Feature
India should be inspiring science and technology graduates to stay in the sector, rather than building new institutions, says Anant Kamath. India wants to become a 'knowledge superpower', and has made strengthening technical education a top priority. But policymakers do little to help India's future scientific capabilities when they focus simply on building more institutions or increasing graduate numbers. Such strategies ignore one fundamental problem. From the most modest to the most distinguished institutions, the incentives for students to pursue careers in science and technology (S&T) and research and development (R&D) are poor.
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Tuesday,04 May, 2010 | Hits: 212
The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species governs living animals and plants, and also the tusks and skins of dead animals. India has two such items. Darryl D'Monte reports. Stephen Nash is a tall, burly Canadian, with a flowing white beard and a wry sense of humour. He introduces himself as someone who is often mistaken for Santa Claus. But he is a veteran wildlife specialist who has caught deadly snakes in his native country and has handled many other vicious creatures. As he notes, "I have been bitten, scratched and impaled over the past 32 years!" He once hosted our very own Romulus Whitaker, who started the Snake Park in Chennai and now runs a Crocodile Park outside it.
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Monday,10 May, 2010 | Hits: 195
Executive SummaryThe target agreed by the world’s Governments in 2002, to achieve by 2010 a significant reduction of the current rate of biodiversity loss at the global, regional and national level as a contribution to poverty alleviation and to the benefit of all life on Earth, has not been met.There are multiple indications of continuing decline in biodiversity in all three of its main components genes, species and ecosystems — including:
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Monday,03 May, 2010 | Hits: 648
Recent conservation efforts, linked to the development of alternate livelihood options for local communities along the Brahmaputra, have led to new hope for Assam's state aquatic animal. Ratna Bharali Talukdar reports. Sambhu Prasad Bin and other fishermen of his community were once expert hunters of Shihu, the Gangetic dolphins (Platanista Gangetic) found in the Brahmaputra. They hunted this unique fresh-water mammal for its blubber, at the confluence of the rivers Gadadhar and Brahmaputra, which is one of the dolphin breeding hotspots in Dhubri district of lower Assam. The Bins also traditionally used dolphin oil extracted from the blubber as bait to catch neriya, a local variety of fish.
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Sunday,28 February, 2010 | Hits: 416
"Power to the people" will not be ushered in by the microchip or hydrogen battery, but by a redistribution of wealth. Darryl D'Monte fears the celebrated New York Times columnist may be misplacing his faith. In many ways, Tom Friedman stole the thunder at the Delhi Summit on Sustainable Development (Feb 5-7), which The Energy & Resources Institute, headed by Dr R K Pachauri, organises every year. His virtuoso performance, shorn of all the acronyms and jargon which cloud protracted international debates on global warming, where he strode the stage with a cordless mike, dressed - typically for a hardened journalist - in shirtsleeves in an unusually warm winter, took the audience by storm (no apologies for all the climate metaphors).
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Saturday,13 February, 2010 | Hits: 209
Experts warn the electricity consumption and carbon footprint of cloud computing will more than double from 2007 levels by 2020 While the ash cloud from Iceland's Eyjafjallajökull volcano expanded for a relatively short time over Europe and then slowly disappeared, another cloud, this one unseen, is rising steadily over the entire world.
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Thursday,29 April, 2010 | Hits: 189
In India where millions of people live on the margins of subsistence, guaranteed access to food is vital However, food security is a function of much more than a scheme to distribute food to different sections of society Politics alone can take into account the interconnections between the various determinants of food security says T K Arun
POLITICS runs the risk of being reduced to the art of the passable — it has to be approved by the legislature, by the omniscient television anchors, by sulking editorial writers forced to cede ground to the TV anchors, and, most crucially, by Sonia Gandhi. The food security Bill was drafted for Ms Gandhi’s favour and has been shafted by her displeasure. Food security, hostage, in any case, to the attention deficit of our minister for food and sugar and cricket and Maharashtra politicking, is now all gummed up in a wrangle over how many people should be covered, how many should be left out and how many times the empowered group of ministers should defer their meeting on the subject. What all this bustle over the bill misses out is the simple fact that food security is not achieved primarily by distribution of food. The rural employment guarantee scheme is about food security — it offers 100 days of employment so that people do not go hungry in those spells when regular work, primarily related to raising crops, is not available. The entire Bharat Nirman programme, the rural roads programme, the urban renewal mission, the skills mission, the grand national highway building schemes, all generate jobs and incomes and thus enhance food security.
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Thursday,29 April, 2010 | Hits: 164
The National Food Security Act proposes to lower ration prices, but also reduce the quantity of grain that is given to each family. Devinder Sharma suggests a Zero Hunger programme instead.
When Atal Bihari Vajpayee for the first time unfurled the national flag from the ramparts of the Red Fort in New Delhi, he promised to turn the infamous Kalahandi hunger belt in western Orissa into a food bowl. If only Vajpayee had made a serious attempt to wipe out hunger from Kalahandi, and follow it up with a nationwide programme to feed the hungry millions, the BJP wouldn't have been in a pitiable condition it now finds itself in.
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Friday,23 April, 2010 | Hits: 154
A far-sighted educational trust is reaping the benefit of digging recharge wells long before the need for them. While its own decision is a lesson in conservation, the institution is also going further, imbibing ecological concerns into the students too. Shree Padre reports.
Usually, people conserve water when they are forced to, during shortages. It is rare to find those who decide, with foresight, that they will take up conservation long before they are faced with any difficulty. Vagdevi Vilas Educational Institutions at Munne Kolalu, near Bangalore, is one such exception.
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Tuesday,13 April, 2010 | Hits: 531
The MoEF's assessment of the environment, which should be the foundation for strategic planning in the ministry, is highly inadequate, and is a poor second to similar efforts by environmentalists themselves, writes Shripad Dharmadhikary.
"Presently, more than 45 per cent of the average annual rainfall, including snowfall in the country, is wasted as natural run-off to the sea." Reading this statement, one would guess it is made by a promoter of large dams proposing to build more of those, or wanting to link rivers to use this 'wasted' water. Indeed, this statement reflects the basic philosophy that has governed water resource development in the country for decades, namely, that every drop of water from rivers and water bodies has to be extracted for human use.
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Saturday,24 April, 2010 | Hits: 239
