Good Food is First Food. It is not junk food. It is the food that connects nature and nutrition with livelihoods. This food is good for our health; it comes from the rich biodiversity of our regions; it provides employment to people. Most importantly, cooking and eating give us pleasure. …
the government of India plans to issue a notification permitting the import of one million tonnes of soybean. The proposal has been cleared by the commerce industry and clearance is awaited from the agricultural ministry. The ministry of environment and forests ( mef ), which is responsible for the biosafety …
dawn breaks over a skyline of ancient temples and trees. Boatloads of pilgrims step ashore on the river bank and perform their morning ablutions. Peacock cries and the sound of temple bells fill the air. As the temperature climbs, the morning mists disperse to reveal a bustling town in which …
The great smog disasters of the past have made clear that air pollution can kill people in a matter of days: extremely high concentrations of air pollution building up under conditions of low wind speed and stable atmospheric conditions have been associated with excess deaths in the Meuse Valley, Belgium …
iron may symbolise strength, but how many would be aware of the fact that too much of it causes lung damage? Who could ever suspect that a seemingly harmless name like cadmium could be a reason for decreasing sperm count? And not just this, but overexposure to almost all heavy …
ENVIRONMENTAL degradation, ecological imbalances and sustainability top the agenda of seminars and workshops today. But I have always felt that these discussions are quite superficial. I would like to share my experience and views on sustainable agriculture as a woman farmer. I stress upon the term woman farmer, because I …
FROM the look of things, the age of environmental justice has arrived: the courts everywhere in the country, especially in Gujarat and Delhi, are issuing orders for the closure of polluting units right, left and centre. The NGOs are exuberant. The workers are worried about losing their jobs. State governments …
AT THE End of Tears and Anger is a Japanese film on a doctor diagnosing a pollution-related disease. Investigating further, he comes upon its linkages with the social structure. The film bagged the Grand Prize in the 3rd Festival of Earth Vision, held in Tokyo in December last year. The …
AIR, WATER, garbage, radon toxicity, sludge, noise. More than a part of our daily lives, these are perennial if hackneyed jargon. Few people would love to begin their mornings with them, fewer would care to read about them and even fewer disgruntled citizens would care to buy a book and …
WHILE burning sugarcane leaves makes harvesting the stalks easier, the practice is damaging to the environment. So Cinecana, the Colombian sugarcane industry's research arm, has come up with a way to help farmers harvest their cane in an environment-friendly manner. Says Cinecana director James Cock, they recommend harvesting the cane …
PERHAPS economics started off on the wrong foot with Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations. Its early emphasis was on the process of creation of wealth as an outcome of humankind's toil against nature. This assumption of an antithetical relationship between humankind and nature has coloured much of traditional economic analyses …
THE CLINTON administration jumped into a contentious issue even before assuming office by announcing it would block a final-stage, testing permit for a hazardous waste incinerator in East Liverpool, Ohio. Vice-president Al Gore, casting his lot with a Greenpeace campaign to stop the US incinerator industry, said there are "serious …
For officials in the power sector, setting targets for electricity generation has become a leap in the dark. Because of environmental considerations, all targets for producing power from conventional sources have been upset and several hurdles have been placed in the way of securing international assistance for power projects. Prime …
CITIZEN'S groups in Pune monitor their municipal authorities closely to ensure they do not let the city become a concrete jungle. These groups insist on inspecting town plans, on offering alternative building proposals and on never relaxing the pressure on the authorities, whom they hold accountable to the people. Not …
A MAJOR leap in Indian jurisprudence occurred when Chief Justice P N Bhagwati interpreted the Indian Constitution to mean that Indian citizens have a Right to a clean and healthy environment because without this, the expressly stated Right to Life is meaningless. However, little effort has been made to define …
IN EUROPE, a ban on toxic waste movement between countries has led to a hot debate on free trade. Concerned by a legal ruling stating European Community (EC) legislation which bars governments from imposing prohibitions on trans-border passage of merchandise, many states have announced bans specifically relating to wastes. These …
THE SOUTH Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) ratified the setting up of a technical committee on environment at its July 8-9 foreign ministers' meet in Colombo. This gives permanent status to the ad hoc committee set up in November last to examine the recommendations of the SAARC secretariat report …
AT THE outset, I would like to mention that I have not been able to read the Morse report. My opinions are based on the summaries of the report that have been published in the newspapers. I find the report disappointing in the sense of not "being well done". Going …
THE Indian Agriculture Research Institute (IARI) has devised now techniques of using fertilisers - through the split application and the deep placement methods and using granules rather than powder - which will prevent the loss of nitrogen into the atmosphere and the water table, and result in higher crop yields …
AN Indian environmentalist recently offered me a five-word analysis of pollution in the Netherlands, which made up in crispness what it lacked in elegance. "Holland," he said, "is drowning in prgshit." The same point is made, less pungently and much expanded, in this 126-page report on the humanmade horrors of …
The world is becoming increasingly urbanised with majority of the population residing and working in cities. While increasing urbanisation and economic growth can provide significant benefits, they also present a range of challenges with regard to the escalating resource use and today we witness one of our most important natural …
