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By Lori Pottinger
This article is part of a special issue on water and water privatisation in Africa produced as a joint initiative of the Transnational Institute, Ritimo and Pambazuka News. This special issue is also being published in French.
Hydropower dams are ‘well-suited for (…)

Edited by Nigerian activist Sokari Ekine, who runs the prize-winning blog Black Looks, the book brings together some of the best known and experienced developers and users of mobile phone technologies in Africa, including Juliana Rotich from Ushahidi in Kenya, Ken Banks of Kiwanja.net, and Berna (…)

Department of Biotechnology is playing venture capitalist to private companies to push biotech research in agriculture.
WHY would a company with a turnover of Rs 9,712 crore and profits of Rs 933 crore want a research loan of less than Rs 10 crore from the government? Ask the Department of (…)

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 (…)

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 (…)

What are the implications when one of China’s most powerful agribusiness firms starts acquiring thousands of hectares of land in the Province of Rio Negro, Argentina for the production of soyabeans, wheat, and oilseed rape to ship back to China? What are the consequences for the local (…)

The Big Downturn? Nanogeopolitics, ETC Group’s new 68-page report on global governance of nanoscale technologies, is an update of our 2005 Nanogeopolitics survey. In the intervening five years, policymakers – some kicking and screaming – have begun to acknowledge that fast-tracking nanotech has (…)

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, (…)

The flooding that submerged nearly a fifth of Pakistan starting in July this year displaced about 20 million people and killed nearly 2,000. This number of people whose property and livelihoods were destroyed surpassed the number of combined victims of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, 2005 (…)

As global attention switches from the new Nagoya Protocol of the Biodiversity Convention to the next climate talks in Cancun, Mexico, ETC Group releases a groundbreaking report that lifts the lid on the emerging global grab on plants, lands, ecosystems, and traditional cultures.
The New (…)

At the end of October, artists, hackers, teachers, lawyers and free culture activists of all kinds will converge on Barcelona for the second meeting of the Free Culture Forum (FCF). This is an international space for movements that have emerged across the world around the production, access, (…)

In 1970 a radical document called The Sussex Manifesto helped shape modern thinking on science and technology for development. Forty years on, what kind of science and technology for development Manifesto is needed for today’s world?
The STEPS Centre is creating a new manifesto with one of the (…)

The BP disaster reveals the risks in imagining that we have complete command over nature. Read more

Traditional medicine is a vital yet often neglected part of healthcare in the developing world. In Africa and Asia, more than two in three people reply on traditional remedies as their primary healthcare.
Pharmaceutical companies and medical researchers in the developed world, faced with (…)

India is on a mission. To drastically ramp up its solar power production to 22,000 MW by 2022. From steel makers and automobile manufacturers to diamond merchants and realtors everyone sees the Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission as their chance to strike gold. But it is not so easy. The (…)

Scientists are calling for the long-term risks of GM crops to be reassessed after field studies revealed an explosion in pest numbers around farms growing modified strains of cotton.
The unexpected surge of infestations "highlights a critical need" for better ways of predicting the impact of (…)

Africa has been catapulted into the electronic age over the past decade and a half by an almost incomprehensibly swift growth in telecommunications technology driven primarily by a massive rollout of cell phones and wireless technology throughout the continent.
While few can deny the economic (…)

Metro projects can ease congestion. But lack of integrated planning is undoing the benefits of this mass transport system. Nidhi Jamwal and Ankur Paliwal report. Read more

This week, California will host the Asilomar International Conference on Climate Intervention Technologies. The conference follows hearings last week in the US House of Representatives and a report from the UK Committee on Science and Technology, as well as a recent report from the Government (…)