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 …
Bihar is a unique state. It was the seat of learning, culture and civilisation. As far back as 326 bc , when Alexander the Great came to India, Bihar was the regional superpower. Rather than engage the united troop strength of the Magadha Empire, the Greeks preferred to station a …
following a Supreme Court order calling on state governments to finalise the pending notifications of national parks, the government of Himachal Pradesh finally
Though the Himachal Pradesh government is willing to sacrifice the interests of villages in the Great Himalayan National Park (GHNP) for the cause of conservation of biodiversity, these concerns seem to take a backseat when other interests are involved. It has denotified 90 sq km of the park area for …
the Tata Engineering and Locomotive Company ( telco ) filed an affidavit in the Supreme Court in the case regarding air pollution in Delhi on October 4, 1999. It appeared to misrepresent the World Health Organisation's view that there are no safe levels of particulate pollution, and undermined the seriousness …
F inally , the government has decided to hike the price of diesel. The timing was politically right. There was no political cost attached to it. As the last round of polling ended and the counting of votes began the government decided to act. The price of diesel went up …
euro-election results gave a mixed report on the state of the "Greens' in the European Union ( eu ). Voter turnout was poor in many countries and was only 24 per cent in the uk . Of the major political groupings, the centre-right came out best with 224 out of …
Richard gammon is a professor of atmospheric sciences at the University of Washington. Recently he led a group of sixty scientists who told the us Congress that it was time politicians in the country got serious about global warming. The scientists warned politicians that there were some in Congress who …
dark shadows loom large over the Indian Ocean. They are not monsoon clouds but a brown haze of pollutants caused by high concentrations of aerosols, tiny particles about a micron (one millionth of a meter) in diameter. This has been stated by scientists involved in the Indian Ocean Experiment ( …
despite incremental progress on a few technical issues, delegates left the bulk of the unresolved political questions open to debate at future meetings during the latest climate change meeting at Bonn, Germany. The 10th meeting of the Subsidiary Bodies to the Framework Convention on Climate Change ( fccc ), held …
the Environment Pollution Authority ( epa ) was set up in 1998 on the order of the Supreme Court to monitor the steps taken by the Union government and the Delhi government for controlling environmental pollution in Delhi. The epa chairperson, Bhure Lal, at a press conference held in Delhi …
In just less than a decade, a big shift has taken place in the substance of the dialogue between environmental ngo s in the North and the South. Whereas in the mid-1980s the focus was on national issues, for example, on how Indian and British ngo s could work together …
With the world increasingly worried about climate change, a new scheme is being cooked up to deal with the problem. The World Bank has an ingenious proposal - which is still confidential - in which the Bank would buy and sell, as the most "honest broker", the rights of present …
immediately after the 1992 Earth Summit at Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, it was fashionable to write about the meeting's historic, path-breaking and planet-saving achievements. Today, five years after Rio, it is equally trendy to comment in bleak and dreary terms about how the 'promise of Rio' has been squandered. While …
The recent news item in the Asian Wall Street Journal that New Zealand's log industry is to receive a big boost because of the restrictions imposed by the Supreme Court of India on Indian logging, should be treated like a slap in the face of India's forest officialdom. Subsequently, the …
Even as we move towards the 21st Century the future appears bleak. Only the Earth knows what transpired at the Denver meeting but in the light of hindsight it is becoming all too evident that the North, the Europeans and their American cousins, went in with a coordinated stand to …
it was like the Tower of Babel. Environment ministers from all over the world and senior officials were talking at cross-purposes. The occasion: the fifth session of the Commission for Sustainable Development, held between April 5-25 in New York. The South mouthing rhetoric in favour of development and poverty eradication, …
FREDERICK NORONHA PANAJI years of environmental campaigning in the country's smallest state seems to have made some dent: politicians here are willing to concede that the environment is a matter of concern. The Goan chief minister, Pratapsing Rane, while presenting the 1997 budget in the last week of March, repeatedly …
DEVE GOWDA's anti-environment measures never seem to come to an end. Before becoming the Prime Minister (PM), Deve Gowda had said in an interview to Down To Earth (DTE): "Often people are being misted by environmentalists who tend to be anti-development .....". The PM's statement at the meeting of state …
