Assam has witnessed an alarming rise in patients suffering from glaucoma, a disease that causes permanent blindness. According to a conservative estimate, out of every 100 patients visiting the Regional Institute of Ophthalmology (RIO) here, nearly 10 suffer from glaucoma. Of the visually impaired in Assam, 10 per cent are victims of glaucoma compared to 5 per cent five years ago. RIO’s director C.K. Baruah told this correspondent that though many suffered...

A growing number of endangered olive ridley sea turtles have been getting killed in Eastern India’s coastal state Orissa by mechanized vessels defying a fishing ban on one of the world’s largest turtle sanctuaries, Gahirmatha. While the government said "no more than 800" were killed since November last year, environmentalists counter that the casualty count of these tiny turtles is actually 5,000. The problem illustrates the situation that confronts Orissa and other...

The promise of the FRA remains largely unfulfilled, says a committee set up by the Ministries of Environment and Forests and Tribal Affairs. IT seems hard for a government used to controlling most of India's common lands to let go of them. Even though it has passed a law mandating more decentralised governance of forests, the government itself is proving to be the biggest obstacle in its implementation. Other than in...

You see those hills?” Jamshed Kanga, an illustrious IAS officer, then divisional commissioner, Pune, asked the noted development economist John Lewis who was visiting him in 1972, pointing to the barren Sahyadri range behind his office. “I will break every one of those if necessary, but will not let a single person starve.” It was the worst drought in the history of independent India, with a monsoon deficit of 25%...

“The Right to Information (RTI) Act is a very powerful tool to fight the cancer of corruption, which is eating away at the vitals of the country,” stated former judge PM Dhakephalkar. He was speaking at a discussion on ‘Corruption ridden India’, organised by Community Aid and Sponsorship Programme (Casp) Prabodhan Mandal at SP College on Sunday. Apart from Dhakephalkar, resident editor of Pune edition of DNA, Abhay Vaidya, former director general...