How can access to education and good healthcare change somebody's life is evident from Suresh Dhongde's success. At one point of time he was staring at possibility of a life wasted. Today, the 35-year-old is a proud recipient of the national award for being a role model in overcoming leprosy. Not only is he helping other leprosy-affected people join mainstream, but also trying to break well-entrenched stereotypes related to the disease. He is...
Dr Kunal Saha's wife Anuradha died due to medical negligence in 1998. He pursued the case for 15 years through various consumer courts, MCI, high court until Supreme Court passed a historic order three months back. It not only awarded the highest compensation so far in a medical negligence case but also questioned the treatment of doctors, a first in Indian legal history. Here Dr Saha talks about the shortcomings in present Indian law and his...
It's not without reason that the Third World War is predicted to be triggered by water scarcity. The numbers themselves give us enough reason to be worried- by 2025, 60 per cent of India is expected to be living in towns and cities. Bore wells are getting deeper, urban areas brimming with population, and some already suffer from water shortage. However, success stories of humble organisations like the Rain Centre in Chennai let the results...
Javed Abidi, the convenor of Disabled Rights Group, and a vocal activist who has been at the forefront of disability revolution in India, talks to GOI Monitor about the present state of affairs and lacunae in laws
Q. After being involved in protracted battle in 1998 for implementation of Persons With Disabilities (Equal Opportunities, Protection of Rights and Full Participation) Act, how do you react to instances of...
नदी का विज्ञानं क्या है और बढ़ते जल प्रदूषण , बाढ़ और सूखे के संदर्भ में यह कहाँ बैठता है? बता रहें हैं प्रसिद्ध पर्यावरणविद् और लेखक अनुपम मिश्र। यह व्यख्यान उन्होंने 28 नवंबर, 2015 को नई दिल्ली में जल नीति विशेषज्ञ स्व: रामास्वामी आर अय्यर की स्मृति में दिया । ‘सबको पानी’ के नारों से ले कर बड़ी वाटर वर्क्स की योजनाओं तक, अनुपम जी पानी से जुड़े सभी सामाजिक और राजनीतिक आयामों को छूते हुए नदी के अविरल स्वभाव को चित्रित करते हैं
Going by his fame, I had imagined somebody with people running around him, at least a couple of computers on display and cell phones caroling frequently. But here was a man working without a cellphone or a computer, surrounded by letters people wrote to him. A couple of wooden almirahs adorned with old postcards and images of famous personalities from Gandhi ji to Sunita Narain, stood in his room. Gandhi Marg, the bi-monthly periodical Anupam...
August 12, 2011: The National Biodiversity Authority (NBA) decides to take legal action against multinational seed firm Monsanto for accessing local varieties of eggplant and using it to develop genetically modified bt brinjal. Though the action may appear
At the confluence of Subarnarekha river in Orissa, the average fish catch has fallen by 20-30 per cent over the past few years while input cost to run a power boat and maintain a good net has risen. In 2008 winter, standing crops in 16 districts in Rajasthan were damaged
Image 1: More than 30 bulldozers and 100 JCBs ply incessantly on a hill in Murbad tehsil of Maharashtra, excavating a huge foundation and simultaneously levelling the land to build a dam for which forest clearance has not been sanctioned yet. The project
The Chennai floods of December 2015 had little to do with nature’s fury and more about city’s flawed urban planning and decades of improper garbage management. Chennai generates between 4,500- 4,800 tonnes of waste every day, and about 1.8 million tonnes a year. However, the city seems to be learning its lessons pretty quickly, and the effort of some responsible citizens has culminated into the Plastic Waste Rules 2016, and the Solid Waste...
There is a strong perception that the crisis of policy implementation runs deep across all the levels of governance from the Union to the State and further to the local government level. This perception is reinforced in the recent findings of the Comptroller and Auditor
Man has always been on quest of building new things. Even when there were no big machines and qualified engineers, the world had expert builders who shaped the earth into various forms to meet needs of the society. Kuhls of Himachal Pradesh are one such example of engineering brilliance. Kuhl is name given to a channel which carries glacial melt through gravity from nearby streams to the fields thus making irrigation possible even on steep...
National water policies are extremely important legal and institutional tools as they reflect the basic intent and direction that the government is planning to take regarding water resources. To ensure that this is a direction acceptable and beneficial to all, open
North East India has long been ignored by policy makers who usually blame the difficult terrain for non-delivery of essential services. However, for last few years, both the bureaucrats as well as corporates are making a beeline to the region offering development.
June 16 was 'Father's Day' and lovely quotes on fatherhood spilled over from mainstream media to facebook and twitter. June 16 was also the 'International Domestic Workers' Day' and it seems nobody really noticed. A few women workers with placards marched on the streets of Chennai seeking fixed minimum wages but then again nobody was really interested. As long as houses were cleaned, dishes done and kids put to bed there was not much trouble...
Ghaziram's family has been living at Ekalpaar village of Jaisalmer district for ages but managed to build a pucca house only recently. Besides rearing livestock, he owns 50 bigha of agricultural land which earned him Rs 2 lakh last year.
Keshari Sahu is a happy farmer. When scanty and irregular rainfall resulted in heavy damage to the Kharif paddy crop at his village in Balangir district of Odisha last year, he decided to grow Gurjee millet on his three acre farm instead of cotton.
If you frequent villages, ‘Jal, jungle, zamin’ is the commonest refrain you hear. While we city dwellers are acquainted to land and water, forest often remains a distant resource for us. But in many places of the world, there are people who are one with the forests. India is home to many such tribes who treat trees and shrubs as their extended family. The film, “I cannot give you my forest’, gives a glimpse of such a tribe, the Kondhs of...
Around a thousand families of Thalangi tribal hamlet in Coimbatore district received free television sets from the Tamil Nadu government in 2006. But these were of no use as the houses had no electricity supply. Kerosene was the main source of lighting. Today, it is interesting to see how the hamlet has met all its energy needs and also attained complete sanitation through a biodigester. Though biodigesters have conventionally been used to...
As the Himalayan Region warms up faster than other places of the world, erratic weather puts geographically-vulnerable places such as Kinnaur in Himachal Pradesh at greater risk. Rains are increasing, snowfall is declining, and temperatures are rising, which all have great impacts on an area prone to landslides and fed by glacial melt. On April 16 this year, Kinnauris woke up to a snowfall which had a dusty tinge to it. While a few experts...