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 …
all herders and livestock, who had intruded into the 392-square-kilometre (sq km) Ranthambhore National Park in Sawai Madhopur district, Rajasthan, have been driven out ending one month of drama. The tension between 100-odd villages around the park and the forest department, however, can spark more trouble in the future. There …
The Walvis Bay lagoon is at the centre of a stormy debate between the town's tourism development council and conservationists. The former wants to develop a restaurant-coffee shop-tourism centre near the water body to "enhance the city's attractiveness as a tourist destination'. But the Coastal Environmental Trust of Namibia (cetn), …
The controversy about the high arsenic content in Lucknow's water has taken a new turn. The contention of M C Saxena, director, Environmental Research Laboratory, that the water contains 10,000 parts per billion (PPB) of arsenic has been refuted by an expert. Dipankar Chakraborti, an authority on arsenic and director …
For the past 18 months, Madhya Pradesh deputy chief minister Jamuna Devi has kept up the fusillade against Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA) leader Medha Patkar. Now Patkar has returned fire by filing a Rs 10-lakh defamation suit against Devi in the Indore district court. Earlier, Devi had alleged that Patkar …
In India, there is an inextricable link between water and politics. This was very much in evidence recently when the opposition walked out in the Karnataka assembly over the proposed privatisation of Bangalore’s water supply system. Water tariff had earlier been hiked steeply in the city to pave the way …
In a strange twist to the raging lumber dispute between the us and Canada, both nations have interpreted a recent World Trade Organisation (wto) ruling on the issue as a vindication of their respective stands. While the us contends that it has scored a "technical point', Canada says the body …
The simmering water dispute between Mexico and the us seems to have been finally settled. The border countries reached an agreement under which Mexico will release about 111 million cubic metres of water into Rio Grande river for use by Texas farmers. This is six per cent of the water …
The Sri Lankan Prime Minister gifted two baby elephants to a group of Japanese children. Moved by reports about the impact of the recent conflict in the Balkans on a zoo in the Croatian city of Osijek, these children began pooling their pocket money for an elephant. They wrote to …
there is no money to conduct an elephant census in Meghalaya. Faced with frequent human-pachyderm conflicts, the state forest department had planned an elephant census last month as part of its elephant conservation programme. However, the project has failed to take off due to paucity of finance. Several conservation schemes …
Tobacco giant Philip Morris has been ordered by a jury to pay $150 million in punitive damages in a suit filed by the estate of Michele Schwarz, who succumbed to lung cancer after smoking cigarettes of its Merit brand. In an unprecedented verdict, the company was found to have falsely …
JHARKHAND. FOR most, the word conjures up the happy image of a fledgling state finding its feet. But for the indigenous people of Saranda it has come to signify an unending struggle to save their way of life and habitat. Worse still, the authorities solely blame the tribal communities for …
It could be seen as the best tribute the government could pay our colleague Anil Agarwal. At the hearing of the air pollution case in the Supreme Court when the report on fuel adulteration done by the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) was being discussed, the counsel for the …
Destruction often comes disguised as development. Nobody knows this better than the inhabitants of Kudremukh National Park (knp) in Karnataka, who have witnessed years of mindless mining and the consequent loss of habitat in the state's
nearly half a century after the Koel-Karo hydroelectric project (sited in present-day Jharkhand) was conceived, tribal protests against the venture continue unabated. An independent inquiry into the latest incident
The raging row over raising of water level in the Mullaipperiyar dam remains unresolved with the Kerala state government locking horns with the Tamil Nadu (TN) and the Union government. At stake is the Periyar Tiger Reserve which faces inundation if the dam's water level is raised from 41.4 metres …
it's a catch-22 situation. Although the Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board (tnpcb) wants local bodies to compost their waste, there is a problem of giving them the right place. A recent casualty is the much-touted Alandur municipality's waste-to-manure compost project. Citing a
• For effective development and utilisation of its natural resources, the Orissa government intends to draft a mineral policy soon. Along with this, the state also wants to formulate a gems policy to tap its vast gem reserves. • Around 4,000 villagers of Gondriala in Kodad mandal of Nalgonda district …
