CITIES MAKE one simple promise to newcomers: Sacrifice yourself to me and your children shall prosper. This promise drew Ahmed Raza, a small-time wrestler from an Uttar Pradesh village and millions like him to the capital of newly-independent India. Raza kept his part of the bargain, yet half a century later, his daughter was pushed out of the city her father helped build, the only home she has known. “I...

In most cases, the gravest threats to the human rights of citizens emanate from states.  The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, signed on December 10, 1948, transformed an aspiration into legally binding standards and spawned a raft of institutions to scrutinise government conformity and condemn noncompliance. It remains the central organising principle of global human rights and a source of power and authority on behalf of victims. A human right, owed...

The latest UN environment report based on about 400 major peer-reviewed scientific studies over three years has warned that the threat of climate change could be much worse than predicted earlier. The UNEP Climate Change Science Compendium 2009 report warns that sea levels could rise by up to two metres by 2100 and five to ten times that over following centuries. (See salient features and links below) It says that the...

It has been a bumpy ride, with developed countries failing to make definite commitments and India hinting at a shift of stance. THE last leg of the climate change talks held in Barcelona, Spain, on November 2-6 in the run-up to the all-important 15th Conference of the Parties (COP-15) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Copenhagen in December did not result in any dramatic development...

Using the mobile platform to expand audiences and connecting with readers using social media such as Twitter, Facebook and even custom-built tools are important methods for newspapers to grow, speakers at the annual Digital Media Round Table of WAN-IFRA, the global organisation of newspapers and news publishers, said here on Monday. Data from developed markets showed that the compounded annual growth rate for advertising on mobile phones was projected to be...