This is what we like to see: a true leader in toxics-free electronics showing giants like Dell and Samsung how it's done. One of India's relatively small PC manufacturing companies, Wipro, has beaten giants like Dell, Samsung and Lenovo to the finish line in producing a computer free of the worst toxic chemicals. A major first in India, the announcement marks another success for our green erelectronics campaign in driving...

‘We must analyse whether risks are more or benefits are more’  The government should not be in hurry to introduce Bt brinjal until fundamental issues were addressed, agriculture scientist M.S. Swaminathan said here on Saturday. Speaking to journalists on the sidelines of a consultation on “Effective community management of biodiversity in an era of climate change,” Dr. Swaminathan said: “Every technology has its benefits and risks. But it all depends...

Imagine that the climate summit conference in Copenhagen this weekend was not a gathering of nations. Imagine a gathering of delegates from the many ages of a single nation. The fault lines would not be India and China versus the global rich, but rather China 1800 versus China 1978 versus China 2100. It would be a negotiation not between different lands but between different historical facts, different levels of survivalism....

Today 56 newspapers in 45 countries take the unprecedented step of speaking with one voice through a common editorial. We do so because humanity faces a profound emergency. Unless we combine to take decisive action, climate change will ravage our planet, and with it our prosperity and security. The dangers have been becoming apparent for a generation. Now the facts have started to speak: 11 of the past 14 years...

Who is afraid of the multinational seed giants? Practically everyone, it seems, barring governments. The more enlightened agricultural scientists, the legion of activists, small farmers and plant breeders across the world have all been worried by the fast dwindling biodiversity and consolidation of the global seed trade through patenting. Now, the UN has joined the chorus of concern but unfortunately its notes, perhaps because it was distant and bass, or...