The IMF’s April 2025 Regional Economic Outlook for Sub-Saharan Africa presents a clear warning: regional growth is slowing, debt pressures are mounting, and donor assistance is declining. Yet the report outlines critical opportunities particularly in domestic revenue mobilization, structural reform, and private sector activation that can shape a more resilient …
If you have been won over by these lines in the tourism brochure, Srinagar should top your list of places to visit. If you are in Srinagar, you will hire a shikara (boat) to take in the beauty of the lake and the majestic mountains surrounding it. The road on …
There are numerous ways to get to the lake colony. But there is no way to avoid getting the weeds entangled with the oars. The weeds are something the people have learnt to live with, and have also found a couple of uses for them, such as fertilisers. They complain …
that electoral politics and the environment do not mix well in India is a foregone conclusion. Lost in the maze of religion, casteism and regionalism, our politicians have no incentive to draw up plans to improve the natural environment, make promises based on these plans, fulfil those promises, and make …
the story of the fall and rise of filaria in Cherthala taluka of Alappuzha district, Kerala, represents all that is wrong with planning and management of public health in India. The field station of the Vector Control Research Centre ( vcrc ), set up in Cherthala by the Indian Council …
In the run-up to the elections in India, a number of trivial issues have come to occupy the political landscape, marginalising fundamental issues that concern the common man. One such issue is the way we manage the natural environment. The days when environment was all about beautiful birds and butterflies …
The people of Kashmir have only the Dal to offer to tourists. Brochures are full of life on the Dal lake. Pictures of houseboats used to attract hordes of tourists to the Dal year after year. The Dal was virtually the economic lifeline of Kashmir. One of the large lakes …
January 5, 1998. A number police personnel and district officials in several vehicles descend on Kucheipadar, a remote tribal village in Rayagada district, Orissa. They dismantle a roadblock put up by the villagers. As several people including children and women gather, they are teargassed and lathicharged. People sustain injuries on …
It is widely agreed that the bse scare (popularly known as the madcow disease) in the United Kingdom was badly handled by the ministers and officials responsible for food safety. Other governments might have noted and carefully learnt. Not so the government of neighbouring Belgium. In January 1999, a chicken …
Politicians do more to deplete water than provide people a sustained supply At the recent meeting of the World Water Commission in Stockholm - set up last year with the support of several governments and United Nations' agencies - to develop a vision for water management in the next century, …
in february 1999, a Delhi newspaper reported that a tubewell sunk to a depth of about 200 feet (61 metres) by Suruchi Dyeing Udyog, a factory south of the G T Road in Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh, was yielding yellow-coloured water. Arun Agarwal, the factory’s owner, was quoted in the report …
dte reporters met the pollution control authorities in some industrial areas of the country, spoke to the local people about the effects of pollution and met representatives of the civil society to gauge the extent of the problem on the socio-economic level. They also got in touch with industrialists, but …
For the people of Patancheru and Bollaram in Medak district, what goes around comes around. But with an evil twist. At night, tankers are used to carry effluents to the neighbouring state Karnataka, which is about 25 km away, or to far-off places for dumping. The same tankers supply drinking …
There are several industrial units in Medak district of Andhra Pradesh (AP) that have directly or indirectly polluted groundwater. AP Pollution Control Board (APPCB) officials reveal that Reliance Cellulose is releasing effluents with very high chemical oxygen demand levels into a nearby stream. Standard Organics of Patancheru used to pump …
Adulteration of milk is not a new problem in the town of Bulandshahar in western Uttar Pradesh (UP). However, it is leading to another type of slow poisoning. Local people complain that dairies pump their effluents containing urea and other chemical additives into the ground. "Some workers from a dairy …
"Industrialists believe it is cheaper to purchase the regulators than abide by the regulations,' says K Purushotham Reddy of the Hyderabad-based ngo Citizens Against Pollution. "If I am not wrong, more than 90 per cent of gpcb officials are corrupt. In the present circumstances, only God can save Gujarat from …
How serious is the groundwater pollution problem in India? Groundwater pollution is very difficult to evaluate as till now, there is no nationwide survey or study of it except the few studies done by CPCB. On that basis I can say that it is very serious and needs special attention. …
Once polluted by industry, groundwater is very difficult to clean up. This is the lesson learnt from the Bichhri experience. Situated about 12 km from Udaipur, the groundwater of Bichhri, spread over an area of 300 hectares, is stark red. And as the groundwater moves naturally to other aquifers, it …
It was like the loss of innocence, one of the first incidents to open humankind's eye to what industrial pollution can do. One of the earliest tragedies caused by chemical pollution was the painful death and disability that afflicted thousands of people living around Japan's Minamata Bay in the 1950s-60s. …
On August 1, 1999, social activist Anna Hazare began a maun vrat (silent fast) at Ralegan Siddhi in Maharashtra against the delay in action against officials allegedly involved in the Rs 32.66 crore drought scandal. He also alleged that there has been a cover-up at the ministry level on the …
