Women-led and women’s rights organizations are on the frontlines of today’s humanitarian crises—but many are at risk of disappearing. As global needs rise due to conflict, climate change, and displacement, deep cuts to foreign aid are threatening organizations that provide life-saving services for women and girls. In March 2025, UN …
Given the lack of ability and desire around the world to get to the root of the global conflicts, it was clear to many of us a decade ago that bioterrorism and biological warfare would soon be upon us. Therefore, when Saddam Hussain said during the Iraq-Kuwait conflict in 1991 …
water sharing has always been a bone of contention for the states of Kerala and Tamil Nadu. Now, Tamil Nadu's Adavinainar Kovil dam being constructed in Merkkara, Tirunelveli district has aggravated the ongoing strife. Merkkara is on the eastern side of the mountain ridge that separates the two states. On …
the state appraisal committee in Vietnam has approved a controversial routing plan for the new Ho Chi Highway which cuts through the country's oldest national park, Cuc Phuong, housing many rare and endangered plant and animal species. The approved plan has been submitted to the Prime Minister Phan Van Khai, …
conflicts with human beings have recently taken toll on 18 elephants in Nameri National Park, Assam, the state which houses half of India's elephant population. What was first believed to be a disease killing, later turned out to be a case of poisoning. The crisis, which is also said to …
DELHI'S ambitious metro rail system is losing track. The choice of gauge - broad or standard - has snowballed into a major controversy. The players: Delhi government and the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) on one side pushing for standard gauge and the Union ministry of railways, which wants status …
it could have been a church, with people confessing their sins. Only, it was a consultative meeting, where wildlife mangers and the conservation fraternity confessed that protected area management under Eco Regional Planning (erp) was an abysmal failure. Held on August 6-8, 2001, in New Delhi, the meeting organised by …
as long as it remained a hit-and-run campaign, the "clean city, green city' programme of Thiruvananthapuram City Corporation offended nobody. But a rural-urban conflict has arisen after a plant to handle solid waste from the state capital was set up at Vilappilsala in Vilappil Gram Panchayat (Vilappil village council). The …
chilika lake, Asia's biggest saltwater lake, situated in Orissa is still awaiting a complete ban on prawn farming. Despite violent conflicts between traditional and non-traditional fishermen over prawn farming, the state government has not done much to solve the crisis. Prawn culture has destroyed the state's mangrove forests, which guarded …
every year, a series of conflicts between the villagers and the forest officials disturbs the tranquillity of the Ranthambhore National Park in Rajasthan. This year, on 21st July the forest guards even resorted to firing 17 rounds during a clash with 10 villagers of the Uliana village, who were found …
a group of Maoist Communist Centre (mcc) extremists recently abducted a forester from the Hazaribagh National Park in Bihar. The officer was released after being subjected to mental torture for six hours by the mcc. The forester had committed the cardinal error of arresting a local person for taking away …
sectarian violence is passe. In keeping with the latest trends today, blood is being spilt over water - an inalienable right which can no longer be taken for granted. The daily news contains harrowing accounts of people facing the drought in Gujarat. With the worst days still ahead, the situation …
THE reds are being forced to turn green in the Nizamabad, Adilabad and Warangal districts of the Telangana region where the people have embraced the Andhra Pradesh government's joint forest management (JFM) programme in a big way. What is unusual is that forest officials move around freely in the remote …
Recently, a group of social activists visited the Telangana region to probe police atrocities against the Naxalites. What they were shown by the extremists as their concern for poor villagers was amazing: check dams, boulder-filled dams and water harvesting structures. That the Naxalites are getting involved in water conservation is …
after the abolition of the zamindari system in Uttar Pradesh in 1954, land consolidation has been one of the mammoth administrative exercises conducted to put in place land reforms. Begun in the early sixties, its main objective was to consolidate the small agricultural plots into one or two large holdings, …
Armed conflict and civil strife were major sources of food insecurity in the 1990s and will continue to be this century, although their number and the losses associated with them may have passed their peak. Depending on which of the various definitions of the term is used, from 30 to …
Armed conflict and civil strife were major sources of food insecurity in the 1990s and will continue to be this century, although their number and the losses associated with them may have passed their peak (see Figure 13). Depending on which of the various definitions of the term is used, …
on january 12, farmers gathered in large numbers in Multai in Betul district, Madhya Pradesh, demanding compensation for crops damaged by severe rain and hailstorms. Unable to disperse the crowd, the police opened fire without warning, killing 19 and injuring around 500 people. Described as "more gruesome than Jallianwala', the …
"i am proud to die for the rights of the fisherfolk.' These were the last words Bacchanidhi Behera uttered before he succumbed to a police bullet in the firing in Orissa's Sarano village in Khurda district on the night of May 29-30. Chilka Lake is Asia's largest brackishwater water body …
Land acquisition legislation in force today is a relic of the colonial era when the wishes of landowners could be ignored. Governments of independent India continued the practice
The border conflict between Ethiopia and Eritrea has taken a new turn, with Ethiopian jets trying to destroy a vital water source in Eritrea. Ethiopian MiG-23 fighter planes bombed a reservoir 50 kilometres from the Eritrean port of Assab. An Ethiopian communiqu
