A UN panel has said killing of tens of thousands of people in the final stages of the Sri Lankan civil strife could amount to "war crimes", but Secretary General Ban Ki-moon insisted he would only launch an international investigation if Colombo agrees or member states call for it. A UN statement publicly releasing a report by a world body panel said that Secretary General has been advised that he needs...

“Quartz grinding is one of the deadliest occupations” “Slowly, but surely, every one of us who has been to the factories in Gujarat will die, and there is nothing we can do to change that,” Buddha (45) of Undli village says bitterly. Buddha lost his 18-year-old-son Mohan to acute silicosis a year ago. His 16-year-old daughter Ghamma is still suffering from the disease. Silicosis, the deadly scourge unleashed upon migrant labourers of...

Catastrophes like unprecedented floods in Pakistan and China and cloudburst in a desert region like Leh in Jammu and Kashmir are no longer rarities. With climate change being a reality, freakish weather-induced calamities are bound to become more frequent all over the world; India being no exception. Mechanisms, therefore, need to be put in place to minimise, if not wholly eliminate, the damage due to such events. Unusual floods in...

A wretched, forsaken corner of the world’s biggest democracy SURROUNDED by troops, the suspected militant saw the vehicle already waiting to take his corpse to the morgue. He expected to die, like many others, in an “encounter” with the security forces. In jail he told a human-rights activist—himself held on charges of waging war against the state and tortured with electric shocks—that he probably owed his life to a piece of...

Worthies such as Ratan Tata who have been lobbying the government to go easy on Union Carbide Corporation (http://www.indiaenvironmentportal.org.in/files/5_27.pdf) would do well to read Carbide’s useful FAQs on the 25th anniversary of the Bhopal gas tragedy, which claimed over 10,000 lives. Worse, over 5 lakh humans, including those born after the disaster, are still suffering the consequences of the gas leak. Even now, Carbide refuses to accept any kind of...