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• Chorus against coal-based power plants grows louder

  Acknowledged as one of the biggest sources of pollution in the Capital, the coal-based Indraprastha power plant should not be allowed to operate till 2010 as has been proposed by the Delhi Government, say experts. The Indraprastha plant along with the other coal-based plants in the city -- the Badarpur thermal power station and the Raj Ghat power station -- have been criticised for not just lagging behind in power production but also for not being environment-friendly.

  • 17/05/2008

  • Hindu (New Delhi)
  • • Industrial Pollution
    • Carbon Dioxide
    • Coal
    • Power Industry
    • Delhi

• Alert issued over mosquito breeding

  Hospitals in the Capital have been asked to check and prevent breeding of mosquitoes on their premises to ensure that malaria and dengue are kept under control this year.

  • 17/05/2008

  • Hindu (New Delhi)
  • • Malaria
    • Dengue
    • Vector Control
    • Delhi

• BJP promises BRT, Metro for Delhi Cantonment

  While it had opposed tooth and nail the much talked about Bus Rapid Transit corridor between Ambedkar Nagar and Delhi Gate that was earlier called the High Capacity Bus System, the Bharatiya Janata Party has now pledged itself to facilitating a similar "high capacity bus' system in the Delhi Cantonment area should it be voted to power in the Cantonment Board elections due this Sunday.

  • 17/05/2008

  • Hindu (New Delhi)
  • • Public Transport
    • Urban Transport
    • High Capacity Bus
    • Metro
    • Politics
    • Delhi

• Shalimar Bagh residents join hands to save their greens

  Residents of AN-AM Block of Shalimar Bagh here are waging a war to save their greens that include 80 full-grown trees and a local park that they claim would be destroyed if the Government goes ahead with its plans to construct a multi-storey underground parking lot to accommodate the growing number of vehicles. The residents have also appealed to Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit and senior officials to save their greens.

  • 17/05/2008

  • Hindu (New Delhi)
  • • Deforestation
    • Trees
    • Urban Environment
    • Parking Policy
    • Delhi

• Delhi not to get power from Damodar Valley Corporation yet

  The euphoria over the prospect of Delhi getting additional power in the coming months has died down and as things stand the city could well be in for a long sweltering summer ahead. While the Centre is yet to agree to the State Government's demand for 400 MW from the un-allocated pool, the 250 MW from the Damodar Valley Corporation that the city was promised is also not being supplied. According to officials in the Union Power Ministry, the Capital will get the assured quantum from DVC, but for now the city's wait has just got longer.

  • 17/05/2008

  • Hindu (New Delhi)
  • • Damodar Action Plan
    • Power Transmission
    • Delhi
    • West Bengal

• Potable water a distant dream for Lahorites

  Despite spending millions of rupees on projects of installation of water filtration plants, replacement of rusty water supply lines, increasing number of collection of water samples from 25 to 40 daily and purification of water through chlorination, the provision of clean water is still a distant dream for Lahorites.

  • 17/05/2008

  • Nation (Pakistan)
  • • Sewers
    • Water Supply
    • UNEP
    • Lahore

• Bio-fuel production causes hike in world food commodity prices: growers turn to maize cultivation

  Bio-fuel production in big economies of the world is the basic reason behind increase in prices of food commodities in international market, as the growers in Pakistan have also started taking interest in cultivating maize that is the basic raw material of bio-fuel.

  • 17/05/2008

  • Business Recorder (Pakistan)
  • • Maize
    • Livestock
    • Climate Change
    • Biofuel
    • Poverty
    • World Bank

• Emission shocker for Tata

  Tata Motors may be in for a shock. Under a tough new emissions regime to be introduced by the European Union, Land Rover and Jaguar are likely to face emission fines of up to

  • 17/05/2008

  • Asian Age (New Delhi)
  • • Vehicular Pollution
    • Carbon Dioxide
    • European CO2 Emissions Standard
    • Emissions Trading
    • Auto Industry
    • Tata Motors
    • European Union (EU)

• Multidimensional poverty and vulnerability

  The poverty of an entity is manifest in her deprivation not only in income but also in other dimensions such as health, nutrition and sanitation. Hence, a comprehensive measure of poverty must ideally take into account the performance of an individual across multiple dimensions. Vulnerability to poverty captures the likelihood of an entity falling into poverty, given the current status of the household. Unlike poverty, which describes the status of an entity at a point of time, vulnerability is predictive in nature.

  • 17/05/2008

  • Economic and Political Weekly
  • • Consumption Patterns
    • Poverty
    • India
    • Statistics
    • Rural Poverty

• No water, weddings get cancelled

  For those who get running water at the turn of a knob in their houses, this may sound somewhat outlandish, even bizarre. Hundreds of young men are being forced to lead a bachelor's life and hundreds of young girls prefer being "sold" outside the state rather than marry in their own state and the villain in this situation is water. Marriages are being cancelled, postponed and called-off at the last minute in the Bundelkhand region due to paucity of water.

  • 17/05/2008

  • Asian Age (New Delhi)
  • • Drinking Water Scarcity
    • Drought
    • Uttar Pradesh

• Organised food retailing: A blessing or a curse?

