-The Hindu Some hydel projects that claim exemption from environmental clearance on the basis of size provide a misleading picture of their impact Why would more than four gram panchayats, environmental activists from three States, the presiding swami of the Subramanya Temple, botanists, fisheries scientists, and institutions like the Indian Institute of Science oppose a small hydel project in a remote corner of the Western Ghats in Karnataka? Aren't small hydel projects...

-IANS WASHINGTON: Human-caused outdoor air pollution may be responsible for over two million deaths worldwide - a large number of them in South Asia and East Asia - each year, US researchers have said. A study, published in the journal Environmental Research Letters, has estimated that around 470,000 people die each year because of human-caused increase in ozone, Xinhua reported. It also estimated that around 2.1 million deaths are caused each year by...

-The Telegraph North India is among a small number of regions scattered across the globe vulnerable to severe and multiple impacts of climate change, a study by an international team of researchers has predicted. The study, based on computer simulations of future climate scenarios, suggests that northern India may experience sharp drops in yields of key crops and severe ecosystem changes that may show up as altered landscapes. While earlier studies have explored...

-The Hindu While the focus is on pilgrims, nobody is talking about the fate of boys and men who came from their villages in the Mandakini valley to earn during the yatri season It is one week since Uttarakhand's worst disaster in living memory. Flash floods resulting from extremely intense rainfall swept away mountainsides, villages and towns, thousands of people, animals, agricultural fields, irrigation canals, domestic water sources, dams, roads, bridges, and...

-The Hindu There has to be a national mission to ensure that rural homes have access to clean cooking fuel and stoves instead of the killer chulhas that are claiming the lives of large numbers of women A large section of our country's population, nearly 75 per cent of rural and 22 per cent of urban households, still uses biomass for daily cooking. An estimated 80 per cent of the residential energy...