Battle zone: Humans vs elephants
Afterwards, an eerie silence envelops the field. There is only the crop -- no longer standing -- and the heavy tread gouged in the mud. This is …
Drought is in the mind
GOOD NEWS: There is more evidence to show that water harvesting can go a long way in dealing with drought and solving the water crisis, and even …
Political harvest
Report card: A scheme that can help solve the water crisis has become a tool to promote political interests of the ruling party Success level: Poor
Learning the mantra
Report card: The government realised its failures and learned from the civil society. Despite cases of corruption and some errors in planning, …
Missing the bus
The whole world is moving towards CNG. But the crisis of governance in Delhi keeps the air filthy
Union ministry of surface transport
Saboteur-in-chief. Is responsible for making procedures. Has botched them up, discouraging those keen on CNG
Rules and renegades
Pesticide regulations in India are lax. The industry has exploited the loopholes to corrupt the system. And the government has turned a blind eye …
Industry's Nemesis
A report by the National Institute of Occupational Health nails endosulfan. Is that why the pesticide establishment wants to keep it under wraps?
Super Market
Secretive. Exploitative. Is the market in Minor Forest Produce unmanageable? sopan joshi finds out
State inaction
The traditional forest dweller has had very few entitlements down centuries. Guardian of the forest, he has been regarded as encroacher by the …
Biotech industry has a new patron
Department of Biotechnology is playing venture capitalist to private companies to push biotech research in agriculture
Tata Energy Research Institute In service of polluters
The Swedish experts have identified traces of over 40 substances in diesel exhaust that are listed by the epa as hazardous air pollutants and …
Crisis brewing
Collapse of the former Soviet market and an indifferent attitude to quality clips Nilgiris tea industry
Meaning of 'forest' set to change in India
How should a 'forest' be defined in India? The Union ministry of environment and forests is currently preoccupied with this question. Placing …
Pesticides in our food
There is never any end to learning. And so, surprises. We have learnt, over 20 years, that environmental governance in India is lackadaisical. …
Pro-industry food safety and standards bill does not address safety concerns
"We may find in the long run that tinned food is a deadlier weapon than the machine-gun." -- George Orwell in his 1937 novel The Road …
Contest for pesticide
Demand for state control as Pesticides Management Bill is set to be tabled in Parliament
Kind to Cash
A short stop motion that shows all the schemes that a human being (woman) can avil of in her lifetime.
Tryst with rain
Following the monsoon failure of 1999-2000, two states - Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh - launched crash programmes to encourage water harvesting. An …
A toy called CRZ
The original coastal regulation zone (CRZ) rules passed in February 1991 had seven sections. They have been amended nearly twice that many times …
The virtual reality of being Indian
The remoteness of 190 villages in Orissa's undivided Koraput district is an elegy on governance. Over five decades, living in islands inside huge …
The shadow of a calamity
Among disasters, drought is the easiest to predict and manage. The Indian Meteorological Department's forecast of a "below normal" monsoon in …
Slum today, gone tomorrow
If the Union cabinet endorses a recent decision of the group of ministers, about 35,000 shanties will have to be removed from Mumbai's Santa Cruz …
India must focus on rainfed farming
There was a time when it was said that the Indian budget was a gamble on the monsoons. That is not the case any more, with industrial production …
June 30, 2003: The day conservation policy could have changed
Usually, the Union ministry of environment and forests (MoEF) does manage to stick to its guns in the face of adversity, or even rationality. But …