Environment
AIPSN Organization, is a Network of 40 major State-level Member Organizations and is the largest network of organizations working on science and society issues focusing mainly on S&T policy, impact on people particularly the poor … Read more
WORLD Environment Day 2020 comes at a unique time this year, right in the middle of perhaps the worst pandemic the world has seen in over a century. Due to lockdowns and other restrictions the … Read more
The Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change (MoEFCC) had released a Draft Notification on Environment Impact Assessment 2020 (EIA Notification 2020) on 12 March 2020, on the eve of the world’s largest nationwide lockdown … Read more
THE Amazon fires with Brazil at its epicentre, have become worldwide news. Explaining the fires recently, Douglas Morton, chief of the Biospheric Sciences Laboratory at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center said that August 2019 stands … Read more
The BJP government has continued its inexorable march towards severely diluting the already weak environmental regulations in the country, as part of its drive to promote “ease of doing business,” in other words to serve … Read more
It is that dreaded time of year again for Delhi and the National Capital Region (NCR), the season of high air pollution, in which Delhi regularly ranks worst in the world. Diwali has passed, and … Read more
Municipal solid waste (MSW) has become a massive problem in India’s cities and towns and poses huge problems for public health, the environment and urban living conditions in general. About 170,000 tonnes of MSW are … Read more
Peace and Disarmament
THIS August 6, 80 years after the first use of the atom bomb against a section of humanity, reminds us all of the inhumanity of nuclear weapons and the threat to all human lives. But … Read more
WITH the US walking out of the Open Skies Agreement, the US is signalling to the world that it intends to return to days of Pax Americana that existed post Second World War, when it … Read more
THE intricate war dance among the US, the Saudis and Iran on the Houthi attack on Aramco oil installations may still not spill over into a shooting war in West Asia. The Saudi defence ministry … Read more
SAUDI Arabia, which started the Yemen war with its own coalition of the willing, is now facing the blow-back with Houthis launching a series of drone and missile attacks on infrastructure. Earlier Houthi missile attacks on Dubai … Read more
Technology
IN the United States of America, Trump administration has given a 90-day deadline to ByteDance, its Chinese owner, to sell its assets to a US company or shut shop. Microsoft, Oracle and a group including … Read more
AIR India Express ‘Vande Bharat’ Flight IX 1134 evacuating stranded Indians from Dubai to India, tragically crashed in rainy conditions on August 7, 2020 evening at Calicut International Airport in Karipur near Kozhikode, Kerala. The … Read more
THE US tech war on China continues, banning Chinese equipment from its network, and asking its 5-Eyes partners and NATO allies to follow suit. It is a market and a technology denial regime that seeks … Read more
AS part of the Rs 20 lakh crore economic stimulus package announced by the government supposedly to boost the Covid-impacted economy, the finance minister declared that all sectors of the economy would henceforth be open … Read more
Public Health
The Department of Science and Technology has sponsored a model, described as a “Super Model” that— according to government hype—claims India’s lockdown was highly successful and we perhaps have even reached herd immunity. The media … Read more
AFTER the failed lockdown and rising numbers of Covid-19 cases, the Modi government, which declared an emergency under the Disaster Management Act, seems now to have given up. We are seeing rapidly rising numbers in … Read more
With more than 3.5 lakhs infected with Covid-19, India is already among the top four countries in the world affected by the pandemic. But that is not all. When we look at a pandemic, we … Read more
The horrific leak of Styrene vapour from the LG Polymers plant in Vizag in the early hours of 7 May 2020, causing at least 13 deaths and serious injuries to several hundreds of people near … Read more
Pharmaceuticals
TRUMP’s decision to withdraw from WHO is a continuation of his wielding a wrecking ball to the international framework of treaties and organisations. Whether it is arms control treaties, climate change, trade and now WHO, … Read more
In a recent public meeting Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced that the government would take steps to reduce costs incurred on purchase of medicines by making it mandatory for doctors to prescribe medicines in generic name. … Read more
THE Seventy-Second Report of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Health marks a strong indictment of the way in which clinical trials are being conducted in India. Before discussing the report, it is important to understand … Read more
In the past two years the UPA government, with considerable fanfare, has attempted to project a view that it is serious about bringing about radical changes as regards access to health care. A slew of … Read more
News & Events
Seven year old Aadhya spent the last two weeks of her life at a ‘state of the art’ private medical facility, her survival dependant on an artificial ventilator. Her brain had probably stopped functioning several … Read more