The Guarani tribe in Brazil has demanded that Royal Dutch Shell stop using its land to produce ethanol. In a letter to the oil biggie, Guarani leaders wrote, “Since the factory began to operate all our health has deteriorated—children, adults and animals. Shell must leave our land...We want our land …
Kyrgyzstan is outdoing neighbouring Kazakhstan in linguistic nationalism. Candidates who want to contest the forthcoming presidential elections will have to pass a test of their ability to speak Kyrgyz. Speaking Kyrgyz has been a prerequisite for those seeking the highest office since independence from the former Soviet Union in the …
ATM manufacturers have unveiled talking teller machines. The country’s banking establishment is working to change its attitude towards visually challenged customers, of course, following repeated prodding by the Reserve Bank of India. At an event at Xavier’s Resource Centre for the Visually Challenged in Mumbai Sam Taraporevala, the head of …
Google’s carbon footprint is on a par with that of the UN, claims the Internet giant’s first disclosure of its energy usage. Google emits 1.5 million tonnes of carbon annually but claims its data centres consume 50 per cent less energy than the industry average. Google said many of its …
Ludwig van Beethoven and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart had hearing impairment. So did the rock guitarist Pete Townsend. But musicians enjoy better hearing, a Canadian study suggests. The study, published in Psychology and Aging, carried out hearing tests on 74 adult musicians, and 89 non-musicians. It found a 70-year-old musician’s speech …
STORIES are at the heart of any tribal community. Most of our history is passed down by word of mouth in the form of fables, myths, legends, rituals or folktales. It is at the threshold of being lost forever. This website details the work of an organisation that attempts to …
NANOTECHNOLOGY has revolutionised industry. It is used to improve wide ranging products, from cosmetics, toys and toothpastes to textiles and missiles. Industry thinks the technology holds promise to change every facet of life in some way. Substances at nano scale, or nanoparticles, demonstrate novel physiochemical properties compared to larger particles …
ON SEPTEMBER 9, the Supreme Court ordered detergent company Nirma to file its reply to the show cause notice issued by the Union ministry of environment and forests (MoEF) within three months. MoEF had issued the notice in May, asking the company to explain within two weeks why the environmental …
AT A time when Indian honey is under the scanner for allegedly re-exporting cheap and poor quality Chinese honey, a private firm has become the first in the world to bag the True Source Honey (TSH) certificate. The certificate, a US industry initiative, is the authentication of the origin of …
THE UN General Assembly has adopted a watered-down political declaration to reduce the burden of chronic lifestyle diseases. The event signals the beginning of a larger fight between industry and health policy makers. The resolution was passed at a summit ahead of the General Assembly in New York on September …
THE cat is out of the bag. Developed countries take back a large chunk of their development assistance by forcing recipient countries to buy goods and services from them. This was stated in a report released ahead of a meeting of rich countries to be held in November at Busan …
Next year, in June, world leaders will get together in the joyful city of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, to mark 20 years of UNCED—the Earth Summit (see Down to Earth, May 15, 1992). Unbelievably, it will be 40 years since the Stockholm conference, when the question of the environment first …
Panchayats Extension to Scheduled Areas (PESA) Act was enacted 15 years ago. Do you feel helpless because it has not yet been implemented? As the minister of panchayati raj, my first job is to remind people about the existence of PESA. If need arises I can go for further legislation …
Thermal power generation in India is set to increase manifold shows an analysis of data from the Union Ministry of Environment and Forest (MoEF). The country’s total thermal capacity as of April 2011 is 113,000 MW. This capacity is proposed to be increased to 701,820 MW, which is six times …
Eight months ago the Centre constituted a group of ministers (GoM) to look into the increasing perception that delay in acquiring forest clearance was hurting the country’s coal and power production. The GoM’s terms of reference comprised suggesting measures on “efficacy and legality of forest clearance norms” and for ensuring …
How does a city-state that has no natural water body, very little groundwater and even less land to store rainwater quench the thirst of its five million people? Singapore faces this question just as one of its 50-year water import agreement with Johor, now a part of Malaysia, expires in …
The Ganga Action Programme is a very ambitious scheme. It aims to clean one of the world’s longest rivers using sophisticated and expensive technologies. But the project does not sufficiently recognise that the river flows through one of the poorest and the most densely populated regions of the world. Municipalities …
ON A pleasant morning when fifty-four-year-old Australian marine diver David Hannan was gearing to plunge into the deep sea, a bunch of American scientists were ready to set sail for the Arctic Ocean. In another corner of the world at Dona Paula in Goa oceanographers were contemplating plans to measure …
MUCH has been talked about how climate change poses risk to ecosystems and individual species. But no one has analysed how global warming will affect the genetic diversity hidden within the species. DNA studies have revealed that traditional species contain a vast amount of “cryptic” diversity—such as different lineages or …
BE IT plant or animal, introduction of a foreign species to an environment has more often than not put the native ones at risk. At places, while competing for food and space, foreign species become so invasive that they push the region’s predominant organisms to extinction. In case of animals, …
