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Farmers throughout the world are the victims of a war for control over seeds. Our agricultural systems are threatened by industries that seek to control our seeds by all available means. The outcome of this war will determine the future of humanity, as all of us depend on seeds for our daily (...)

Approval of Bolivia’s revolutionary ’Mother Earth’ law is an historic step by social movements in a long struggle for real ecological transformation of their economy and society.
Approval of Bolivia’s revolutionary ’Mother Earth’ law is an historic step by social movements in a long struggle for (...)

Union government has presented evidence worldwide that it owned knowledge in 600+ cases. The Indian government is now collaborating with the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO), a specialised agency at the United Nations (UN), to protect its traditional knowledge.
The next time (...)

The Nuclear Power Corporation of India (NPCIL) and the political establishment are burying their heads in the sand over the controversial nuclear plants on the Konkan coast, which will affect the lives of people in the entire region. [...] The NPCIL plans to erect six such plants, built by the (...)

Germany’s policies prove that renewable sources of energy are a viable option. IN September 2010, the German Federal Environment Agency announced that by 2050 the country would be in a position to meet all of its electricity requirements from renewable energy sources as opposed to the present 16 (...)

The promise of the Forest Rights Act remains largely unfulfilled, says a committee set up by the Ministries of Environment and Forests and Tribal Affairs. It seems hard for a government used to controlling most of India’s common lands to let go of them. Even though it has passed a law mandating (...)

Ask Chennai’s (Madras’) fisherfolk and they will tell you that the road to hell is built on stilts. Various Central and state government agencies plan to construct three controversial expressways on stilts in the coastal city. These roads will displace more than 1 lakh people — mostly urban poor — (...)

The Royal Society of Canada report on the tar sands released today, spurred concern by directly impacted communities and allies today as conclusions were put forward around the impacts of tar sands development within the region.
“With data coming from primarily government and industry sources, (...)

Lock-ups, prisons and court cases have become an integral part of the lives of Jaitapur’s residents. The scenic village in Maharashtra, which is to be home to the world’s biggest nuclear plant, has virtually turned into a state of dystopia. The people of the five villages that would be affected (...)

Even as the new CRZ notification grants fishing communities the right to redevelop the land on which they live, it lays open coastal lands for other forms of development which will adversely impact their livelihoods, says Kalpana Sharma. Read (...)

The Environment Ministry’s clearance of projects such as Posco, Jaitapur and Lavasa will cause havoc in our gravely endangered environment. Even the worst pessimist could not have imagined that the January 31 order of the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) approving the South (...)

Governments risk adopting policies that increase people’s vulnerability to climate change because of a general prejudice against migration, according to research published today by the International Institute for Environment and Development.
The research, which includes case studies from (...)

Plans to ban extremely and moderately hazardous pesticides in cardamom district, Idukki.
Endosulfan poisoning in Kasaragod district has made the Kerala government cautious in its approach to use of pesticides. Agriculture minister M Retnakaran recently announced that the ban on extremely and (...)

Over the years, the Kadars, a dwindling aboriginal tribe who live on the borders of the southern Indian states of Kerala and Tamil Nadu, have survived pestilences, extreme exploitation and even mass sterilisations. But a new government plan to build a hydroelectric dam across the Chalakudy (...)

“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 wouldn’t (...)

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 (...)

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 (...)

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. (...)

Last month, after 18 years of negotiations and more than 2 weeks of tense discussions in Nagoya, Japan, the world finally struck a deal on access to genetic resources and benefit sharing. The agreement — the Nagoya Protocol on Access to Genetic Resources and Equitable Sharing of Benefits — was, (...)

Biomass and biogas are the cheap, decentralised renewable energies to choose for India. But the ministry of renewable energies — and the technocrats and entrepreneurs surrounding it — appear to favour hi-tech solutions such as grid solar power, with only a few exceptions such as the project to (...)