CATEGORIES

Arrival Of The Disruptors

A handful of billionaires are working hard to make space colonisation a reality. In the process they are reviving a sector that had stagnated for decades. Is this democratisation of space or a high-tech coup?

Burden Of Relief

The Union government’s decision to exempt captive power plants from meeting renewable energy targets will upset India’s climate change mitigation plan

Uncharted Territory

The next step involves sending humans to space and responding to the changing dynamics of global space business

Not To Visit, But To Inhabit

The human civilisation is going to relocate for the first time, a part of it at least

Hostile Space

A six-month stay in space induces physiological changes to the human body. A trip to Mars will be thrice that duration. Can astronauts survive the ordeal?

Are We There Yet?

Habitation designs and technologies are almost ready to make life possible in outer space

Orbits Of Debris

Space waste threatens the existence of all satellites

Are We Aliens?

There is a theory that says life could have intergalactic origin

Vale Of Apatanis

Surrounded by wooded hills in Lower Subansiri district of Arunachal Pradesh is the small Apatani valley, covering 26 square kilometres.VIKAS CHOUDHARY spends over a week with the Apatani tribe, capturing their lives and landscape in photographs. STUART BLACKBURN, author of Into the Hidden Valley, a novel on the Apatanis, explains the social fabric and beliefs of the tribe.

Go Forage

One person's weed can be another person's green

Undetected Window

India cannot eradicate tuberculosis unless it treats the infection in cattle.

Sun Burnt

In a panic to meet its solar energy target Karnataka changed its policy. The move has almost destroyed the initiative.

Revenge Of The Rich

Trump's election reflects the anger of the rich who did not get richer. This inequity is also at the core of the climate change challenge.

A Sniff To Save

It can detect a person buried under six metres of snow. PERVEZ CAMA, who travelled to the Swiss Alps, traces the history of St Bernard, a dog groomed to rescue travellers, and now part of popular culture.

Bonds To The Rescue?

Urban local bodies across India are floating bonds to raise money. This may render them unviable and make city living costly

Was The Met Office Napping?

Hailstorms have once again damaged crops in the drought-prone Marathwada and Vidarbha regions of Maharashtra as well as the credibility of the India Meteorological Department.

Era Begins Without Plan

NITI Aayog formally begins its business without a vision or an action plan.

Champaran Satyagraha Continues

A century ago, Mahatma Gandhi tested the idea of satyagraha for the first time to fight for indigo farmers in Champaran. While the crop is seeing a revival in Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh, Champaran in Bihar is in the throes of another peasant struggle.

Measles Is Back

With outbreaks reported from across the world, measles' eradication by 2020 seems difficult

Bitter Medicine

It is time to treat pharma waste more rigorously. The waste contains active ingredients used in antibiotics and may be contributing to the spread of antimicrobial resistance

A Setback To Struggle For Health Rights

Amit Sengupta's optimism and persistence have inspired generations of public health activists in India and abroad.

Brain-Teaser

A device that uses electricity to pass through your brain is believed to cure a range of diseases. But the jury is still out on its safety.

The Lament Continues

The Alma-Ata Declaration failed to ensure health for all. Will Astana succeed?

Recycling Wheel

How Gujarat succeeded in co-processing plastic waste in cement kilns and promoted a circular economy

Install Windmills, But Not At Cost Of Birds

Buoyed up by wind power, Germany has been the frontrunner in the global energy transition from fossil fuels to renewable sources. Lately, wind power organisations are lobbying to increase their number even faster, particularly in the sensitive North Sea and the Baltic. This has posed a dilemma for conservationists who generally support renewable energy. The windmills, with massive blades, are known to kill birds and bats. KATHRIN AMMERMANN, who heads the Federal Agency for Nature Conservation (BfN), tells JITENDRA how the government is trying to curb environmental impact of clean energy.

US Trading On Thin Ice

As Trump escalates the trade war with China, the key question is what constitutes theft of intellectual property

More Out Than In

Central government's maternity benefit scheme excludes more women than it covers

Sealed With Trouble

Faulty policies have allowed industries to use multilayered plastic packages without the responsibility of retrieving them

Loo And Behold, But Beware

The countdown to meet the target of an open defecation free India has begun. Though it seemed like we were once again going to miss another development goal, we will achieve the target within the next 25 weeks, much before the deadline of October 2019. India's first-ever experience when all of us will have a toilet of our own is worth a grand applause. However, we have just crossed the first hurdlethe easiest milestone of constructing toilets. SUSMITA SENGUPTA and RASHMI VERMA take a hard look at the challenges that need to be addressed

A Dig At The Poor

District Mineral Foundations were set up to improve the lives of people affected by mining. But maladministration is defeating its raison d'etre.