Sea turtles have inspired far-reaching conservation programmes. Pity, they are still in peril Sea turtles are magical animals, all the more mystifying because of our ignorance about them. For millions of years, they have wandered the oceans. But today, they are threatened by habitat loss, lighting on beaches, which disorients hatchlings and prevents them from finding the ocean, pollution
Documentary >> An Ode to Marang Buru
Will Barack Obama be a radical environmentalist? Or will fossil-fuel lobbies carry him off? Barack Obama
Guy Ryder, general secretary of the International Trade Union Confedaration, went to Poznan to attend his first UN climate meet. He sees green opportunity in the financial crisis. Pradip Saha caught up with him Is it okay to discuss climate change in the midst of a financial crisis? Governments are indicating that they are ready to inject large sums of money into their national
I spent a week at the climate change conference in Poznan, and realized the world is in deep trouble and deeper denial. Worse, the denial is now entirely on the side of action. It is well
Industry sees sense in going green On the face of it, there is not much to celebrate. Wastage of resources has become acute. We seem to be in an era of energy-guzzlers. But things are not that bad if we scratch the surface a bit
The reasons why Indian Muslims lag in education need to be understood The recent terrorist attacks have again led to fingers of accusations being pointed at Muslims. And when the spotlight is on the community, its educational backwardness inevitably becomes a matter of discussion. Some hold that the root of Muslim educational backwardness is Islam itself. Associated with this is the
A legislation that has deterred people from planting trees In May this year, this magazine ran a story about a person in Orissa who was hard put to cut down trees in his patch of land. He faced bureaucratic hurdles galore. There are many like him in the country. A lot of their problems can be blamed on tree preservation acts in various states of the country. The origins of these
Book>> Coda
Preservation laws have made trees a problem for people STATE monopolies are not exclusive to modern times. Mining was the preserve of the state in ancient and medieval times. The Mughal state exercised an iron hand over opium production and trade. Once the Mughal empire declined, satraps asserted their independence by establishing monopolies over various commodities including tobacco and
Public transport goes well with a political career ONE message of the Congress party
Have you noticed how the mighty automobile industry in the US is beginning to sound like the now infamous tobacco industry at the time of its collapse, taking cover behind the people it employed to
Trapped! Between the Devil and Deep Waters
Rulers are as good as their advisors. Effective ones have a healthy diversity presidents and premiers make interesting case studies after leaving office. The likes of Mikhail Gorbachev and Bill Clinton have made an industry out of being former heads of government. Tony Blair, now out of work, is a new entrant into this club, and is not its best exponent. In Delhi recently, he revealed a
Who does the health system help really? It has victims in both poor and rich countries the elaborate system of public health care, with all its medicines, interventions and doctors, has been developed on a simple premise: to help people. But more often than not it ends up doing the opposite. Examples abound. One of the latest is that of 13-year-old Hannah Jones of Britain, who decided to
Book>> Hot, Flat and Crowded, Why the world needs a green revolution and how we can renew our global future
Guan Qingyou, the director of the energy and climate project at Beijing-based Tsinghua University
After months of downward spiral, the dreaded r-word must be uttered. The world
Should education be a matter of State policy? Or left to the goodwill of the rich? In Schindler
Book>> Biodiversity of Ranthambhore Tiger Reserve, Rajasthan
