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 water to water
Look out of the window the next time you travel by road or by train anywhere in India. Hit a human settlement, and you will see, heaps of plastic coloured garbage apart, pools of dirty black water and drains that go nowhere. They go nowhere because we have forgotten a basic fact: if there are humans, there will be excreta. Indeed, we have also forgotten another truth about the so-called modern world: if there is water use, there will be waste. Roughly 80 per cent of the water that reaches households flows out as waste.
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The business of protest (editorial)
From SLAPPs to hiring professional protesters, industry's working overtime to find new ways to attack. In the first week of April this year, a group of men came and stood outside the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), New Delhi. They carried placards with offensive slogans directed at me. We understood the picket to be the latest in a dangerous pesticide industry mindgame.
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Who is an intellectual?
Everyone loves making lists and everyone loves reading lists. So list-makers, in theory at least, cannot fail. Yet do they always succeed?
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Sunita Narain: Change isn't easy
This requires the courage to push new approaches but even the Nobel Prize favours the cautious.
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Is global warming to blame for Burma cyclone?
It was Asia's answer to Hurricane Katrina. Packing winds upwards of 120 mph, Cyclone Nargis became one of Asia's deadliest storms by hitting land at one of the lowest points in Myanmar and setting off a storm surge that reached 25 miles inland. "When we saw the (storm) track, I said, 'Uh oh, this is not going to be good," said Mark Lander, a meteorology professor at the University of Guam. "It would create a big storm surge. It was like Katrina going into New Orleans."
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Cyclone in Burma due to climate change: CSE
Pointing fingers at climate change to be the likely cause of the cyclone Nargis, which killed nearly 22,000 people in Burma, the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) has cautioned nations to speed up the curtailing of the emission of greenhouse gases.
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IMA defends endorsing fruit juice brands
The Indian Medical Association (IMA) today defended its decision to endorse a particular brand of fruit juices and cereals arguing it has always favoured healthy food. "It is an endorsement of the ingredients of products and not the products themselves. Besides, the endorsement is not supposed to be displayed on the packets," IMA Secretary S N Misra said. Everybody knows fruit juices are good for health and similarly the other product Oatmeal cereal is good for keeping cholesterol levels under check, he said.
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Nargis: A man-made disaster
Environmentalists have warned that tropical cyclone Nargis, which has left more than 20,000 persons dead and 40,000 missing and thousands homeless, is not just a natural disaster but a man-made disaster because of climate change. Nargis, the green brigade says, happened because "the rich have failed to contain greenhouse gas emissions necessary for their growth'.
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Cyclone Nargis had all the makings of a perfect storm
A cyclone with winds up to 120 mph. A low-lying, densely populated delta region, stripped of its protective trees. When Cyclone Nargis struck Myanmar's Irrawaddy delta and pushed a wall of water 25 miles inland, it had all the makings of a massive disaster. ''When we saw the (storm) track, I said, 'Uh oh, this is not going to be good,'' said Mark Lander, a meteorology professor at the University of Guam. ''It would create a big storm surge. It was like Katrina going into New Orleans.''