This brochure offers decision-makers in the real estate and energy industries, as well as urban and municipal developers, a broad overview of the topics of decentralised energy generation and supply, and raises awareness of the goal of decarbonisation by 2050 at the latest. The advancing digitalization in the construction and …
"Hum yahan bahut khush hain. Raat mein restaurant mein hi padhai ki class hoti hain (I am very happy here. Night literacy classes are held at the restaurant itselt)," says 17-year-old Bhagwan Singh. For two years now, Bhagwan has worked at Butterflies, a restaurant in the Inter-State Bus Terminus run …
Hasn't Rio clearly shown we were living under an illusion when we thought environmental concerns would make a difference in the world power structure. Why should things change now? We have new developments stemming from a deteriorating economic position worldwide. There is a growing trend towards nationalism and fundamentalism that …
AIDS has reached crisis point in Thailand, prompting the government to increase its HIV-prevention budget by L5 million. An NGO study predicts that by 2000, 2.4 million Thais -- out of 53 million -- will be carrying the deadly virus. Apart from the prohibitively-expensive medical care -- each afflicted person …
AT THE November meeting of the International Tropical Timber Organisation'(ITTO), some industrialised countries proposed labelling imported timber according to region of origin and whether it came from a "sustainably logged" forest. Timber from "unsustainably logged" forests would be banned by the consumer countries. The proposal was not accepted because of …
Environment minister David Maclean has delayed British Nuclear Fuel's (BNF) commissioning of the L1.8 billion Thermal Oxide Reprocessing Plant (Thorp) at Sellafield until a L50 million treatment plant is set up to neutralise emissions of Krypton 85, a radioactive gas. Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth have warned local residents …
AIDS is a a disease that has no cure and this is forcing health workers to seek effective ways to prevent its spread. The experiences of the decade since the discovery of AIDS indicate strategies to change social attitudes and behaviour have limited the spread of the disease. Many grassroots …
FOR SOME time now, the Manila-based Asian Development Bank -- the second biggest bank in the world -- has drawn flak from NGOs for its penchant to finance large, capital-intensive projects while ignoring their social and ecological ramifications. When the bank's board of governors met in Hong Kong in May, …
NORTHERN donors are being forced to rethink their basics after the Rio conference. Prominent among these are the Swedish Agency for Research Cooperation with developing countries (SAREC) and the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), both of whom fund research projects in the developing world. Before they can get on with …
US manufacturers are marketing plastic containers that are labelled recyclable but have to be exported on the sly to developing countries for disposal. The environmental group Greenpeace pointed out the American plastics industry thus satisfies its environmentally conscious consumers by presenting a "green" image, while dumping potentially hazardous material in …
Voluntary agencies, at their September meet organised by the Voluntary Action Network of India (VANI), have declaimed the government's attempts to network NGOs as "a strategy to suppress the growing voluntary sector in India". In April this year, the Planning Commission got together 50 voluntary agencies to discuss "mechanisms to …
CIVIC authorities in Kanpur never seem to find the time or the resources to solve the problems of the 3,000 residents of Rajapurva, a slum in the heart of the city. This must be so, otherwise how can one explain why a slum settlement that's older than the nation was …
THE GANGA'S alarming pollution level has inspired both government and non-governmental involvement in clean-up work. While the Union government has created an exhaustive structure to cleanse the river, some non-governmental organisations (NGOs) have also been active, though on a smaller scale, in arousing popular consciousness and analysing official clean-up measures. …
Central Ganga Authority Ministry of Environment and Forests Paryavaran Bhavan CGO Complex Lodhi Road New Delhi 110 003 V Rajamani Chairman, Steering Committee Ministry of Environment and Forests New Delhi 110 003 Vinay Shankar Director, Ganga Project Directorate Ministry of Environment and Forests New Delhi 110 003 INTACH 71 Lodhi …
THE RAPID deterioration of Nepal's environment has had one positive outcome -- the country's environmental NGOs have begun to take the threat to their country's eco-system more seriously. Even the membership of the Nepal Forum of Environmental Journalists increased by 50 per cent over the last year. One group, the …
Binod Bhattarai Nepal Forum of Environmental Journalists Thapathali ,Kathmandu, P O Box 5143 Phone: 227691 Shree Govinda Shah or Hut Ram Vaidya Save Bagmati Campaign Tripureswor, Kathmandu P O Box 1155 Phone: 214600 Karna Shakya Nepal Heritage Society Bhadrakali Kathmandu, P O Box 1041 Phone: 211438 Anil Chitrakar Environmental Camps …
AGRIDYNE Technologies, a US biotechnology company, recently announced a major project involving the genetic-engineering of pyrethrins, an insecticidal compound derived from the pyrethrum flower ( Chrysanthemum cinerariaefolium). The US $3 million, three-year project is expected to produce unlimited" supplies of pyrethrin, an environmentally friendly insecticide, in the laboratory. According to …
In this issue, we carry two reports: One on the subject of human rights suppression and environmental degradation, and the other on trade bans against environmentally harmful products. Both trade and human rights are being used today as sticks to beat the South. Northern NGOs have repeatedly raised these issues …
IN THE small workshops of Purani Mandi in Saharanpur, woodcarvers fret, fit and polish their carvings for a revitalised urban market in India and abroad. Their own future, however, is precarious. Spiralling prices of fast-depleting raw materials and a market controlled by middlemen threaten to choke this once thriving trade. …
WHATEVER their area of work, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) have made the most headway in involving people in managing their natural resources. Says one NGO activist, "Local people are very smart. They know that if an NGO is merely doing something for them, it will leave them in the lurch after …
IT IS IRONIC that during the same week in June in which the World Bank emerged from Rio as the major funding mechanism to clean up the world's environment and implement Agenda 21, the Morse report revealed to the world the chronic institutional failures of the bank to promote environmentally …
