Rights without benefits
Over 1.3 million tribals and forest dwellers have got rights over the land they had been using for years under the Forest Rights Act. This can, …
Eye on the storm
Cyclone Phailin has not taken many lives but has left behind a trail of destruction that severely cripples people’s livelihood. What did it …
Flat in 20 days
Global climatic anomalies allied with local weather conditions produced the most freakish hailstorms in central and north India in February and …