A United Nations-backed intervention involving cook stoves holds the promise of saving lives, uplifting health, improving regional environments, reducing deforestation, empowering local entrepreneurs, speeding development, and helping to stem global climate change. The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) has joined international efforts to dramatically boost the efficiency of some 3 billion cook stoves across Africa, Asia and Latin America, with the aim to protect women’s health and provide significant environmental...

In the five years of the Right to Information Act, activists who use it have faced reprisal across the country. OCTOBER 2010 marks the fifth anniversary of the Right to Information (RTI) Act. The Act and its implementation have been described in both administrative circles and civil society as “revolutionary” , “a blow for transparency”, “a check on corrupt practices” and “a people's intervention tool with tremendous impact”. Social activists and...

When National Highways Authority of India engineer Satyendra Dubey was killed in 2003 after he wrote a letter to then-Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, he was killed for his disclosure, despite the explicit appeal that his identity be kept secret. His death strengthened the growing sense across the world that such truth-tellers needed legislation to keep them safe (Time magazine declared “2002” the year of the whistleblower, after giant corporate...

Even as recent media reports caution that most fruits and vegetables are largely unfit for human consumption due to their high chemical content, pesticides continue to be used recklessly in the fields of Punjab. The ‘Granary of India’ constitutes 2.5 per cent of the total agricultural land in India, but consumes more than 18 per cent of the total pesticides used in India. Within the state the worst affected is the southwestern...

When the Reddy brothers, accused of illegal mining, demonstrate their grip over a state government, most people will rightly bemoan the role that corruption plays in public life. However, vital as it is to tackle the issue, it is also important to view it in perspective. Most people would not have realised, for instance, that India has been improving on at least one corruption score. Transparency International, the Berlin-based body,...