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.
The power game
Non-governmental organisations (NGOs) have become increasingly influential in the past 50 years. Awareness of human rights and social and …
Large promises
Prime Minister Vajpayee is terribly interested in rural development these days. On his birthday he inaugurated Swajaldhara, a nation-wide water …
Faulty rehabilitation policy
On february 26, yet another full-page advertisement appeared in national dailies as a part of the ruling coalition's feel-good blitz in the build-…
An ad a day will keep voters away
How bizarre can a government policy decision get? India's first national policy on resettlement and rehabilitation for people affected by …
Farming out the problem
A recent report that the Union ministry of environment and forests may be "exploring the possibility of allowing private persons to breed wild …
The monsoon always catches the government unawares
First there was the mounting suspense. All of India awaited with bated breath the arrival of the south west monsoon. Would it arrive? Miraculously,…
"At what cost to the environment"
"The country's forest cover will be raised by five per cent during the Ninth Plan," said Suresh P Prabhu , the Union minister for …
Blow to anti-AIDS campaign as condom turns taboo subject
The paanwallah-doubling-up-as-a-condom-vendor ad has been taken off the air. Instead, Doordarshan will show a village council member warning …
"We are close to crisis point"
Agriculture and its subsequent effect on the environment, rapidly depleting natural resources like arable land and water, the slackening of the …
Agony of the waiting
There is a strange calmness in the oncology department of government hospitals though it is more crowded that most other sections. Everybody waits.…
Exhausting Practices
Prescribed as the antidote for all problems related to vehicular pollution, Pollution Under Control (PUC) certificates have been an obsession …
What goes down must come up
It is a crime. Numerous factories deliberately inject untreated effluents directly into the ground, contaminating underground aquifers. Down …
Who is watching GM crops?
As India gets ready to unleash a vast number of genetically modified (GM) food crops, politicians have joined activists in opposing engineered …
Tipaimukh Dam in Manipur driving a wedge?
Imphal, Manipur's capital, came to a grinding halt on August 28, with a strike being called. Imphal's people are habituated to bandhs, and most …
It is a crime. Numerous factories deliberately inject untreated effluents directly into the ground, contaminating underground aquifers. Down To …
The CNG sabotage
To clean up Delhi's air, the Supreme Court ruled in July 1998 that all public transport should move away from diesel and towards compressed …
I am green by choice , not by chance
Probably the first chief minister of Delhi to have taken a keen interest in the environment, Shiela Dixit has got a mixed response for her …
Cockpit
In early December 2007, the country prided itself on providing the world with a road map to check the highly pathogenic avian influenza virus H5NI.…