CATEGORIES

Urban Deserts

An estimated 400 million people currently live in cities with perennial water shortage. The number is slated to go up to 1 billion by 2050 due to rising urban population and the impact of climate change.

Let Cauvery Be

Deforestation, urbanisation, illegal mining and dumping of effluents along the river has left the basin battered and bruised. Decades of degradation has led to an unprecedented crisis for the 15 million who live on its banks.Jitendra travels along the course of one of India’s biggest rivers to understand why its level hit a record low this year

One Tool To Track It All

Can the humongous online data generated in the job guarantee scheme be a real time index for rural distress?

Nowhere To Flow

Over 60 years after the country got its first plan to rejuvenate the rivers, not a single basin has been spared from over-exploitation

Time To Talk

Gap in communication between India and neighbouring Nepal is an endemic problem that worsens Bihar floods

War zone Cauvery

Karnataka and Tamil Nadu are once again at logger heads over the sharing of the Cauvery waters. Why have the successive agreements failed to resolve the century-long dispute?

Plan B For The Planet

The world cannot afford a 2o C rise. The climate change goal must be fixed at 1.5o C so that we get a chance to avert the worst impacts

Ganga Needs More Than Just Cleaning

Government reforms must include basin-scale hydrological and ecological conservation efforts Michelle Irengbam, Shivani Barthwal, Niladri Dasgupta, Ruchi Badola & Syed Ainul Hussain

Pills By Jugaad!

A new investigative book, bottle of lies, says that Indian cancer drugs are contaminated; cholesterol medication has shards of glass; and, blood pressure pills contain a live bug. In these excerpts, the author, Katherine Eban writes about jugaad, an indian model of aggressive shortcuts, the ability to dodge onerous rules to get the desired results

Vitamin B12 - Are You Deficient?

The prescription for a plant-based diet overlooks vitamin B12 deficiency that is primarily present in animal-based diets

5G And The Fear Of Radiation

Radiation fears mount as the world gets ready to embrace the networkintensive 5G

Blind Spot in Namami Gange

Two flagship programmes of Prime Minister Narendra Modi are working at cross-purposes. By 2019, when Swachh Bharat Mission comes to an end, some 30 million septic tanks and pits would have been dug along the Ganga. These tanks and pits would produce 180 million litres of faecal sludge every day, which will eventually find its way into the Ganga, defeating Namami Gange. It's time the Central, state and local sanitation programmes recognised faecal sludge management as a priority to ensure a clean Ganga 

Reluctant To Upgrade

Zero liquid discharge technologies can help textile dyeing units recycle water and reduce effluents released into rivers. Why are they resisting?

Live Life Farm Style

Want to live in a city and grow your own food in a village nearby? There are companies that can help.

Prisoner Of Contradictions

India's only wetland cat is under multiple threats.

Again, Stop Talking About GDP

India missed another opportunity to shed its obsession with a bad measure of economy.

Environment Of Poverty

The world's poor population is getting concentrated in ecologically fragile areas

Defining Emotion

A new book challenges our assumptions about emotions

A Bite Of Goodness

Housing associations are setting up community refrigerators to reduce food wastage and feed the needy

On Active Mode

After faltering for three years, India's largest test drive for uranium contamination in groundwater shows signs of revival

First, Fast, But...

India's debut farm investment support scheme was rolled out in Telangana but a large section of the farming community has been left out

Not A Sweet Bargain

The price of the totapuri mango has crashed due to low demand for its pulp, leaving farmers to dump produce on roads

Business Above All

In the garb of streamlining green clearances, the Union government has sidelined communities and diluted environmental regulations over the past four years

Unwrap The E-commerce Waste

As India catches up on online shopping, we need regulations to minimise the waste that is generated from packaging the products

Swachh Bharat Mission Echoes Sterilisation Campaign Of 70s

A new book exposes the lacunae in the way India manages its waste and recommends changes in practices and attitudes toward waste. ROBIN JEFFREY and ASSA DORON,authors of the book, speak to SWATI SINGH SAMBYAL on the layered challenges of managing solid waste

Look Beyond The Loo

In fast-urbanising Africa, the governments must rework their usual toilet building strategies to ensure safe disposal of waste.

The Fast Track To Disaster

India's decision to start a patent prosecution highway for Japanese firms could open the tollgates to hasty approvals

Trial After Error

AGROCHEMICAL AND biotech giant Monsanto’s genetically modified cotton seed business is out of trouble in India; but only for the time being.

Fat Is More About How The Body Feels Than How It Actually Looks

It's more about how the body feels, than how it looks

Capital Conundrum

At the peak of Karnataka’s water crisis, the state’s deputy chief minister, G Parameshwara, made a desperate suggestion. He said the government was mulling over a moratorium on the construction of new residential complexes in Bengaluru for five years to tide over the water crisis. But are restrictions on construction or population an effective way to resolve the problem? Or are there simpler ways to strengthen water conservation? SUSHMITA SENGUPTA spoke to a range of experts