Koodankulam Meltdown
The spectre of Fukushima continues to haunt the world, forcing governments in most parts of the globe to rethink their plans to tap this controversial source of energy. But it is in India that the world’s worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl has had its most serious fallout, with public protests forcing the authorities to delay the commissioning of the ambitious Kudankulam project by almost a year. Fukushima, however, is just the latest spur for the campaign against the Kudankulam reactors which started in 1987, discovers Latha Jishnu as she travels across the villages of Tirunelveli district in Tamil Nadu and meets the people who have been saying no to nuclear energy for 25 years.
A tribunal on Friday suspended the environmental licence for POSCO's $12 billion steel project in Orissa, India's biggest foreign direct investment, in a fresh blow to business confidence in Asia's third-largest economy.
Big food brands hide harmful effects, claims Delhi-based NGO Centre for Science and Environment
Delhi-based NGO, Centre for Science and Environment, has alleged that leading food manufacturers are guilty of "large scale misbranding and misinformation" by claiming that their food contained zero trans-fats even though tests showed that they have heavy doses of it.
In an interview to the journal Science (Feb. 24 edition), Prime Minister Manmohan Singh chose to focus on two hazardous technologies — genetically engineered seeds and crops in agriculture and nuclear power — as vital to the progress of science in India and the “salvation for finding meaningful new pathways of developing our economy”. He also talked about foreign-funded NGOs that were blocking this development. What Dr Singh said in the interview saddened me because he seems out of touch with science as well as the people of India whose will he is supposed to represent in a democracy.
India, like other Asian countries, has focused its climate change adaptation strategies on rural and urban areas while neglecting the urban fringes, say experts.
The high costs of poor sanitation
Despite the Total Sanitation Campaign launched since 1991, just 30,000 of 600,000 villages are free of open defecation today. The economic impact of poor sanitation in India is Rs 2.46 trillion or 6.5% of the GDP, writes Darryl D’Monte
Linking rivers: Tragedy of errors
The river-linking project needs to be given a decent burial, says Darryl D’Monte,but instead, the Supreme Court has exceeded its brief and asked the centre to implement it
Kudumbasree acclaimed as a national role model
Kudumbasree acclaimed as a national role model
The Kudumbasree poverty eradication mission, having played an important role in the restructuring of the Swarnajayanti Gram Swarozgar Yojana (SGSY) into the National Rural Livelihood Mission (NRLM), is a national role model much commended by the 11th Plan Working Group on poverty eradication, says the Union Ministry of Rural Development.
Bio Medical Burden
The environment ministry has put its new Draft Bio-Medical Waste (BMW) Management and Handling Rules 2011 in the public domain. The proposed new rules, the ministry
claims, are comprehensive and strict. Will they make a difference when nearly half of India's highly hazardous BMW are not being treated at all. West Bengal, a case in point.
Green Tribunal -- Do verdicts matter?
Despite the number of times a court, tribunal or the Ministry has acted to stop construction of OPG's power plant in Bhadreshwar, the project goes on uninterrupted. Kanchi Kohli reports.
Born on 10 October 1948, Matanhy started political life as an activist. He was a leader of the traditional Ramponkar fishermen, and led many agitations to prevent mechanised trawlers from intruding into traditional fishing areas. He was also active in organisations of other traditional occupations such as toddy tappers. Later, he formed a regional party, the Gomant Lok Pokx (GLP), which unsuccessfully contested elections from 1984 to 1998. Before the 2002 elections, the GLP merged with the UGDP.
The National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) on Thursday urged the corporate sector to connect proactively for managing disaster.The National Stakeholder Council meet of the Corporate Disaster Resource Network (CDRN) was held at NDMA Bhawan to engage private sector in the process for disaster mitigation and response activities.
Book Review:
Edited by Mahesh Rangarajan
Pearson-Longman 2007
In an era where the environment and the intricate, and challenging, relationship between communities and natural resources has come to occupy a crucial space in the development debate in India, this volume couldn't have been timed better. The Reader, a compilation of written articles and lectures/talks by eminent historians, journalists, activists and scholars, tries to weave a chronology of environment-related issues in India's history.
TED/YouTube
Deep ocean mysteries and wonders
In the deepest, darkest parts of the oceans are ecosystems with more diversity than a tropical rainforest. Taking us on a voyage into the ocean -- from the deepest trenches to the remains of Titanic -- marine biologist David Gallo explores the wonder and beauty of marine life.
Paul Snelgrove: A census of the ocean
Oceanographer Paul Snelgrove shares the results of a ten-year project with one goal: to take a census of all the life in the oceans. He shares amazing photos of some of the surprising finds of the Census of Marine Life.
Daniel Pauly: The ocean's shifting baseline
The ocean has degraded within our lifetimes, as shown in the decreasing average size of fish. And yet, as Daniel Pauly shows us onstage at Mission Blue, each time the baseline drops, we call it the new "normal." At what point do we stop readjusting downward?
TRINet DeBunk:
Robert Sapolsky, world renowned professor of neurology, neurological sciences, neurosurgery and biological sciences was selected to talk by the Stanford University graduating class. He spoke about the uniqueness of humans in relation to the rest of the animal world. A few of the topics he spoke on include aggression, theory of mind, the golden rule and pleasure.
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