The lesson for India after Durban is that it needs to formulate an approach that combines attention to industrialised countries’ historical responsibility for the problem with an embrace of its own responsibility to explore low carbon development trajectories. This is both ethically defensible and strategically wise. Ironically, India’s own domestic national approach of actively exploring “co-benefits” – policies that promote development while also yielding climate gains – suggests that it...

The total number of family planning acceptors in the country has increased by 3.5 per cent between 2010 and 2011. Latest official Statistics have shown that condom is the most preferred method of family planning while sterilisations the least adopted means. The comparative figures between April and September 2010 and 2011 put the number of couples adopting some method for family planning, including spacing methods, is close to 24 million, with at...

Labour-starved Kerala looks to the east It’s Their Gulf     There’s an influx of labour into Kerala from Orissa, Assam, Jharkhand and Bengal     Migrants work in building and road construction, plywood industry, brick kilns and in hotels     Skilled workers can earn Rs 500-700 a day     Researchers estimate there are 10 lakh outsiders working in Kerala. No official figures exist. *** On Sundays, the Gandhi Bazaar in Perumbavoor, a small town in Kerala near...

-CNN-IBN   Prime Minister Manmohan Singh released the first-ever citizens' report on child malnutrition in the national capital on Tuesday. "The problem of malnutrition is a national shame," the Prime Minister said. The Statistics in the HUNGaMA (Hunger and Malnutrition) report say that every third malnourished child on the planet is an Indian. The report, on the survey conducted by Naandi Foundation, has been made at the insistence of the Citizens' Alliance against...

The chief state information commission (CSIC) is likely to conduct more ‘Special Appeal Disposal Programme’ after disposing of more than 450 of the 607 Right To Information (RTI) appeals in just four days. Chief state information commissioner Vijay Kuvalekar had organised the programme, which was conducted at the Podar Medical College (Ayurved), Worli, over a four-day period. The event aimed at disposing of piled up RTI applications at CSIC since 2008. Nearly...