Focus may be on forestry issues and reducing emissions from deforestation This beach resort, swarming with tourists and sports utility vehicles and having opulent hotels and evident unsustainability, may not be the ideal place for a climate change conference but the real issues of climate change are too critical not to be debated anywhere. The United Nations Climate Change Conference that gets under way here on Monday may not result in much...

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...

The Navi Mumbai airport has finally got the green signal, with a compromise being worked out after one and a half years of tussling between the Environment Ministry on the one hand, and the Civil Aviation Ministry and the Maharashtra government on the other. The decision was announced jointly on Monday by Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh, his Civil Aviation counterpart Praful Patel and the new Maharashtra Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan. While the...

Frustrated by the government's attitude to disability, an advocacy movement has sprung up in Madhya Pradesh, central India, fighting for the universal right of all children to attend school 'What are friends for? You listen for us and we'll see for you." The black-and-white photograph beneath the words shows a smiling boy with his arm around his partially sighted classmate. It encapsulates the inclusive education ideal – all children of all...

A lot has been said and written about the visit of Barack Obama, the President of USA to India. The corporate media was in the usual over-enthusiastic drive to bring to its readers and viewers all minute details about his visit from where he stayed and what he ate to how many warships, planes and cars accompanied him and how a whopping $200 million was spent per day for the...