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 …
AN OFFER by Latin American banana growers for a dialogue has been eagerly accepted by their Caribbean rivals and discussions scheduled in St Lucia hopefully will dampen the dispute between them, triggered by banana import quotas fixed recently by the European Community (EC). The cause of acrimony between the two …
FIRST, Tamil Nadu chief minister J Jayalalitha began a highly publicised fast to back her state's claims to Cauvery water. Then, a flustered Union government came up with a proposal that presumably satisfied Jayalalitha, because she called off her fast. And, finally, Karnataka chief minister Veerappa Moily ungallantly played the …
THE OGONI tribals of Nigeria have pushed environmental degradation to the top of the agenda for the country's presidential elections, which were held in June, by protesting against US firm Willbros laying a pipeline, which would carry oil from the heart of the Ogoni territory to the port of Bonny. …
SURROUNDING a potential target by an army of bodyguards may actually increase the risk of assassination, according to researchers at Middlesex University, London (New Scientist, April 3, 1993). Too many guards increase the risk as it is probable the bodyguards may accidentally harm the person they are meant to protect. …
THE END of the East-West conflict and growing Western interest in environment is, at the root, interestingly, of the changes taking place in the UN. The stimulus for change comes from the organisation's major contributors, mainly the US, who had used the world body in the past to score successes …
KERALA'S coastal waters have become a battleground, putting traditional fisherfolk, who don't have an alternative vocation, against operators of mechanical monsters looking for quick profits from the sea. Linked closely with the dispute is the fate of the marine ecosystem. Conflicts between traditional and mechanised fisherfolk take place all along …
JUST 5 km north of Kerala's state capital, the 4,000 fisherfolk of Thumba village ready fishing lines and canoes, oblivious of the roar from the Indian Space Research Organisation's launch site nearby. Their catch is mainly kozhuva, hooked along the 7-km natural reef. But with the arrival of fishing trawlers, …
GORGED by monsoon rains, the Ganga flows unpredictably in the winter creating pockets of land on the Bihar-Uttar Pradesh border, which frequently trigger violent conflict between cultivators on either side of the river. This year, tension was marked in March, especially in the adjoining districts of Ballia in UP and …
AFTER 18 years of conservation efforts, crocodiles in India are no longer a threatened species. Unless something drastic occurs in the 20,000 sq km of protected areas (including 8,300 sq km of special sanctuaries), the extinction of the crocodile is only a remote possibility. But though the track record of …
THE NEW Global Environment Facility (GEF) fund is getting bogged down by wrangles over how to distinguish between national and international benefits in environmental projects. After disagreements surfaced at a GEF-sponsored workshop in Delhi in February, GEF administrator Ian Johnson proposed setting up a special committee to thrash out the …
A CLASH of interests between traditional fisherfolk and owners of modern fishing trawlers is nothing new in Kerala's coastal districts. But the normally quiet village of Anchuthengu in Kollam district is caught in just such a struggle and has been riven by unprecedented acts of violence since last October. The …
SOMALI activist Rakiya Omaar, who helped establish Africa Watch and served as its executive director for four years, has been dismissed for opposing the United Nations military intervention in Somalia. Omaar said she believed the arrival of USA-led troops "without prior consultation with Somalia's underground and with the relief organisations" …
THERE can be no sharper indictment of the government's attempts to protect the environment than this: After 20 years of spending money and effort, Project Tiger is in shambles. Experts say the fate of tigers in India may be worse than when this much-flaunted conservation bid was launched. Some even …
CRITICISING or condemning lopsided developmental priorities and highlighting their consequences is one thing; outright rejection of the very concept of development, science and technology is quite another. Propagating extremist ideology -- one that goes to the meaningless extent of rejecting even the Second Law of Thermodynamics -- is the sum …
PRODDED by fears that the ozone layer is being depleted at a much faster rate than reported initially, representatives of 56 countries met in Geneva recently and largely agreed on a proposal to bring forward the date for phasing out use of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) from 2000 to the end of …
FOR once the Japanese are running scared from the Americans. Minolta, the camera manufacturer, recently coughed up US $127.5 million to Honeywell, the US controls technology group, which had slapped a suit for patents infringement on the auto-focus process now so widely used in Japanese cameras. The US company may …
THERE is considerable speculation amongst the anti-Narmada activists as to how the recent clashes between the police and the villagers of Manibell will influence the attitude of the principal financiers of the dam, the World Bank and Japan. Medha Patkar of the Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA) did not look happy …
Act 1 (18 April): Yeltsin suspends rocket technology transfer to India following the threat of sanctions by USA. Act 11 (26 April): Prime Minister P V Narasimha Rao assures Parliament that the contract has neither been suspended nor cancelled even as U R Rao, chairperson of the Space Commission, returns …
The traditional Indian strategy of resolving conflict by non-cooperation, the satyagraha, has been revived in the Chipko, or "Embrace the Tree", the movement to protect trees from commercial felling. This paper traces the development of the philosophy and the non-violent resistance activities from the beginnings of Chipko in the early …
