Unreality show
do we deserve what we are shown on television? Or: how are tv programms created? The answer goes at least two ways. There is the intuitive route: what a journalist
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Largesse with agenda
ANIKET ALAM In the last week of April, India announced a us $5.4 billion credit to African countries for developing their infrastructure and meeting other development goals. This five year package also included duty free imports from 50 Least Developed Countries, of which 34 are in Africa. The government also announced a grant of us $500 million to African
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Farmer harmer
NILOTPAL BASU The United Progressive Alliance (upa) government completed four years on May 22. Four years in government is a significant achievement for any coalition, more so if the coalition is in minority in the Lok Sabha and its principal party
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Stale food from Rome
the run-up to the high-level conference on food security in Rome promised a substantial shift in agricul-tural outlook, given host Food and Agricultural Organization
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Terrible magnate
SUNITA DUBEY On May 13, individuals and groups from from Kazakhstan, the Czech Republic, South Africa, Romania and the us gathered at Luxembourg for ArcelorMittal
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"SLAPP"ed but will not submit
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
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Strengthen the right
<font class="UCASE">as the </font> Right to Information Act of 2005 (<font class="UCASE">rti</font>) celebrates its third anniversary, the Union government has decided to do a review study. Officials insist that the study is meant to review only the implementation of the act and to find whether rural areas have benefited from it. But activists suspect that it may actually end up diluting the act and protecting the babus (See page 22). Their suspicion is not entirely unfounded.
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A tiger in your bank
<img src="../files/images/20080615/58.jpg" align="left"> The old Exxon ditty,"Put a tiger in your tank', has been adopted by the World Bank. Reportedly prodded by its president, Robert Zoellick, the Bank will announce a new global initiative to save tigers. The
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Judicial excessivism
<img src="../files/images/20080615/60.jpg" align="left"> The Right to Environment was not initially guaranteed by the Constitution as a fundamental right. Indira Gandhi's otherwise infamous 42 nd Amendment made it a constitutional expectation (Article 48-A). After the emergency, the Supreme Court of India converted this expectation into a guaranteed "collective' right for all people in India as part of their
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Book review: Towards water wisdom: Limits, justice, harmony
<font color="#FF3333">BOOK>></font><font class="UCASE"><b>Towards Water Wisdom
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Dilip Cherian on lobbying mechanisms
<img src="../files/images/20080615/50.jpg" align="left"> <I><font color="#FF3333"><B>PRADIP SAHA </B></font> talks to <font color="#FF3333"><B>DILIP CHERIAN,</B></font> founder and consulting partner of image management firm Perfect Relations, about the clash between public relations and public interest</i><br><br> <b>There is a political process to public policy. Does corporate lobbying go against that democratic norm? </b><br>
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Cancer state
<font class="UCASE">punjab</font> has finally made cancer-registry compulsory in the state. Despite numerous scientific reports revealing the public health crisis in the state, the government had obstinately resisted any redress mechanism. The recent decision comes in the wake of two new scientific reports. One shows that pesticides are damaging genes of farmers who spray them, often leading to mutations and cancers.
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The M in IMA
<font class="UCASE">recently,</font> the Indian Medical Association (<font class="UCASE">ima</font>) earned the dubious distinction of being the first association of medical professionals in the world to endorse a food brand. And that too of a company best known for its brands of non-nutritive and unsafe carbonated beverages. Going by the law of the land, this "endorsement' is illegal. The Prevention of Food Adulteration Act, 1954 clearly makes it illegal to label foods as wothy of being recommended by the medical profession.
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Minority rule
<font class="UCASE">the common </font> wisdom of electoral democracy might call for politicians, specialising in arithmetic, who can identify the biggest number. But the post-modern understanding of electoral politics may demand integrating a small number of voters whose limit to power is tending towards infinity! Let us look at how a few road dividers on a stretch of 19 km in Delhi have completely divided the urban classes (see page: 32-38).<br>
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A better PIL
There is something amiss about the present debate on the need to frame guidelines for public interest litigation (<font class="UCASE">pils)</font>. It ignores the rationale that the Supreme Court of India put forth for such lawsuits in 1982. Delivering its verdict in the S C Gupta vs the Union of India case, popularly known as the <i>Judges Transfer Case</i>, the court observed that the public needed judicial safeguards against infringement of their rights at a time the state was expanding its reach through development activities. <font class="UCASE">pil</font>s fitted this bill.
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Goodbye Indian mermaid
On April 11, the union cabinet gave the go-ahead to conservation authorities to sign an <font class="UCASE">m</font>o<font class="UCASE">u</font> with international counterparts to protect the dugong and its habitat. Indian efforts to conserve this virtually-unknown sea creature will get international recognition as a result. But this initiative has probably come too late.<br>
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Film review: Birth In The Squatting Position
<font class="UCASE"><b>Films>></b></font> <i><font class="UCASE">Birth in the Squatting Position</font>
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Gang leader for a day, a rogue sociologist crosses the line
<font class="UCASE"><b>Book>></b></font> <i> <font class="UCASE">Gang Leader For A Day, A Rogue Sociologist Crosses The</font> <font class="UCASE">line </font>
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Anders Levermann on geopolitics of climate change
<img src="../files/images/20080531/40.jpg" align="left"> <i>Professor at Germany's Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, </i><font class="UCASE"><font color="#FF0000"> Anders Levermann's </font></font><i> interests range from monsoon in India to glacier melt in Antarctica. He has contributed to the fourth assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released last year. He talks to </i><font class="UCASE"> <font color="#FF0000">Mario D'Souza </font></font> <i>on the geopolitics of climate change </i><br><br> <b>Climate change is for real
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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.