  There are serious concerns about the entry of organised retailing in the Indian food sector. What impact will it have on farmers,

  • 17/05/2008

  • Economic and Political Weekly
  • • Food Supply
    • Farmers
    • Agro-Based Industry
    • India
    • Bangalore (T)
    • Statistics

• Analysis of new legal discourse behind Delhi's slum demolitions

  A discourse analysis of court documents in slum-related cases from the past 25 years leads to the conclusion that the basic statement that "slums are illegal' is a very recent juridical discourse and the rise of court orders to demolish slums is due to reinterpretation of nuisance law. The "new nuisance discourse' that arose in the early 2000s re-problematised slums as nuisances and became the primary mechanism by which slum demolitions take place at present.

  • 17/05/2008

  • Economic and Political Weekly
  • • Urban Habitat
    • Urban Housing
    • Slums
    • Slum Demolition
    • Legislation
    • Supreme Court
    • India
    • Delhi

• Lalu signs $1 billion rail project in Malay

  Making further inroads into the growing South-East Asian nation, Indian Railways have signed a mega $ 1 billion rail link project in Malaysia. Railways minister Lalu Prasad Yadav, who is on a two-day visit to Malaysia, inked the contract for Electrified Double Tracking Project between Seremban and Gemas bagged by IRCON International Ltd, a public service undertaking of the ministry of railways, with Malaysian minister of transport Datuk Ong Tee Keat in Kuala Lumpur on Friday.

  • 17/05/2008

  • Asian Age (New Delhi)
  • • Rail Transport
    • Malaysia
    • India

• Food crisis not due to India'

  Rubbishing claims by western leaders that the current food crisis was caused by the growing consumption in India and China, BRIC foreign ministers on Friday sought a "just" global economy keeping in view interests of all nations. "There are multiple reasons for the current food crisis, primarily due to recent cyclones in Bangladesh and Burma, which destroyed the entire rice crops in these countries, also exporters of rice.

  • 17/05/2008

  • Asian Age (New Delhi)
  • • Food Prices
    • Food Supply
    • China
    • India

• Crude oil price up as Bush visits Saudi Arabia

  Crude oil prices on Friday hit a fresh record high of almost $128 a barrel boosted by a bullish forecast from Goldman Sachs and as US President George W. Bush asked Saudi Arabia, the world's largest oil producer, for help to lower skyrocketing energy prices. Bush, on his second visit to Saudi Arabia this year, was renewing his appeal for the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries to boost its output.

  • 17/05/2008

  • Business Standard (New Delhi)
  • • Oil Exploration
    • Saudi Arabia
    • Fuel Pricing

• Producer companies as new generation cooperatives

  Traditional cooperatives have been unsuccessful in linking small farmers to the global market. Can the development of producer companies as new generation cooperatives turn out to be different?

  • 17/05/2008

  • Economic and Political Weekly
  • • Agriculture
    • Farmers
    • Anti-Poverty Programmes
    • Agro-Based Industry
    • Cooperatives
    • India
    • Madhya Pradesh

• Imagining an economy of plenty in Kerala

  Land reforms in Kerala, far from being a remarkable success, have been a major failure. They were meant to redistribute land and not to improve productivity. It is time the state government considered ordering that redistributed land should be returned if the beneficiaries do not cultivate it and also reversing the existing anti-tenancy law. Kerala's food security demands that the state think afresh about its policies for land and production.

  • 17/05/2008

  • Economic and Political Weekly
  • • Land Ownership
    • Land Reforms
    • Agriculture
    • Food Prices
    • India
    • Kerala
    • Food Security

• Sukinda's curse

  What Erin Brockovich, a twice-divorced mother of two and a legal clerk, did to the small South Californian town Hinkley by taking on a corporation as huge as PG&E is part of American activism history Sukinda, in Orissa, has . not been as lucky despite scores of citizens' reports, environment assessment studies and a green brigade's non-relenting crusade.

  • 17/05/2008

  • New Indian Express (Chennai)
  • • Water Pollution
    • River Pollution
    • Air Pollution
    • Environment Impact Assessment (EIA)
    • Mining
    • Brahmani
    • State Pollution Control Board (SPCB)
    • CSE Study
    • CSE
    • Orissa (Odisha)

• Surge in world wheat prices: Learning from the past

  How can countries cope in the short and medium term with the sharp rise in wheat prices? The global movements of the past suggest that in the case of wheat, prices are influenced by the stock and output policies of just a handful of countries. It would be dangerous for large countries like China and India to depend on the global market for their food security. And it is time world bodies consider establishing a global reserve to help food-deficit countries in times of crisis.

  • 17/05/2008

  • Economic and Political Weekly
  • • Wheat
    • Food Policy
    • Food Prices
    • Food Supply
    • China
    • India
    • Food Security

• Ban on foodgrain exports may go

  The surplus foodgrain production in the country could open new vistas for exporters, in the wake of a global shortage in food grains. With the food production in the country exceeding the estimates, the government could review lifting the ban on exports.

  • 17/05/2008

  • Tribune (New Delhi)
  • • Food Policy
    • Food Prices
    • Exports