In just over a week, world leaders will gather in Brazil for the Rio +20 Summit to decide what kind of future we want. Twenty years after the original earth summit, the theme is the green economy in the context of sustainable development and poverty eradication.  Why is the conference important and why the aspirations for a 'green economy'? A green economy is one that results in improved human well-being and...

-The Hindu On May 5 this year, Tarun Sehrawat, a photographer with Tehelka, sent me a link to his most recent photo-essay on Abujmard, a Maoist-controlled area in Chhattisgarh. Tarun and I met on assignment in Dantewada in summer 2010 and had stayed in touch. A month-and-half later, last Friday, I attended his funeral after a fever he contracted in Abujmard proved fatal. Tarun died of cerebral malaria; he was 22. I came...

-CNN-IBN Passing through Bulandshahar, a rapidly urbanising district in Uttar Pradesh known for its rustic politics and dairying, this reporter chanced upon a group of farmers sitting in protest outside a newly constructed apartment. The farmers occupied a tent that was erected outside the apartment complex. Their complaint was that they were being coerced to sell land for cheap by private players. "We will get only a measly Rs 20 lakh per...

-The Hindu It has made maximum number of requests to Google on content removal On a global scale, India made the maximum number of requests to Google through executive and police agencies for removal of content from the company's online services, but achieved a low rate of compliance from July to December 2011. By contrast, there were five court orders for removal of content, four of them on grounds of defamation, with...

-Down to Earth Where titles have been granted, average size of land holdings much smaller than what the Forest Rights Act provides for, says status report on implementation of the Act   The latest status report of the Union Ministry of Tribal Affairs on the implementation status of the Forest Rights Act (FRA) of 2006 confirms the general perception that the law has not really benefitted tribal people and other forest dwellers...