Up-country Tamil plantation workers in Sri Lanka remain a subjugated community, treated as little more than bonded labour. The current political foment includes opportunities for change. Read more
Up-country Tamil plantation workers in Sri Lanka remain a subjugated community, treated as little more than bonded labour. The current political foment includes opportunities for change. Read more
With the government incapable of designing Nepal’s school education, bilateral and multilateral donors are forced to step in. As a result, Nepali education has for decades lurched from one internationally assisted mega-project to another. Read (...)
In post-conflict societies, histories of exclusion, racism and nationalist violence often create divisions so deep that finding a way to agree on the atrocities of the past seems near-impossible. This project seeks, first, to ensure that transitional justice measures are sensitive to the ways (...)
The people of Chhattisgarh (India) appear to have lost the battle against industrialisation without rules. Even those who held out longest against the acquisition of their lands, forests and rivers are giving up the fight. Dilnaz Boga travels through the villages of Raigarh district, where (...)
‘Towards Food Sovereignty’ is an online book with full color photo illustrations and linked video and audio files. It describes the ecological basis of food and agriculture, the social and environmental costs of modern food systems, and the policy reversals needed to democratize food systems. The (...)
An explosive new article reveals that three Gitmo prisoners whose deaths were labeled suicides were murdered. Obama’s Department of Justice has refused to investigate. Read more
While the achievement of universal ontological rights in South Africa has been a marvellous step forward, writes Jason Hickel, the paradigm of a rights-based revolution is seriously and fundamentally flawed, and cannot serve the ends that South Africa intends it to. Cautioning that the state (...)
SciDev.net publishes a spotlight on the challenge of improving nutrition in the developing world.
More than a billion people in developing countries suffer from malnutrition, increasing the risk of disease and death, and reducing long-term economic productivity and development. But (...)
Millions of people around the world who belong to indigenous communities continue to face discrimination and abuse at the hands of authorities and private business concerns, says a new U.N. report.
It is happening not only in the developing parts of the world but also in countries such as the (...)
The blame game Martin Khor, Blame Denmark, not China, for Copenhagen failure, The Guardian: The decision to override the multilateral process and hold a secret meeting of select nations ruined any chance of success Mark Lynas (British, adviser to the Maldives delegation), How do I know China (...)
GIS mapping technology is helping underprivileged communities get better services — from education and transportation to health care and law enforcement — by showing exactly what discrimination looks like. Read more
In India, a disabled girl-child is usually at the receiving end of a lot of contempt and neglect. Women with disabilities have been consistently denied their rights. In a landmark decision, the Supreme Court (SC) of India recently allowed a 19-year-old mentally challenged orphan girl to carry (...)
It is 25 years of the Bhopal gas disaster—the night when chemicals spewed out of the Union Carbide factory to kill and maim thousands over generations. The question is if we have learnt from the disaster—learnt how to handle chemical accidents; to dispose of industrial toxic waste; to manage (...)
Shailesh Gandhi’s work is proof that working in an accountable, democratic and transparent manner is possible in the official Right to Information machinery. Darryl D’Monte reports. Read
Twenty two per cent of Orissa’s population are tribals, and another 16 per cent are dalits, both highly vulnerable communities. Therefore, proper mapping of BPL (Below Poverty Line) families is important, as it serves as the lifeline for many. But the BPL politics at the central level is skewed, (...)
Interview with Priya Babu, transgender activist.
PRIYA BABU has been working for the welfare of transsexuals as the leader of the Tamil Nadu Aravanigal Association and the managing trustee of the Social Integration and Development for Aravanis Foundation (SIDA). She hit the headlines five years ago when she filed a writ petition in the Madras (...)
Edgardo Lander, Walden Bello
This publication aims to contribute to a more sophisticated understanding of the emerging climate justice movement and to create resonances between different perspectives and spheres of engagement. The activities around the COP 15 in Copenhagen are a starting point in the creation of such a (...)
Today’s food is well travelled. A pack of green beans in a Northern supermarket may have journeyed 6000 miles, or 60. But while food miles loom large in our carbon-aware times, transporting it counts for less than you might think. And there is a far bigger picture. Food is more than a plateful (...)
‘I am an angry African,’ Assefa Bequele writes in this week’s Pambazuka News, challenging the continent’s failure to meet its collective responsibilities to children. ‘I will tell you why and what, I hope, we can do to build an Africa fit for children and help nurture an African man and woman that (...)
Creative, accessible, and illuminating introduction to the con of carbon trading by UK cartoonist Kate Evans. Download pdf