`Growing food is like printing your own money'
Ron Finley grows food and for this he has been branded as a guerilla gardener, a renegede, an ecolutionist. It all began four years ago, when Ron,…
Syringes that lock after use to be launched in India
Use of unsafe syringes causes over 1.3 million deaths the world over each year, according to the World Health Organization. In India, single-use …
"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 …
"Watershed management is not equitable"
N K Sanghi , director, National Institute of Agriculture Extension and Management in Hyderabad (Andhra Pradesh), has been advocating a modified …
"Clean air can save many lives"
CARTER BRANDON an environmental economist in the environment and natural resources division of the World Bank (WB), has done considerable work …
"We are not afraid to lay down more lives for our rights"
Chilika, Asia's largest brackish water lake in Orissa, is in the midst of a controversy that refuses to die. At stake is the livelihood of …
Small towns do not degrade the rural environment
Auroville, or 'the city of dawn', is a unique township located in a predominantly rural district of Villupuram in Tamil Nadu. At the time of its …
‘EIAs of mining projects have become a farce’
Christopher Albin-Lackey, senior researcher with New York-based non-profit Human Rights Watch (HRW), has documented the large-scale environmental …
Bt brinjal has no history of safe use
Jack A. Heinemann, professor of molecular biology and genetics at the University of Canterbury, New Zealand, has expertise in genetic …
"The DANGER to FORESTS is not over"
The subsidiary bodies of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UN FCCC) met from June 2-12 1998 in Bonn, Germany. A good …
"The management did not adhere to safety norms"
It is 15 years since 60 tonnes of methyl isocyanate (MIC) leaked outfrom Union Carbide Corporation's (UCC) plant in Bhopal, killing 5,000 people …
‘How can India be a defendant, and not a claimant in the Bhopal case’
Union law minister, Veerappa Moily, on October 27, announced the government will not pursue the ongoing lawsuit in the US for compensating Bhopal …
What's the fuss about Bt brinjal?
Mohammad Rafiqul Islam Mondal, director-general of Bangladesh Agricultural Research Institute (BARI), is among the handful of people who have …
It’s a demographic disaster
Bluntness marks Ashish Bose who has destroyed more myths about India’s development and population growth than anyone else. No government, …
'Ministries play the blame game'
Jagdish Bahadur, an expert on glaciers and former joint advisor, department of science and technology, and Syed Iqbal Hasnain, who heads the …
Agriculture is egocentric
Norman Uphoff, professor emeritus of government and international agriculture at Cornell University, US, likes to say that the system of rice …
‘Tribal philosophy can’t be ignored beyond a point’
At a time when climate change is emerging as a reality, indigenous people are eager to give-up their low-carbon lifestyle and join the bandwagon …
`We've strong evidence that eating sugar contributes to heart disease'
Kimber Stanhope, nutritional biologist at the University of California, Davis, US, is studying the health effects of fructose, a component of …
Shift grain bowl status from North to other regions of India
Balwinder Singh Sidhu, agriculture commissioner and chief conservator of soils in Punjab, is known for giving his opinion in a frank and …
‘The role of the state should be pragmatic, not ideological’
Calestous Juma is professor of Practice of International Development and faculty chair of Innovation for Economic Development Program at Harvard …
'I cannot be a mute spectator to the carnage of Ganga'
As Uttarakhand grapples with the task of repair and restoration, octogenarian environmentalist G D Agarwal's fast to free Ganga of dams continues.…
Role of climate change in tropical cyclones still unclear
Thomas Knutson is a research meteorologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in the US. He was the co-chairperson …
Chhattisgarh will not allow GM crops
Chandrasekhar Sahu, agriculture minister of Chhattisgarh, is passionate about making farming a viable proposition for farmers. He has written …
Nobel winner Paul J Crutzen on the neglect of nitrogen cycle
Paul J Crutzen received the 1995 Chemistry Nobel prize for showing that nitrogen oxides react catalytically with ozone, thus accelerating …