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 …
UNCLE Sam has done it once again. In mid-February, the Kim Il Sung regime in North Korea finally agreed to allow the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to inspect its seven declared nuclear sites. The decision came after 10 nerve-wracking days during which the two countries hurled verbal missiles at …
BRITAIN'S Overseas Development Agency (ODA) has washed its hands off Kenya's forest reserves. It has unceremoniously withdrawn a L12 m grant for a forestry convention programme launched in Kenya because it has fallen out with the ruling party on the issue of illegal allocation of protected forest lands. ODA claims …
Animal rights activists were outraged when jallikattu, a bloody bull-fighting sport, was displayed at the Republic Day pageant in Madras. Tamil Nadu Governor M Channa Reddy reviewed a series of cultural floats on the Marina seafront, one of which depicted jallikattu as a folk sport. In the sport, prize bulls …
IN A CLASSIC tussle between conservation and tourist revenue, anthropologist Richard Leakey was compelled to resign as chairperson of the Kenyan Wildlife Service, following a campaign unleashed against him by William Ole Ntimama, the powerful Kenyan minister of local government. Ntimama said the local population in or near Kenya's national …
FOR THE residents of San Cristobal de las Casas in Mexico's poverty stricken southern state of Chiapas, the New Year began with a bang. Just minutes into 1994 -- as locals and tourists ushered in the New Year with music and fireworks -- Uzi-toting, machete-wielding guerillas of the Zapatista National …
Soon after the Hazratbal shrine in Srinagar was freed of terrorists, several national dailies carried a photograph of an alleged terrorist peering out of a "detention centre" located at the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) in Jammu. Sources at BARC headquarters in Bombay were understandably squeamish when confronted with the …
The recent death in police firing of 15-year-old Rahimat Punya Vasave, a tribal from Surung village in Dhule district in Maharashtra, created ripples of protest all the way to the Capital. Three other tribals were injured in the firing when villagers of Akrani taluk in Dhule district -- one of …
ANY ATTEMPT at promoting awareness of the interdependence of humans and the environment is a welcome step. This is especially true of the need to tell children about the harm that has been done to the once-good earth by generations of Homo sapiens -- the only species that is mentally …
DON'T KEEP guns at home for the temptation to use them may be too strong to control. According to a recent US study, firearms kept at home increase by three times the risk of murder by a family member or intimate acquaintance (The New England Journal of Medicine, Vol 329, …
AMIDST the euphoric atmosphere, a time bomb is ticking away in semi-arid West Asia. On September 13, Israel signed the Declaration of Principles with the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) and followed it up, in less than 24 hours, with the signing of the Common Agenda with Jordan. Though this has …
IN BRAZIL'S worst such incident in nearly a century, gold miners illegally prospecting on the Yanomami reservation are believed to have massacred, with machetes and guns, 73 Indian tribals. Brazilian President Itamar Franco called in the country's military leadership to control the miners and set up a special ministry for …
WITH PREDICTIONS by World Health Organisation officials that 40 million people will be infected by HIV by 2000 and six million of them will go on to contract AIDS and die, a cure for the disease holds out promise for vast profits -- and the Australians, at least, are determined …
DESPITE its travails, pregnancy is commonly perceived as a delicate give-and-take between a woman and the embryo she carries. But now David Haig, an evolutionary biologist at Harvard University in Boston, challenges this view by suggesting that conception is a long evolutionary struggle between the mother and the foetus. Says …
UNLESS some last-minute glitches sour the deal, the new year will unite Canada, the US and Mexico in the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the world's largest free-trade zone with about 370 potential consumers and a combined gross national product of more than $6,400 billion. Not only does NAFTA …
THE TITLE of Frederique Apffel Marglin and Tariq Banuri's book, Who will Save the Forests?, sounds more like a rhetorical question or an impassioned plea than the launch of a sophisticated academic enquiry. One reason for this is perhaps that the forests of the world face such a bleak future …
WITH THE run-up to the assembly elections under way in Rajasthan, one would expect senior politicians to be busy plotting campaign strategy -- and not be immersed in the problems of mining in the Aravallis. But their concern is not surprising, given the fact that mining has become one of …
• The area being mined has gone up 36.5 times in the past 20 years and as a result, forest cover in the area has declined from 237.8 sq km in 1971 to 127.7 sq km. • In 1971, the entire forest cover of 237.8 sq km was classified as …
IF SHAH Jahan's men were to return today to Makrana, from where the marble for the Taj Mahal was procured, they would have no problem recognising it. Little has changed in the small Aravalli town in Nagore district, which has become synonymous the world over with quality white marble: the …
ON AUGUST 14, 1991, the residents of Mogji Ka Kheda village near Udaipur woke up to a shocking sight: labourers digging up a part of their 17-ha community pasture. When the startled villagers, led by Godaji Gadari, confronted the labourers they learnt the workers had been employed by Udaipur mining …
THE KARNATAKA Rajya Raitha Sangha (KRRS), which recently destroyed a processing unit of multinational Cargill Seeds, has lent strong support to a broad-based campaign against a plant set up in collaboration with W R Grace & Co of USA to produce a biopesticide from neem seeds. KRRS and several other …
