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 …
there is no money to conduct an elephant census in Meghalaya. Faced with frequent human-pachyderm conflicts, the state forest department had planned an elephant census last month as part of its elephant conservation programme. However, the project has failed to take off due to paucity of finance. Several conservation schemes …
Tobacco giant Philip Morris has been ordered by a jury to pay $150 million in punitive damages in a suit filed by the estate of Michele Schwarz, who succumbed to lung cancer after smoking cigarettes of its Merit brand. In an unprecedented verdict, the company was found to have falsely …
JHARKHAND. FOR most, the word conjures up the happy image of a fledgling state finding its feet. But for the indigenous people of Saranda it has come to signify an unending struggle to save their way of life and habitat. Worse still, the authorities solely blame the tribal communities for …
It could be seen as the best tribute the government could pay our colleague Anil Agarwal. At the hearing of the air pollution case in the Supreme Court when the report on fuel adulteration done by the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) was being discussed, the counsel for the …
Destruction often comes disguised as development. Nobody knows this better than the inhabitants of Kudremukh National Park (knp) in Karnataka, who have witnessed years of mindless mining and the consequent loss of habitat in the state's
Asia accounts for 62 per cent of the world's plantations. With 89 per cent of the new plantations coming up in the continent, they are increasingly becoming the source of debate and conflicts. Who owns them and who derives benefits from these? Are they grown to reforest wasteland or are …
nearly half a century after the Koel-Karo hydroelectric project (sited in present-day Jharkhand) was conceived, tribal protests against the venture continue unabated. An independent inquiry into the latest incident
The raging row over raising of water level in the Mullaipperiyar dam remains unresolved with the Kerala state government locking horns with the Tamil Nadu (TN) and the Union government. At stake is the Periyar Tiger Reserve which faces inundation if the dam's water level is raised from 41.4 metres …
it's a catch-22 situation. Although the Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board (tnpcb) wants local bodies to compost their waste, there is a problem of giving them the right place. A recent casualty is the much-touted Alandur municipality's waste-to-manure compost project. Citing a
• For effective development and utilisation of its natural resources, the Orissa government intends to draft a mineral policy soon. Along with this, the state also wants to formulate a gems policy to tap its vast gem reserves. • Around 4,000 villagers of Gondriala in Kodad mandal of Nalgonda district …
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, …
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 …
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 …
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 …
