In Amravati villages, dropout is pronounced; alcohol is another problem The wooden door of Surekha Rathod’s house is held together by small strips of coloured ribbons. This is no decoration. Some days ago, Surekha’s drunken father, who was locked out, tried to break in with an axe and sliced off the door. “I had a narrow escape, even though I was inside the house,” says her mother, Sunanda. “My husband...

As far as natural resources like minerals, land and water are concerned, Jharkhand is among the richest States of India. Yet, its people are among the poorest. Mind you, almost 30 per cent of them are tribal. Out of the total population of 288.46 lakhs, 223.1 lakhs live in rural areas and only 65.36 lakhs are urban dwellers. Even a cursory glance is sufficient to convince that most of the...

Beijing had to take some harsh steps to reduce pollution ahead of last year's Olympic Games in the city. As the countdown for the Commonwealth Games in Delhi begins, here's some bad news. Delhi and its surroundings have some of the worst polluting zones in the country, according to a list of India's severely polluted industrial clusters released by the environment ministry on Thursday. Ghaziabad takes the third rank in...

Reading the lines that Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh delivered in the Rajya Sabha on Tuesday and between them, the message is evident. “We have been successful in defending India’s national interests,” he said. “I didn’t go to Copenhagen with the mandate of saving the world or humanity. My mandate was to defend India’s right to develop at a faster rate. For Western countries, it is an environmental issue but for...

Even after spending more than two years in prison on charges of being a Naxal supporter under the draconian Chhatisgarh Special Public Security Act, Dr Binayak Sen's enthusiasm for speaking for the rights and the wellbeing of the tribals in Chhattisgarh has not diminished one bit. Out on bail since May 25, 2009 -- he was arrested in May 2007 -- Dr Sen was in Mumbai recently to speak at a...