In the run up to the next global jamboree on climate change, in the tourism-cum-summitry town of Cancun, Mexico, the government has come out with an Indian view of global warming, based on indigenous research. The upshot of the effort is a much more worrisome portrayal of the challenge of climate change. The Indian studies forecast that mean temperature will rise in India by around 2ºC by 2030, rather than...

That women and children are the worst sufferers during any armed conflict has been proved again by a recent study conducted by the West Bengal Women's Commission (WBWC) on women victims of Maoist violence in the State's Jangal Mahal region. It was found that the atrocities often go unreported and unaccounted, or are misrepresented by a section of society. Based on the study, the WBWC appealed to the Maoists to abjure...

The CAG indicts Uttarakhand for pursuing hydel power projects indiscriminately without concern for the environment. IN a severe indictment of the Uttarakhand government, the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India said it was pushing the State towards a major environmental catastrophe by following a highly ambitious hydropower policy. In a report titled “Performance Audit of Hydropower Development Through Private Sector Participation”, which was released recently, the CAG substantiates the allegations...

The term “bottom of the pyramid” (BOP), coined by the late C K Prahalad, became wildly attractive in the early noughties, in part because the concept, which suggests that it is possible and legit to make money from the poor, provided a leavening justification for the animal spirits of capitalism in poor countries like India and China with their growing list of Forbes billionaires. On the verge of the second decade...

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) is distributing wheat seeds that will benefit over half a million farming families, or nearly five million people, whose seed supplies were destroyed during the recent flood disaster. The floods, which began in late July and inundated one fifth of the country, claimed more than 1,800 lives and have affected more than 20 million others. Agriculture is the mainstay for over 80 per cent...