First food: a taste of India’s biodiversity
This collection of around 100 recipes from different parts of the country brings to life the magic that takes place once biodiversity is combined with culinary dexterity.
Sunita Narain
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From Rio to Rio, the world hasn’t taken a stride
A lot of high-flown rhetoric ushered in last week's UN Conference on Sustainable Development. Rio+20 was the biggest summit the UN had ever organised. Some 40,000 environmentalists and 10,000 government
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Sanitation for all
Water pollution from sewage is causing great damage to India. The nation needs to complete its waste systems and reinvent toilet technologies, says Sunita Narain.
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Stained steel
The iron and steel sector is non-transparent, non-compliant with weak environmental norms and is getting away with it because of an even weaker regulatory framework When the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) started its Green Rating Project in the mid-1990s, India had just liberalised its economy. There were fears that it would be disastrous if the country took the route to economic growth that ignored environmental considerations. The Green Rating Project was designed to find ways of measuring the environmental performance of companies and to drive changes in policy and practice through public disclosure.
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Pollution, the great leveller
A harried parent called a few weeks ago. She wanted to know if pollution levels in Delhi were bad and, if so, how bad. The answer was simple and obvious. But why did she need to know that? Her daughter’s prestigious school (which I shall leave unnamed) had sent a circular to parents saying the school authorities planned to shift to air-conditioned buses because they were worried about air pollution. She wanted to know if this was the right decision. My answer changed. The fact is that pollution levels are high and we need to find ways to bring them under control. But this does not mean the rich can find ways to avoid breathing the air so as to keep pollution at bay.
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Why drought reigns eternal
It is mostly caused by deliberate neglect and designed failure of the way we manage water and land It’s drought time again. Nothing new in this announcement. Each year, first we have crippling droughts between December and June, and then devastating floods in the next few months. It’s a cycle of despair, which is more or less predictable. But this is not an inevitable cycle of nature we must live with.
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Watch what you eat
Sunita Narain introduces the first comprehensive Indian study to look at nutritional claims made (or not made) by junk food makers, and how they compare with the benchmarks for recommended daily intakes
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Why cities cannot simply flush
Untreated waste water is a health hazard. Nonetheless, it should be considered a resource. Unless it is recycled and re-used, it will be impossible to provide all people in the cities of developing countries
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The trouble with junk food
It is not in the interest of food companies to advertise what their products contain, but it is in our interest to know Junk food is junk by its very definition. But how bad is it and what is it that companies do not tell people about this food? This is what the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) laboratory checked. The results were both predictable and alarming. Equally predictable was the response of big food companies and their spokespersons — denials and dismissals. But they are missing the point.
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Greening gas and coal policy
Unavailability of natural gas and destruction of forests and water bodies due to our inability to use our coal fields optimally is having a huge impact on our health and environment Two monopolies. One private; the other public. One in gas; the other in coal. Both equally disastrous for the environment. I speak here of Reliance Industries Ltd and Coal India Ltd.
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Why cities cannot simply flush
Untreated waste water is a health hazard. Nonetheless, it should be considered a resource. Unless it is recycled and re-used, it will be impossible to provide all people in the cities of developing countries