CATEGORIES

Unsettled forever

Over 50,000 tribal people moved out of Chhattisgarh in 2005-06 to avoid violence between state-backed civilian militia Salwa Judum and Naxal sympathisers. They settled in the neighbouring Andhra Pradesh and now, wielding a lesser-known clause of the Forest Rights Act, are demanding land at their current place of stay

Reluctant move

Nine years after the Minamata Convention was adopted, countries agree to eliminate the use of mercury in artisanal gold mining. Can they enforce the decision?

Snapshot from sewage

Wastewater surveillance is a cheap and effective way to map the spread of infection, be it COVID-19 or any other pathogen

SKINNED ALIVE

Pruning of timber tree species harms both the quality and quantity of wood, and needs to be checked immediately

FABULOUS FABA

Ancient superfood faba bean is set to stage a comeback

COOL IDEA

Ahmedabad residents strategically use shade, ventilation and building materials to keep their homes comfortable: and it does not cost the earth

Fantastic beasts

MAO'S BESTIARYIS A REVISIONIST HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF THE ANIMAL DRUG INDUSTRY IN MAO'S CHINA THAT ALSO GIVES CONTEXT TO THE CURRENT DEBATES ON ZOONOSES AND THE USE OF WILD ANIMALS FOR HEALTH BENEFITS

A New Energy Disorder

At a time when the world is moving towards decarbonisation, the Russia-Ukraine war has brought energy poverty on the doorstep of rich nations. Europe's energy ministers are now touring countries of all hues and persuasions to strike deals for supply of fossil fuels to hedge against inflation and future shortages. The new energy order that emerges post this conflict could well be devoid of climate change as its focal point

Boots on the ground

The women waste collection workers of Ambikapur have helped the city manage its solid waste problem

Mission to cool

Cities are hiring dedicated officers to prepare for extreme heat

INSTITUTIONAL OVERSIGHT

Though hospital births have seen a record rise in the past 15 years, maternal and infant mortality rates remain high

TWIST IN THE LANTANA TALE

The Soliga tribal community of Karnataka makes handcrafted items from lantana, helping curb the spread of the invasive shrub that now covers 40 per cent of the Western Ghats S

NATURAL NUDGE

Employ beneficial and cost-effective microbes to improve crop yield

Plastic endgame

The world's adoption of the resolution to end plastic pollution by 2024 is only the first step in a long battle

Drug debacle

Sixteen years after India banned the veterinary use of diclofenac to save its vultures, three other drugs revive the old challenge

GOOD WHILE IT LASTED

Earth is losing species at an unprecedented rate, which, many believe, is the planet's sixth mass extinction. Since the biodiversity loss this time is the doing of humans, the event also marks the beginning of the Anthropocene Epoch, a self-aggrandising nomenclature that highlights our disproportionate and irreversible impacts on the surroundings

Dung deal

Chhattisgarh's plan to purchase cow dung to boost the rural economy, ensure clean villages and solve the problem of stray cattle destroying crops had success initially, but things have not gone as per plan

'Compromise' on TRIPS waiver is a sellout

Tough new conditions emerge in the compromise deal to ease WTO intellectual property barriers to production of COVID-19 medical tools

Climate Justice, Now

IPCC's latest climate report provides evidence that climate-justice needs to be at the centre of global policymaking

Bizarre Patent Tussles Over A Covid-19 Jab

Moderna's many intellectual property disputes over its vaccine highlight the need for a patent-free regime to fight the pandemic

Urban ladder

Safely managing faecal sludge is India's new sanitation challenge. In the absence of adequate rural treatment plants, a few states rope in underutilised urban facilities

Organic boost

Farmer producer organisations can help organic farming initiatives overcome marketing hindrances

Endemic Not The End

We know that the novel coronavirus will be with us forever. Without undermining the threat it poses, we must learn how to live with it by adapting strategies developed in previous pandemics

To what end

West Bengal has decided to mine coal from a reserve so deep and unreachable that the extraction might turn out to be financially unviable, and still end up displacing 21,000 people

‘Observations will help trace our cosmic roots'

Early last month, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) opened its 18 golden mirrors to the universe and captured its first image-ofa sun-like star called HD-84406, some 260 light years from the Earth. The telescope was launched on December 25, 2021, and took 30 days to travel 1.5 million km from Earth in a direction opposite to the Sun to reach its destination-a gravitationally stable point named L2—from where it will orbit the Sun, slightly changing its position every three weeks to stay in a halo orbit.

Pre-emptive strike

The popularity of anti-hail cannons among Himachal Pradesh farmers has made the state build an indigenous version, though the efficacy of such devices is unproven

Bullish turn

Post mechanisation, for the first time there is innovation in farm equipment to revive bullocks and aid small farmers

South Africa's vaccine advance brings hope

The WHO-aided tech transfer hub in South Africa is set to change the outlook for a continent deprived of COVID-19 vaccines

Space for nuclear

From fuel to outer space power plants, the world is developing different usages of nuclear energy to explore the deep space

FAULTY GROUND

The stretch of the Cauvery where Karnataka plans to build the Mekedatu dam lies alonga fault plane and in a geologically unstable region