The Global Gender Gap Index annually benchmarks the current state and evolution of gender parity across four key dimensions (Economic Participation and Opportunity, Educational Attainment, Health and Survival, and Political Empowerment). It is the longest-standing index tracking the progress of numerous countries’ efforts towards closing these gaps over time since …
the US government has postponed the demolition of four major dams in Washington, built on the Snake and Columbia rivers. The plan proposes to save wild salmons. The dams obstruct the migratory path of the salmon. But they also generate enormous quantities of electricity. Therefore, the decision to breach them …
Is the problem of Kashmir merely one of guns and guards or also one of hearts and minds? Unfortunately, neither the Central and state governments nor the Indian media have paid adequate attention to the latter dimension of the problem. C Subramaniam, the former finance minister, has written an interesting …
the French have always wanted to set up a World Environment Organisation ( weo ). It is therefore not surprising that the French prime minister, Lionel Jospin should once again raise the issue of setting up a weo . So what exactly is a weo? As conceived by its proponents …
It seems that a new study from Harvard University in USA has vindicated the position of the pro-diesel lobby that compressed natural gas (CNG) is also very polluting. The report started appearing in newspapers, conveniently on the very day that the Supreme Court was to hear the case on moving …
The Guangdong provincial government have ordered the closure of Xing Ye Metal Accessories Corporation and eight other electroplating factories of the Guangzou district. The order came after a local newspaper reported that wastewater, containing cyanide in some cases, was being dumped into the North river. To some, the closure of …
Toxic waste from the Thor Chemicals' mercury processing plant is contaminating the groundwater in KwaZulu-Natal, according to the environment justice networking forum (EJNF) of South Africa. The plant treats and stores toxic waste imported from developed countries in Europe and elsewhere. The state department of environmental affairs and tourism took …
India's Union minister for petroleum, Ram Naik, lives in the dinosaur age. Only Indian politics can throw up such archaic thinkers, given the pits it has reached. At the 16th World Petroleum Congress, held recent in Calgary, where some 2,000 people were demonstrating and asking for public policies to bring …
the exercise of developing methodologies for building two basic tools of air quality management for Delhi - an air quality index (aqi) and an emission inventory - was launched at an international workshop in the capital recently. The workshop was organised by the Delhi-based Centre for Science and Environment (cse), …
THE Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) presented a special report on the impact of land use, land use change and forests (LULUCF), which focuses on the complex issue of linking climate change with forestation, at a meeting of subsidiary bodies of the un Frame Convention on Climate Convention in …
the trouble with biotechnology is not that it is irretrievably sinister, but that its controllers have one ruthless and overriding motive in mind - profit. Existing global intellectual property rights (ipr) rules may as well have been ghost written by biotechnology and pharmaceutical mncs. And now, another diplomatic victory was …
It came as a shock to everybody. Even as countries all over the world are turning to clean more fuel-efficient and less polluting vehicles the government of Nepal suddenly decided to ban the registration of the battery-operated, three-wheeler Vikrams. A week later they reversed their decision under national and international …
two months after a pact on climate change and energy with India, the us has announced the signing of a similar agreement between us ambassador to China, Joseph Prueher, and Madame Zhu Lilan, China's minister of science and technology, in Beijing. "I am particularly pleased that the Chinese government is …
in a move that has triggered severe criticism countrywide, President Vladimir Putin abolished Russia's State Committee on the Environment, the nation's sole agency for environmental protection. He also did away with the State Committee on Forestry and transferred the functions of both these panels to the ministry of natural resources …
The G77 group of developing countries and the European Union ( eu ) have shared a blow-hot, blow-cold relationship in the international climate negotiations. There have been times when they have worked in tandem against the us and its allies (
this is yet another story about the slip between the cup and the lip. And the ultimate sufferers in this case are the residents of Delhi, who are left choking with polluted air and a hazy future. It all started in 1998, when the Environment Pollution Prevention and Control Authority …
it was a long bitter fight. But for India, it ended on a promising note. Consistent campaigning by non-governmental organi-sations ( ngo s) in both India and abroad forced the revocation of a patent granted jointly to the us Department of Agriculture ( usda ) and the us chemical major …
The fatuous Indian elite must also be the most crooked elite in the world. When it comes to linking trade with environment on issues that affect the marauding rich industrialists of the country, you will hear everyone, from the prime minister downwards to the ministers of commerce and finance, shouting …
australia has for the first time expressed concerns over the implementation of the Kyoto Protocol that sets an international agenda to cut greenhouse gas emissions from 2002. It feels that political pressure in the us due to the presidential election in November would impede attempts to set a pace on …
