Managing our soil and water resources in a sustainable and equitable manner needs a new political vision, which can be expressed through the proposed Land Acquisition Bill and the recently formed Global Soil Partnership. On the basis of a proposal I had made three years ago, the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) launched a Global Soil Partnership for Food Security and Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation at a multi-stakeholder conference, held...

Dr. Tishyarakshit Chatterjee, Secretary, Ministry of Environment & Forests (MoEF), recently underlined the need to design carbon markets to address the short-term needs of investors in manufacturing, save fossil fuels for the future and meet the compulsions of environmental probity, sustainability, entrepreneurship and innovation over a long period. Addressing the India Carbon Market Conclave 2011, organized jointly by FICCI and the MoEF, in partnership with The World Bank and the International...

Floods are vital to Kaziranga; dams on the upper reaches of the Brahmaputra could disrupt the balance A few weeks ago, much of the grasslands of Kaziranga National Park were under water. The monsoon floods bring with them their own set of problems—some of the animals, for instance, have to be rehabilitated—but they are required for the very existence of the park. The annual floods of the Brahmaputra creates grasslands, floodplains, and...

The Lokpal Bill is in danger of skidding off the rails. As it is introduced in Parliament, eminent activist Aruna Roy tells Shoma Chaudhury why we should not rush into it. THE LOKPAL BILL is now being debated in Parliament, almost 40 years after the idea was first mooted. Unfortunately, parented on one side by decades of wilful government inertia and, on the other, by the panicked hustle of ‘Team...

-The United Nations   As the world population approaches seven billion, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today stressed that ending global poverty and inequality is the key to unleashing the great human potential for prosperity and peaceful coexistence, while protecting the planet and safeguarding the natural resources that sustain humanity. “Later this year, a seven-billionth baby will be born into our world of complexity and contradiction,” Mr. Ban said in a message to mark...