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 …
Roughshod riding SEZs will trample on farmers' rights A farmer in Cheete Kalan village in Amritsar, Harjeet Singh Hundal, has big plans. For the past year, he has been using organic manure on his fertile and irrigated agricultural land and he can't stop talking about it. function table() { var …
But the farmers are not the only ones who have been protesting against these special zones. An unlikely but forceful voice has been that of the ministry of finance. Though the commerce and finance ministries had drawn swords over the issue of whether sezs will result in a revenue loss …
The internal structure of sezs and their relations with the world outside are equally controversial. Environment and labour standards followed inside sezs are suspect all around the world. Chinese sezs are particularly notorious for their lax labour and environmental standards. The sez Act has in its own way tried to …
The World Trade Organization (wto) was supposed to be the driver of free trade in a globalised economy. But this does not seem to be the case. Regional trade agreements (rtas) seem to be ruling the roost. Two hundred ninety rta s are now in force. rtas are popular among …
Newly formed states such as Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand are leaving no stones unturned to get the tag of "developed states'. And to get this tag, they are industrialising rapidly, putting at stake the basic livelihoods of people. The regulatory structure is, however, weak. Gautam Bandopadhyaya of the Nadi Ghati Morcha …
WEST Bengal chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee signed a much-hyped deal with the Salim Group of Indonesia for investments up to Rs 20,000 crore in infrastructure development on July 31. Billed the "New Kolkata International Development Project," the deal includes expressways, bridges, special economic zones, industrial hubs and health and knowledge …
Forests are the mainstay of tribals in Tripura, and in many other parts of the country as well. But of late, tribals have been displaced from forestlands. The bill on tribal rights over forestlands will be re-tabled in parliament. What are your views on this issue? Yes, tribals have had …
This article reviews the importance of tuna fisheries in the western and central Pacific Ocean to Pacific Island Countries (PICs) and examines whether current and proposed institutional mechanisms for tuna management are sufficient to promote long-term tuna-led development. Potential gains exist from cooperation on tuna management; however, it seems unlikely …
function table() { var popurl="image/20060831/8-table.jpg" winpops=window.open(popurl,"","width=320,height=550,scrollbars=yes") } ever since the West Bengal government cleared, in May 2006, Tata Motor's proposal of setting up a 426 hectares (ha) small car plant in Singur in Hooghly district, farmers' protests have been relentless. Their protests forced the government to redraw its land acquisition …
An interim report on the uk's land-use planning was released on July 4, 2006, fuelling a debate on the possibility of relaxing regulations in the planning system to encourage rapid market growth. Kate Barker, member of the monetary policy committee of the Bank of England and author of the 2004 …
three decades ago, the Left Front government in West Bengal started its rule by distributing land to the landless through its famous land reform programme. Now, the political grouping is preparing to grab 17,200 hectares (ha) of mostly agricultural land for industry
Four decades of misery and scores of suicides later, Vidarbha had a high-profile visitor who wanted to provide the healing touch. Yet, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's Rs.3,750-crore package failed to soothe farmers from eastern Maharashtra, who are bitter about being discriminated against. Public anger has come to a boil against …
It seems that the people who matter in this country have a simple enough formula for life and liberty. We should open up the market, create opportunity for the organised industry, mix and stir, and then the work will be done. They will tell you that this will mean taking …
This report briefly summarizes the information related to Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) developments in China collected through independent research and a visit to China from April 17-26, 2006 as part of FTA Public Transportation Trade Mission. The purpose of NBRTI's participation in the mission was to visit operational BRT systems …
Arunachal Pradesh Human Development Report 2005 Published by Arunachal Pradesh Government In 2005, Moji Riba, an Arunchal-based documentary maker returned to the Apatani plateau to see an industrious tribe rebuild Hong, a town razed to the ground by fire, in three days. Labour, wood and bamboo
Imampur village is in Nagar taluka of Maharashtra's Ahmednagar district, a rain shadow area. For more than two years now, the agriculture department has been implementing a watershed project here, using egs money. But when dte visited Imampur, it found out that while an entire hillock was covered with continuous …
finance Minister P Chidambaram's budget gave eight flagship programmes 43 per cent more allocation (at Rs 50,015 crore) in the 2006-07 Union budget. Chidambaram took note of the National Commission for Farmers report and reduced the interest rate on short-term credit to farmers to seven per cent for an upper-limit …
Country-level analyses of global Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) relationships that use multicountry panel data sets are likely to suffer from several types of aggregation bias that may explain why previous studies have yielded conflicting results. The authors analyze 1990 cross-sectional data for the United States for three pollutants and test …
