-Tehelka AFTER A stormy night and a long flight, Rainer Sonntag Hermann reached Essen at 7 pm on 28 February. Hermann is the German tourist who was deported from Chennai the previous day on charges of being involved in the anti-nuke protests at Koodankulam. When TEHELKA tried to contact him via email, he replied, “The last two nights I had no bed and I’m very tired now. So, please allow me...

-IANS The US has said it's strongly supportive of India's investment in civil nuclear power and its support to NGOs goes only for development and for democracy programmes and not for opposing projects like Kudankulam. Asked to comment on a reported remark of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh that three US NGOs were funding a movement in Tamil Nadu state to oppose setting up of a nuclear power plant there, State Department spokesperson...

Water is the most critical of all natural resources on which modern economies depend. Water scarcity and rapid economic advance cannot go hand-in-hand. Yet, with its per-capita water availability falling to 1,582 cu m per year, India has become water-stressed.  In 1960, India signed a treaty indefinitely setting aside 80% of the Indus-system waters for downstream Pakistan - the most generous water-sharing pact thus far in modern world history. Its 1996...

A global scramble for land and mineral resources fuelled by billions of investment dollars is threatening the last remaining wilderness and critical ecosystems, destroying communities and contaminating huge volumes of fresh water, warned environmental groups in London Wednesday. No national park, delicate ecosystem or community is off limits in the voracious hunt for valuable metals, minerals and fossil fuels, said the Gaia Foundation’s report, "Opening Pandora's Box". The intensity of the...

-Express News Service Within days of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh blaming foreign-funded NGOs for instigating anti-nuclear protests in Koodankulam, the government today booked four NGOs for alleged violation of the Foreign Contributions Regulations Act (FCRA) and deported one German national for reportedly helping the protestors. Home Secretary R K Singh told reporters that the bank accounts of the four NGOs were frozen after it was found that they had been diverting money...