Keen to act as a "bridge" between developing and developed nations at the UN climate summit in Cancun beginning tomorrow, India has offered two proposals on the issues of monitoring of national emissions cuts and sharing of green technologies with poorer countries. "We need to be practical and cannot remain frozen and should engage with all countries as part of our foreign policy," Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh said recently about...

Experts show how electricity for poor people is possible Is electricity for all a pipe dream? Should we forget about electricity for all until we are able to provide more basic amenities like drinking water, nutritious food, education and healthcare?   India is home to the largest number of people without electricity. Half of Indian households do not have access to power, which constitute a third of the world's population without electricity. Though...

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...

Young rag-pickers sifting through rubbish are a common image of India’s chronic poverty, but destitute children face new hazards picking apart old computers as part of the growing “e-waste” industry. Asif, aged seven, spends his days dismantling electronic equipment in a tiny, dimly-lit unit in east Delhi along with six other boys. “My work is to pick out these small black boxes,” he said, fingers deftly prising out integrated circuits from the...

THE Indian Bureau of Mines, in its Indian Minerals Yearbook–2005, notes that Chhattisgarh has 28 different types of minerals, with coal and iron ore being the most abundant. The Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), in its comprehensive book Rich Lands, Poor People: Is ‘Sustainable' Mining Possible?, says that around 16 per cent of India's coal reserves, 10 per cent of its iron-ore reserves, 5 per cent of its limestone...