STORIES are at the heart of any tribal community. Most of our history is passed down by word of mouth in the form of fables, myths, legends, rituals or folktales. It is at the threshold of being lost forever. This website details the work of an organisation that attempts to …
Twenty years ago, when Tim Berners-Lee linked up a community of scientists in what came to be known as the worldwide web, Jaron Lanier was an enthusiast of the project. Like many others he believed in the democratic potential of a large online community. Lanier’s views began to change around …
BIOTECH companies in the agriculture sector have taken to a publicity blaze in recent months, splashing advertisements that extol the “inherent safety” of genetically modified (GM) crops along with organising a series of farmer meets and press conferences aimed at promoting transgenic technology as the “powerful and safe” way to …
In the first week of August, the Angolan police arrested radio journalist Adao Tiago for reporting on a bizarre wave of mass fainting. Since April, over 800 people, mostly teenagers, have fainted after complaining of sore throats and eyes, shortness of breath and coughs. Angola’s interior minister Sebastiao Martins claims …
WANT to know which migratory birds do your region host? Or perhaps, you want to check on the conservation status of a bird species. The Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS) has a website on avian ecology giving exactly this kind of information. The site, set up in collaboration with the …
A recent paper of the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF), Towards an Emission Trading Scheme for Air Pollutants in India, explores the possibility of introducing a permit and trading system for air pollutants from industrial sources. The scheme operates along the lines of the cap-and-trade mechanism for greenhouse …
SOUMYA Swaminathan’s 16-year-old son, Sudarshan, loves sports, and is training to be a footballer. Two years ago, he was confused which sport to train in. “He would come home and say he wants to play cricket. Next week it would be football,” says Swaminathan. Then she heard about the sports …
If you believe that progress of human civilisation depends on individual expression of new ideas, especially unpopular ideas, then the principle of freedom of speech is the most important value society can uphold. The Internet is usually regarded as the harbinger of free speech. It not only provides universal access …
South Africa’s advertising watchdog ordered oil giant Shell on July 13 to withdraw its claims in newspapers about its use of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, to explore gas in the Karoo, a semi-desert wilderness. The Advertising Standards Authority described the adverts as “misleading”. Activist body Treasure the Karoo Action Group …
Government procedures in India are known to confound people. What documents do we submit to apply for a PAN card? How does one get an educational loan? How to apply for a passport? Log on to www.wikifyindia.com and help is at hand. The website, a non-profit initiative, is an aspiring …
Why a health film festival? I thought it would be a good idea to have the festival in Greece because Hippocrates, the father of medicine, was born there. Coincidentally, I found support from the mayor of the island where Hippocrates was born. The directors who have participated in the first …
This refers to the editorial “When business rules our kitchens” (June 16-30, 2011). Do we want to sensationalise the issue of poor food safety regulations and use big companies as a whipping boy or work on the solutions? How are we going to deal with the fundamental issue of feeding …
Google has stopped collecting images for its Street View service in Bengaluru after police raised security concerns. Google launched its project to collect high definition images to give Google users 360 degree views of streets in Bengaluru in May. “We received a letter from Bengaluru’s commissioner of police and are …
TODAY many of us are aware that our eating habits are not exactly making us healthy. We know the problem but the solution somehow seems elusive. And healthy is expensive. This website showcases the work of an alliance of 100 non-profits from across the world who try to find solutions. …
THAT day when Darla Dhanalakshmi suffered severe joint pain and numbness in the limbs she knew something was seriously wrong. She had been suffering from the pain since January after she visited a clinic on the outskirts of Hyderabad. There she was asked to pop an unknown pill. The pain …
It’s a bit of Iraq and Afghanistan out there on the Internet. Just like the invasion of Iraq was lies, deceit and regime change as George W Bush chased illusory weapons of mass destruction in that hapless country, on the Internet, too, there is an element of fabrication and duplicity …
In the spring of 2010, when the Deepwater Horizon oil rig was spewing oil into the Gulf of Mexico, cyber activist Eli Pariser asked two friends to google the term “BP”. The results they got were quite different. One saw investment information about BP. The other saw news. For one, …
REFUSING any information to the government is now a punishable offence. The recently enacted Collection of Statistics Act, 2008, makes it mandatory for companies, individuals and households to reveal information sought by government-contracted data collectors. Failure to do so entails a maximum penalty of Rs 1,000 in case of individuals …
Disclosure is now at the heart of the misappropriation debate—and the centrepiece of vexed international efforts to hammer out a treaty to protect the last major resources of developing nations. Talks in the Geneva-based World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) last month on protecting genetic resources, traditional knowledge and traditional cultural …
It is a legal victory with ramifications beyond small English town South Tyneside, where the local government claims Twitter released information about the tweeter who allegedly made libellous statements. The South Tyneside Council petitioned a court in California, US, to identify the user of the site after three councillors and …
