Environment
It is about 10 days since Uttarakhand was hit by torrential rains and cloudburst of a scale not seen in the state in over 50 years, which, along with accompanying floods and landslides, have caused … Read more
To anyone visiting China for the first time, the experience comes as a shock, despite all that one has read, heard or even seen on TV. This writer was no exception. The scale in which … Read more
More than 2000 people died and over 10,000 were affected by industrial pollution during the 1950s and 60s in and around the coastal Japanese town of Minamata. A chemicals factory of the Chisso Corporation using … Read more
This column is admittedly, and regrettably, late in running an article commemorating the 50th year after the publication in September 1962 of Rachel Carsons’ “Silent Spring,” arguably one of the most influential books of our … Read more
This column is admittedly, and regrettably, late in running an article commemorating the 50th year after the publication in September 1962 of Rachel Carsons’ “Silent Spring,” arguably one of the most influential books of our … Read more
THE divide between poor and rich countries in the world can also be roughly mapped into another kind of division – that between gene or biodiversity rich countries and patent rich countries. A major part … Read more
The Draft National Water Policy 2012 (DNWP 2012) released by the government earlier this year sought to “take cognizance of the existing situation and to propose a framework for creation of an overarching system of … Read more
IT is now one year since the Fukushima disaster took place that saw three reactors in Tokyo Electric Power Company’s (TEPCO) Dai-ichi nuclear plant suffering core melt-downs and explosions. On March 11, 2011, an earthquake … Read more
Finally, after many climate summits aimed at negotiating a global compact to succeed the first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol, the seventeenth Conference of Parties (COP 17) at Durban has arrived at an agreement. … Read more
The climate summit in Copenhagen a year ago inspired many catchy nicknames starting with “hopenhagen” to portray early expectations that it would deliver a solution to the climate crisis, and later “nopenhagen” and the famous … Read more
THE horrific on-going disaster caused by oil spewing out from British Petroleum’s (BP) well in the Gulf of Mexico is going from bad to worse, showing little signs of abating. It is already by far … Read more
THE climate crisis and efforts to tackle it have witnessed unprecedented mobilisation of popular movements, NGOs, think tanks, experts, intellectuals and activists, as was evident at the Climate Conference in Copenhagen last December. Of course, … Read more