Good Food is First Food. It is not junk food. It is the food that connects nature and nutrition with livelihoods. This food is good for our health; it comes from the rich biodiversity of our regions; it provides employment to people. Most importantly, cooking and eating give us pleasure. …
I travel in drought-hit Rajasthan. I want to see, and record. What does really happen when an area is hit by drought? It doesn't rain over Rajasthan the way it used to. Less rainfall has led to a drop in groundwater levels. This year, Rajasthan got 208 mm rain. That's …
New Delhi, November 15The extent of degradation in and around mines is the evidence of total failure of the state administration to enforce basic rules for ecological safeguards. Recent attempts at planting trees are cosmetic. Exposed groundwater lakes observed in mining sites only reconfirm the worst fears. If mining could …
With the introduction of national standards for organic foods in the us, the fastest growing sector of American agriculture has received a major impetus. The new guidelines stipulate that all us producers selling more than us $5,000 worth of organic agricultural products must be certified by a us department of …
Having failed miserably to nail down one-to-one music file-sharing network provider Kazaa, a desperate American recording industry is seeking to turn the heat on the former's users. The Recording Industry Association of America (riaa) had earlier forced the first music-sharing network Napster, to shut up shop. It has now embarked …
Bis Hazari lake in the buffer zone of Nepal's Royal Chitawan National Park (RCNP) is getting a facelift. Efforts are on to sanitise and beautify the picturesque waterbody. The district development committee (DDC), district tourism development committee and RCNP's buffer zone area management council have joined hands to conserve the …
Pakistan's Karachi district government has struck a deal with the Karachi Water and Sewerage Board (KWSB) to reuse treated effluent. Under the pact, the city government will provide a sewage treatment plant of KWSB to Va Tech Wabag, a private company. In addition to this, the firm will get 4.45 …
FLY BY GOA - THE CHANGING SHORES . P V Sathe . 30 Minutes . August . 2002 . Price: Rs 500 This gripping film captures the changes that have taken place in Goa in the last 30 years in just 30 minutes. Says its director PV Sathe, "It seeks …
Yet another case of dumping of banned waste in developing countries has surfaced, this time in Cambodia. In the latest crackdown, three persons were arrested for unauthorised shipping of plastic bags and other trash into the country. During a raid on a Phnom Penh dock, the police discovered more than …
Andhra Pradesh is reeling under an acute water crisis. Apart from its capital Hyderabad, 53 municipalities in the state are facing drinking water shortage, reveals a survey conducted by the municipal administration department. The worst hit areas are Ongole, Sattenapalli, Chilkaluripeta, Chittoor, Bhongir, Nalgonda and Guntakal. Alive to the magnitude …
ships are using Canada's ocean coast as dumping grounds, which has resulted in the death of 300,000 birds per year. Activists allege that low fines on dumping bilge (a mixture of water, oil and other engine fluids) in Canadian ports has prompted ships to increasingly deposit such waste off the …
Rivers in Pakistan are gradually becoming water-deficient. A downward trend has been noticed recently in the combined inflow from rivers, with the total supply dropping down to 88,000 cusecs
Why is everything important reduced to a dramatic farce in our country? Take the Cauvery imbroglio. The issue is serious and important. Namely how will states, regions and people share increasingly scarce water resources? What can we do to maximise water availability? But what do we have instead: an unseemly …
The Indian Ocean Experiment (INDOEX) was sponsored by research agencies within Europe, India and USA, and was mainly concerned with the haze over south Asia and the adjacent Indian Ocean. It excluded other equally or even more polluted areas in Asia. The Asian Brown Cloud is a follow on international …
The us and South Korea are goading North Korea into complying with a provision of a 1994 nuclear agreement which calls for inspections to determine the total weapons-grade material Pyongyang may have produced. South Korean foreign minister Choi Sung-hong recently said the accord
hunger deaths in the Kashipur district of Orissa last year had captured national and international attention. A recent report of the National Human Rights Commission (nhrc), however, reveals that the real cause of the death was food poisoning resulting from consumption of toxic mango kernels with fungal growth. "A medical …
The district health office at Doti in Nepal has embarked upon a novel community medicine programme. It will be launched in 21 village development committees (VDCs) of the area. The scheme is meant to enable smooth and adequate supply of medicines in health institutions. Moreover, these medicines would be available …
A revolution in farming is in the offing across Europe, courtesy the new Water Framework Directive . The order must become a national law across the 15-nation European Union (eu) bloc by the end of 2003. It sets tough new limits on the level of pollutants permitted in rivers and …
It took 9,000 delegates almost 225 hours of strategising, negotiating and arguing over the language to reach an agreement on the 150 clauses of the final Plan of Implementation. After the Bali preparatory meeting, the un proudly claimed that 75 per cent of the text had been agreed upon, and …
Unwilling to commit to a concrete sum of money over a concrete period of time to fund sustainable development in the South, the us came up with the idea of partnerships (also called "Type ii agreements' in wssd jargon) during the preparatory process of the wssd. Several aspects of these …
whether the us is undermining the multilateral process by shifting emphasis on partnerships The us is against everybody in the world. Partnerships are not obligatory for governments to be accountable. They are an agreement between two people. They may announce it or they may not announce it. It has absolutely …
