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“WE are only ‘pinching’ the Sabarmati over a 10-kilometre stretch as it passes through the centre of Ahmedabad,” explains Bimal Patel, consultant to the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC), which has conceived and initiated the controversial Sabarmati Riverfront Development Project. “We (…)

The jholawala is the latest lobbyist in town. He or she has top policymakers on speed-dial, is now feted by the media and sought out by companies eager to promote ‘India Inclusive’. It’s a remarkable, even heady, transformation. For long derided as irrelevant trouble-making activists largely (…)

The feeling on the ground is that there is a method to this madness — the cops have orders to curb Kashmiri journalists, whether they are from the local press or national. And given that the local administration seems to be clueless, most people are convinced that this is being done at Delhi’s (…)

Kerala is the top-ranked state in terms of meeting the objectives of the national family welfare programme that dates back to 1951. But it smacks of discrimination if the state manages to achieve this status by sterilising the most vulnerable and marginalised people regardless of their other (…)

The problem: Washington’s foreign-policy planners seem to be out of ideas, literally brain-dead, just as the world is visibly in flux. In their reactions, even in their rhetoric, there is remarkably little new under the sun, though from Tunisia to India, China to Brazil, our world is changing (…)

Conspiracy, a case of bad timing and a dis-service to the Palestinian people were some of the immediate reactions by Palestinian critics and media professionals, as Qatar-based satellite channel Al-Jazeera continued to release documents from over a decade of mediation efforts with Israel. (…)

In the years to come, India’s expanding steel production will be largely driven by sponge iron. But its manufacturing process, based on coal, is highly polluting. The repercussions are already visible near sponge iron factories which have mushroomed in iron ore- and coal-rich areas. People are (…)

Dec 12, 2010 (IPS) - Nearly three years into President Álvaro Colom’s four-year term, Guatemala’s indigenous people have seen little improvement in their lives — and they represent approximately half the country’s population.
"The situation of the native peoples may be even worse than before. (…)

The European Union is a significant player in the widespread occurrence of land-grabbing in Southeast Asia; both through its corporate sector and public policies.
Summary
Land-grabbing is occurring at a significant extent and pace in Southeast Asia; some of the characteristics of this land (…)

Few South Africans realise the power of Co-operatives in the global economy. Canada, Norway, Italy, India, China and Brazil each have a significant amount of their GDP generated by Co-operative organisations. One in four citizens in the USA and Germany are members of Co-ops. Even though our (…)

One telling example was the recent Chinese government-sponsored ‘top Chinese enterprises in Africa’ competition, won by China Road and Bridge Corporation [CRBC]. The aim of the award was officially stated as being ‘to commend the contributions by Chinese enterprises in Africa’ and ‘reply to (…)

"China has made remarkable economic and social progress over the past three decades, lifting several hundred millions out of poverty, and food security benefited significantly from this overall progress. However, the shrinking of arable land and the massive land degradation threatens the ability (…)

Old political-economy problems always nibble at the feet of new aspirant runners. These problems are systemic and get carried from one era to another despite the changing face of political players.
In the last 15 years, South Africa rode the economic wave on the basis of a commodity boom, (…)

Seven years after the March 2003 US-led invasion, Iraq remains deeply divided. Iraqis have been internally displaced in three periods: either under the former Ba’ath government; from the March 2003 invasion until the February 2006 Samarra bombing; and since then. Today, one in ten Iraqi is still (…)

As 2010 draws to a close, both the United States and the United Nations have reached out to one of the world’s most marginalised groups in society: indigenous peoples.
The 192-member General Assembly adopted a unanimous resolution last week calling for a first-ever World Conference on (…)

Seen by some as a desirable and irreversible engine of prosperity and progress, globalization is resisted by others as the soft underbelly of a corporate imperialism that plunders and profiteers in the global marketplace. Globalization has brought many benefits, including the reduction of (…)

On the international scene South Africa plays diplomacy for high stakes. Often in the name of Africa and for itself, but this may receive some heckles from those who know that the game of diplomacy is mostly about enlightened self-interest, as the WikiLeaks diplomatic cables more than capably (…)

On 24 December 2010, Dr Binayak Sen — a man who has now become a cause célèbre across the country — was sentenced to life imprisonment by a sessions court in Raipur, Chhattisgarh, for “conspiracy to commit sedition”. Sen had worked for 30 years with the tribal poor in the state both as a doctor (…)

Two recent judicial interventions on the exercise of freedom of expression have given rise to some uneasiness. Judge Navita Kumari Bagha, Metropolitan Magistrate of the Patiala Courts, New Delhi, delivered on November 27 a 12-page order that sought to reverse years of free-speech jurisprudence (…)

Last fortnight we discussed the clandestine endgame afoot at Cancun to change the framework of the climate change negotiations to suit big and powerful polluters.
Since then Cancun has concluded and a deal, in the form of a spate of agreements, has been gavelled into existence by the chair. (…)