Arrival of blue king

How do peaceful people get forced into battles they do not want to fight? In Oonga, a book adaptation of a 2013 film of the same name, writer-director DEVASHISH MAKHIJA undertakes a journey with a little Dongria Kondh boy, who is desperate to see a performance of the Ramayan, to expose the clash between adivasis and mining companies that threaten to destroy their villages, forests and hills. Excerpts

Carbon Cost Of Internet On The Rise

The environmental impact of digital platforms is becoming glaring by the day.

GREEN IS THE NEW ORANGE

THERE IS MORE TO CARROTS THAN THEIR COLOURFUL ROOTS

‘Artists world over should raise alarm'

EFFECTS OF CLIMATE CHANGE ARE NOT JUST DRYING THE EARTH BUT ALSO THE SPIRIT OF HUMANKIND. THIS IS THE MESSAGE DANCER, WRITER AND ACTIVIST MALLIKA SARABHAI AND DIRECTOR YADAVAN CHANDRAN AIM TO DELIVER THROUGH THEIR RECENT DANCE VIDEO, ARID. THE DANCE COMPRISES THREE ACTS ON THE INTENSITY OF THE WATER CRISIS. THEY SPEAK ON THE ROLE OF ART IN TACKLING ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES IN AN INTERVIEW WITH DAKSHIANI PALICHA. EXCERPTS:

Rays of light and hope

An energy start-up aims to provide a sustainable power solution to rural consumers

GOURMET GUR

Destruction of date palm trees during cyclone Amphan and warming weather have resulted in a huge decline in production of West Bengal’s trademark nolen gur

A GOOD FIRST DRAFT

NITI AAYOG’S DRAFT NATIONAL MIGRANT POLICY TAKES A RIGHTS-BASED APPROACH AND DISCUSSES THE IMPORTANCE OF COLLECTIVE ACTION AND UNIONS TO HELP MIGRANTS BARGAIN FOR BETTER CONDITIONS. BUT KEY GAPS REMAIN

NEW TARGETS

COVID-19 cases are being reported in large numbers from districts that had so far been mildly hit by the pandemic

THE CHASE AND THE CHANGE

The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act has shown what it can achieve by putting water conservation at its core

UNTOLD RISKS

India needs a full-time organisation to tackle a host of biological threats

CATTLE WISE

INDIA NEEDS TO LOOK BEYOND GAUSHALAS IF IT WANTS TO CHECK THE NUMBER OF STRAY CATTLE

Variants V Vaccine

How the entry of the new variants impacts the global efforts to curb the pandemic

THEY HAD US FOOLED

“We sold our land to the Rishiganga hydropower plant because we needed money. But it turns out that we paid for the dam with my sister’s life. The Chamoli flash flood just wiped out everything that came in its way”

SOME ZEST AND A PUNCH

INDIA IS SAID TO BE THE CENTRE OF ORIGIN FOR CITRUS FRUITS LIKE GALGAL, BUT DISASTERS SUCH AS THE RECENT FLASH FLOODS IN CHAMOLI THREATEN THEIR NATURAL HABITAT

IT'S NOT ALL DOWNHILL

Subsidies alone will not give enough push to electric vehicles in India. Policymakers and manufacturers need to work in tandem with consumers to understand their needs and identify demands

WRITING ON THE WALL

CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY HAS BECOME AN INSEPARABLE AND CRUCIAL ELEMENT OF EVERY LARGE BUSINESS. IT IS NOW TIME TO PLUG THE GAPS

Royal snub to green recovery

JUST 12 per cent of the covid-19 economic recovery packages announced by the world's 30 major economies will support climate objectives, says the latest edition of Greenness of Stimulus Index released on February 12.

Binaries of a loss

India now has adequate facilities to recycle its e-waste, but poor monitoring and informal dismantlers resulted in collection of just 10 per cent of the country’s electronic refuse in 2018-19

“It will open up a new area of Mars exploration”

On February 18, NASA’s Perseverance rover landed on Mars. The space agency’s first astrobiology mission aims to look for signs of ancient microbial life and collect samples of rock and soil to be brought to Earth in a future mission. On board the rover is Ingenuity—a helicopter whose main purpose is to attempt a flight in an atmosphere only 1 per cent as dense as Earth’s. The date of the flight is not scheduled, but it is likely to be in May 2021. DAKSHIANI PALICHA speaks to Ingenuity’s chief engineer J (BOB) BALARAM on the significance of the flight attempt and the advantages of a flying probe in the study of the planet

Orchard man of Jalaun

Mataprasad Tiwari's mission to plant trees persists even 30 years after its inception

Almost 20

Almost 20 per cent of India’s total land area has toxic levels of arsenic in its groundwater says a IIT-Kharagpur study.

Unfair fields of cotton

Asymmetric World Trade Organization rules that allow the US to inflate its cotton subsidies, much to the peril of farmers in India and elsewhere, must be reformed

SHORT SHRIFT TO RURAL ECONOMY

The Union Budget 2021-22 prioritises spending, but fails to provide agriculture and the rural sector the boost needed to revive growth

The science behind the art

Cooking is an art, most would say. However, at its root, cooking is a form of chemical engineering, writes Krish Ashok in his recent book, Masala Lab: The Science of Indian Cooking. Understanding the science behind food preparation can arm the chef with techniques to augment flavours. Here’s a crash course on the physics and chemistry of food.

IT'S TAKEN ROOTS

It is likely that COVID-19 would soon become endemic in several countries, including India

AN AGRARIAN BIOPSY

The widespread protests by farmers across India have forced us to probe the fundamentals of the farm economy

Arctic On Thin Ice

NO PLACE felt the heat in 2020 like the Arctic and its surrounding seas. Its ice cover melted to its second-lowest annual minimum extent of 3.74 million km2 in summer, while the freeze-up in autumn saw a sluggish start.

India's E-Waste Generation Up By 27%

In just one year, India's e-waste generation jumped 27 per cent, says a recent report by the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB). In 2019-20, the country generated 1,014,961 tonnes of e-waste, as against the 771,215 tonnes generated in 2018-19.

COPY AND EVOLVE

BUILDING UPON THE IDEAS OF PREVIOUS GENERATIONS MADE CIVILISATION AND THE ECONOMY POSSIBLE, WRITES TIM HARFORD

WATER WISE

FARMERS IN A TAMIL NADU VILLAGE WERE ABLE TO MITIGATE CLIMATE CHANGE IMPACTS BY BUDGETING WATER AND DIVERSIFYING CROPS