New Age Approach
We need to go back to the drawing board to reinvent a green toilet. If necessary, to go back to our past and find technological innovations that …
Drowning In Human Excreta
Sanitation for urban India means building flush toilets and linking them to sewer systems. But the price of chasing this dream is leading to an …
"Subsidy culture has killed local agriculture"
Thupstan Chhewang, Chief Executive Councillor and chairperson of the Ladakh Autonomous Hill Development Council (LAHDC) speaks to Down To Earth.
Ladakh on the move
Ladakh is the one region in India where sustainable development is the only way ahead. Dry toilets, water efficient crops, cooperative farming, a …
Damodar - Ten years after
How has the river that flows through one of the most industrialised regions in India fared since it was first written about in 1993? Down to …
Climate change conference- World leaders fail to act again
The 12th Conference of Parties to the UN climate convention saw the setting up of an adaptation fund to help poor countries. Ritu Gupta …
Have technology, will survive
A green agenda based on the paradigm of pollution prevention can rescue the small-scale industry
Mere plans
Government proposes. Industry disposes. Programmes for cleaning up have very largely gone by the wayside
By hook, crook or vision
Profits and a cleaner environment can sometimes complement each other. But Indian companies are still mired in poison. They must now look for a …
Small car revolution Who cares about congestion, pollution
The ultra-cheap small cars in the pipeline will tilt the skewed balance against public transport and two-wheelers irretrievably. The result will …
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 …
Private vehicles eating into scare public land
Private vehicles are clogging city streets, as they grow at a frightening pace. Hidden subsidies help park them on scarce public land and …
Rising sea levels and tidal erosion eating up Sunderbans
Rising sea levels are real. A trip to the Sunderbans, in the Bay of Bengal, shows how devastating it can be in tandem with insidious tidal erosion.…
Namibia continues to struggle to check infant mortality rate
Chances of bringing down infant mortality rate from the current 44 deaths per 1,000 live births to 30 by the 2015 deadline for millennium …
The small big polluter
Resource crunch and poor regulatory processes have made small-scale industries the pariahs of India's environment
Sponge iron industries are killing fields
The sponge iron industry is growing fast and polluting alarmingly. K Radhika in Chhattisgarh and Maureen Nandini Mitra in Jharkhand and Orissa …
Fuel inefficient India heading towards energy crisis
Energy insecurity is India's latest tryst with her post-liberalised destiny. It began in July 2006. Crude oil prices rose to all time peak, at US $…
Faceless Figures
The status of cancer data in India is as scary as the killer itself. The most recent data on cancer by the Indian Council of Medical Research is …
Blues for the big cats
Everyone knows of the tiger's endangered status, but the government seems unwilling to face the reality. So far, it has tried to resolve the …
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 …
Indians spending less on food, says national survey
Total consumer expenditure on processed foods, beverages, and refreshments level has increased
Kidney conundrum
A mysterious chronic kidney disease is afflicting a large number of people in India and Sri Lanka. Despite decades of studies, scientists are …
Germany in transition
From an economy addicted to coal and nuclear energy, Germany is fast transforming into one driven by renewables. Its aim is to demonstrate to the …
THERMAL POWER
Power plants consumed 530 million tonnes of coal in 2014-15, which is around three-fourths of the total coal use in the country