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 …
With the spate of political support that the concept of rainwater harvesting has received in recent weeks from Central ministers and state chief ministers, the attack from pro-dam lobbies had to come. The government of Gujarat appears to be especially miffed as it had probably hoped that this drought would …
two separate incidents have recently shown the sorry state of governance in India. One happened in Almora, Uttar Pradesh, while the other occurred in Gujarat. Both are states ruled by the Bharatiya Janata Party ( bjp ). Although on two different planks, both the events throw light on the intolerant …
It makes us wonder whether there is a place for civil society in the country that claims to be the world's largest democracy. The recent incident in Gujarat
In japan , "the land of paradoxes', as Masafumi Nagao, a professor at the Centre for the study of International Cooperation in Education at Hiroshima University, puts it, the third sector that constitutes the non-profit and the non-governmental sector "is not without history'. The first and the second sectors comprise …
it is a right. Yet on paper it looks more like a privilege granted to the electorate than a right. However, despite its shortcomings, the Right to Information Bill, that was recently passed by the Rajasthan Legislative Assembly, is definitely a step forward towards ensuring more transparency in the state's …
the book is called Earth in the Balance . But it remains to be seen whether this environmental treatise can actually tilt the balance in favour of its author, the Democrat us vice president Al Gore who will defend his seat against the Republican nominee, Governor George W Bush of …
the failure of policies initiated by the forest department has led to a flourishing business for brokers involved in the sale of medicinal plants and non-wood forest products. This has resulted in the extensive destruction of biodiversity in Kotoor town of Kerala. An hour-long bumpy drive from the state capital …
a huge illegal consignment of timber worth several crores has been seized by forest department officials at a number of railway stations including Nangloi (Delhi), Rajpura (Punjab) and Tinsukhia (Assam) recently. Of a total of 93 wagons carrying timber from the northeast, 27 were detained at Rajpura. Thirteen of them …
HERE is something for those who would not believe that the wars of this century will be fought over water-related issues. Three people died and 20 were injured on December 14 in Falla village, 28 km from Jamnagar town of Gujarat, when the police opened fire on a mob of …
Dear Prime Minister, This is a year of severe drought in Gujarat and western Madhya Pradesh - an area that is well known for natural disasters of this kind. During the last general elections, your home minister, fighting for a fresh term from this region, had to face evocative slogans …
in all probability, the Delhi government is going to miss the bus. With only five months left for the expiry of the Supreme Court's (sc's) deadline to convert 1,800 diesel buses which are more than eight years old to compressed natural gas (cng), the possibility of its implementation seems very …
For almost eight months the DTC did precious little to implement this Court order March, 1999: First tender for conversion is floated by the DTC April, 1999: DTC files an affidavit for an extension of the Court deadline and permission to procure Euro I compliant diesel buses April 21, 1999: …
It may sound sick, but for the survivors of the supercyclone that lashed Orissa on October 29, it was perhaps easier to have perished. Or maybe not, because the dead are not going away. They are present in the stench of rotting corpses and carcasses, which bears the ominous portents …
Somehow the tobacco industry has been with us for the last three months or so. When Dietrich Schwela, the World Health Organization's (who) urban health expert based in Geneva, came to participate in a workshop organised by the Centre for Science and Environment (cse) on urbanisation and environment, he repeatedly …
It is well-known that it is very easy to siphon off funds from earthwork projects, says D K Mishra. Perhaps this was the reason why politicians in the 1950s pushed hard for embankments to be built along rivers in Bihar. The money siphoned off from such projects was used to …
This north Indian state is today a land of paradoxes. It is known both for its mineral wealth and its abysmally poor people. Here we can find corrupt bureaucrats, flushed with funds and personal wealth and a state as deprived of money as the poor who eke out a miserable …
• The embankments of Kamla Balan have been breached on several occasions. In 1963, when the river burst its embankments near Ramghat, it submerged villages such as Kharbar, Gangapur, Gunakarpur and Belhi. In 1964, the left bank on the Lakhnour block was breached near Daiya Kharbari. • In 1965, innumerable …
politicians: A means to generate funds for the party's coffers • Used the concept of shramdan (voluntary labour) to exploit the people • Awarded contracts to their relatives and party workers • Failed to maintain proper accounts contractors: Saw earthwork as an easy way to make a fast buck • …
