The World Meteorological Organization’s State of the Climate in Asia 2024 report warns that the region is warming nearly twice as fast as the global average, driving more extreme weather and posing serious threats to lives, ecosystems, and economies. In 2024, Asia experienced its warmest or second warmest year on …
EVERY epoch has its own pet causes. Ours in India is environment and liberalisation. Unfortunately, the two are often at war with each other and in the event of any real confrontation it is environment that loses out. Is it because people do not really care for the environment or …
IT IS called the black gold, and gold remains valuable for ever. Coal will always retain its value as a source of energy. Yet, the industry has been under pressure from various alternative sources of energy such as oil, nuclear, gas, and so on. Cost of availability has also been …
THAT nightmarish faction book, The Hot Zone, told the story of the deadly Ebola virus. Now Outbreak tells us an even more horrifying story of a fictional virus, Motaba. Like Ebola, which dissolves the insides of monkeys and humans in a week or 10 days, Motaba also spreads through body …
The exhibition on the theme of Man and Nature at the National Gallery of Modern Art tries on one hand to present a comprehensive picture of the Bengal School -- the 3 Tagores: Rabindranath, Abanindranath and Gaganendranath, Nandlal Bose, Benode Bihari Mukherjee and Ram Kinkar Baij. On the other, it …
Want to invite at home some Amazonian Indians? Go trekking in Alpine forests? Relive Chernobyl's horrors, or orbit the earth aboard a satellite? The World Wide Fund for Nature and Wildlife (WWF) new software which makes all this possible is called satcom and is packed with information, photos, maps, graphs, …
An Act to provide for strict liability for damages arising out of any accident occurring while handling any hazardous substance and for the establishment of a National Environment Tribunal for effective and expeditious disposal of cases arising from such accident, with a view to giving relief and compensation for damages …
Paluther, an anti-malarial drug developed by Chinese scientists in 1973, promises new hope to the millions suffering from the killer disease. On trial for the past 3 years in Tanzania and Kenya, the drug is expected to replace chloroquine and other anti-malarials in use in the 2 countries. Shrikant Bhatt, …
The prosperous Asia-Pacific region seems to be heading towards a certain environmental doom. According to the Asian Development Bank's (ADB) predictions, increased air and water pollution, heavy carbon dioxide emissions and land degradation are distinct possibilities in the near future. "Such is the grim picture which we are faced with, …
"We want to transform the accident into something positive," says Paulo New regional director of the National Nuclear Energy Commission in Brazil -referring to the nuclear waste dump in Goiania, site of a macabre radiation disaster, which the Brazilian government now proposes to turn into a national park. It happened …
Intervention of the highest court in the land has finally ensured that the beautiful hill resort of Nainital -- marred by various polluting agents -- still retained its pristine splendour. A petition submitted by Ajay Singh Rawat, head of the department of history, Kumaun University (Nainital), and taken up by …
The Ebola filovirus, a slender microscopic length of what resembles blood-sprinkled thread, is, in terrible truth, an insidious sociopath that spinechilling Hollywood would love to stock in its props room. No one has ever seen anything the likes of the Ebola virus before. On April 10 this year, a Zairean …
The recently concluded conference to extend the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (npt) has once again driven home the message that hypocrisy is the buzzword in the present world order. After nearly 2 years of preparation and 4 weeks of intense negotiations, the member states "unanimously" agreed to extend the treaty indefinitely …
Imagine, if you can, a society in which only the intelligent prosper, where a "cognitive elite" reigns supreme. Imagine, also, at the other end of the goodies spectrum, an impoverished underclass ostensibly deficient in endowment and ability and yet perpetuating its own kind by self-selection and mutual fostering in an …
HISTORY informs us that the year Galileo died was the year Newton was born, thus ensuring a seamless continuum of the spirit of the ongoing revolution in physics. Martin Bernal's recent volumes on the Afro-Asiatic Roots of Western Civilisation, which appeared a couple of years ago, could be seen as …
THE Andaman & Nicobar islands, with their soft green cover, crystal clear water, thick tropical forests, rich marine ecosystems and ancient tribes almost 2,000 years behind modernity, living in harmony with nature are facing crisis at this point of time in history. The pressure on natural resources from a limited …
This book offers a collection of 39 papers on the various research activities of scientists of the Central Arid Zone Research Institute, (CAZRI), Jodhpur, working in Rajasthan's arid zone. The book first deals with the natural resources inventory, and later goes on to describe the various researches being carried out …
Green philosophy has suddenly come under strong criticism from those ruled by economic logic, so much so that in the first few months, books lambasting environmentalism and debunking their theories of doom are swaggering in the US market. Small is Beautiful: Blowing the Whistle on the Greens by Wilson Beckerman, …
THE Pakistan government has ambitious plans to tap coal reserves under the vast expanses of the Thar desert, but environmentalists warn that unfettered development could do more.harm. than good. In its enthusiasm to capitalise on the interest shown by foreign investors in cheaply a'v:ilable coal, the government is completely ignoring …
THE ministry of environment and forests has undertaken 'carrying capacity' studies in several environmentally sensitive areas like the Doon valley, the national capital region of Delhi, the Damodar river basin in Bihar and West Bengal, and the Tapi area in Gujarat. The studies will identify areas needing immediate attention. Data …
THE World Bank (WR) has admitted that its assessment of the Sardar Sarovar Project did not adhere to many of its own guidelines. In an internal memo prepared by the Operations Evaluations Division, it has described its own approach to the project as "delinquent". The WB's resettlement and rehabilitation guidelines, …
