-The Hindu Genetically modified crops, whose ecological effects are irreversible, could become a mainstay of Indian agriculture thanks to collusion between the government and the biotech industry The final report of the Supreme Court-appointed Technical Expert Committee (TEC) on field trials of genetically modified crops is packed with revelations on what is wrong with institutional governance and regulation in India when it comes to GMOs (genetically-modified organisms). The report's release late last...
More »SEARCH RESULT
The heat trap -R Suresh
-Frontline A World Bank report on climate change warns that a warmer world will trap millions in poverty. "Much of the advance of European capitalists and other members of the European ruling class was at the cost of the colonised and enslaved peoples of Africa, Asia and Latin America," says Amiya Kumar Bagchi in his book "Perilous Passage: Mankind and the Global Ascendancy of Capital." Capitalist expansion following the Industrial Revolution involved...
More »High stakes, mega bucks fuel illegal ‘dig-load-sell’ sand business -Surojit Gupta
-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Humble sand is today big business. The boom in the construction industry in the last decade has triggered a huge demand for sand, to meet which contractors, with the help of pliant state officials, have begun a dig-load-sell exercise at a frantic pace. The story of illegal loot of sand in this high-stake business is repeated in state after state. TOI spoke to several officials, activists,...
More »India lost 220 languages in last 50 years, survey finds -Sandhya Soman
-The Times of India MUMBAI: India has lost around 20% of its languages in the past five decades, a survey by the Vadodara-based Bhasha Research and Publication Centre has revealed. The country had 1,100 languages in 1961, but nearly 220 of them have disappeared, said Ganesh Devy, writer and lead co-ordinator of the survey called the People's Linguistic Survey of India (PLSI). The survey was carried out over two years from 2011. "We...
More »Vedanta rejection at Niyamgiri won't be the last; jinx of bauxite mining may continue -Meera Mohanty
-The Economic Times When the voting stops on August 19, the scorecard, which is currently 9-0, may well read 12-0. An emphatic and embarrassing rejection of state and corporate plans to mine bauxite atop the Niyam Dongar hilltop in the Kalahandi district of Odisha. Twelve tribal villages that call this mountain range home have, in all likelihood, secured their religious rights over the hill and its natural resources, including 72 million...
More »