Full-scale review of poverty
What is poverty? The Planning Commission is set to undertake an exercise to find a quantifiable answer to the question. It has proposed to the …
A safety valve!
Alarmed by super rapid industrialisation in Asia and the Pacific, the Asian Development Bank suggests urgent corporate 'voluntary' action and …
Health class
Enemies of health and allies of poverty join hand to create global havoc, leaving different marks on different classes
Tropical pill
Medicines are for the rich, not for fighting tropical diseases afflicting millions in developing nations. Pharmaceutical companies seem to have …
Watering down a success story
Water User Associations in Maharashtra face unforeseen hurdles despite being successful. Why is the government stalling them?
Apex court gets tough on entry of trucks
Supreme Court pulls up Delhi government and police for not following directive on polluting goods vehicles
The discerning eye of the insect
How do pests select which plants to attack in the field? By smelling odours plants emit, believe most entomologists. But now an alternative …
Landfill emissions poison breastmilk
After finding high levels of dioxin-related compounds in breast milk of women living near landfills, a Vadodara-based non-governmental …
Unbalanced sheet
According to the WWF Living Planet 2002 report, people are consuming more natural resources than nature can produce, and some more so than others.…
Prolific movements
Researchers prove that movements in the Earth's crust are largely responsible for the uneven distribution of global biological diversity
Creative accounting
The US administration reneged on its earlier undertaking on the Kyoto Protocol, choosing instead to come up with its own climate change strategy: …
Has forest cover really increased?
The provisional figures for India's forest cover are now ready, and Down To Earth has managed to acquire a copy. The figures, when compared to …
Embodied energy demystified
Building materials are much more energy-intensive than perceived. India lags in taking steps to reduce their use
Every hour, a farmer committed suicide in 2015
87 per cent of total number of suicides were reported from well-off states such as Maharashtra, Karnataka, Telangana, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh,…
The idea of a clean city
could well become a myth by 2007. More than half of the world' s population by then would be urban dwelling. The urban ecological footprint would …
Smog envelops India's smaller cities
A recent release from the Central Pollution Control Board, Parivesh, January 2003, presents deadly facts about air pollution levels in Indian …
Another opportunity lost
This year's UN Commission on Sustainable Development meet provided no roadmap to attain Millennium Development Goals on water, sanitation and …
Caught in the web
Of poverty, life in India has improved little over the past decade, reports the planning commission's National Human Development Report 2001
Fat Chance
Reducing obesity -- the leading cause of non-communicable diseases in the world -- has become a political game. At stake are the interests of the …
Imbalance of footprints
Resource-rich countries remain poor, and they spend most of their income on food. Developed countries conitnue to increase their appetite
Rise of livestock
Agriculture sector undergoes a historic change as livestock surpasses the economy of food grain
No silver lining
Even as UNEP calls for an international treaty on mercury pollution, India and other developing countries are oblivious to the dangers of being …
Reduced greenhouse gas emissions to impact profits
a new report will help people take informed decisions about investing in the automobile sector. It includes details of how efforts to restrict …
Book on pulses takes readers on amazing journey across varied cultures
Pulses are packed with proteins–double than that found in wheat and three times than that in rice
Childhood stunting affects future success in life, say experts
According to a study, stunting causes physical and neurocognitive damage that is irreversible in most cases