India

5 stars for saving electricity

RBI bags certificates for its energy efficient buildings

Energy fixing

Bureau of Energy Efficiency says it is likely to meet Plan target. Experts say claims far from truth

When business rules our kitchens

Once again there is a food safety scare. A deadly strain of E coli bacterium has hit Germany, where it has taken the lives of 25 people and affected another 2,300 till date. German food inspectors on the trail of the source of contamination ha­ve as yet made two errors—blaming Spanish cucumbers and then organic bean sprouts—but no breakthrough.

Climate notes

THE Himalayas are warming at a rate higher than the global average. A recent study documents how this has affected cropping patterns and vegetation in the past 10 years.

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2010 top news on the environment in Asia

Date: Dec 2010

Top News is a compilation of important environmental news topics selected by environmental experts from the Asia-Pacific region as well as by international organisations and research institutes from twenty-one countries in the region.

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Soon: India’s first REDD project

Forest conservation effort in Meghalaya can claim carbon benefits.

Wind break ends

Centre wants to withdraw sops for wind energy sector; offers an incentive to improve performance

Wind energy has been the poster child of India’s renewable energy programme. Data released by the government shows the staggering pace at which wind farms have been added across the country.

From forestry to productive forestry

My position on the need to re-position forests in development (see ‘Rethink growth with forest capital’, Down To Earth, May 16-31) has brought me a huge response. On the one hand are those who argue that functions of forests already include conservation vital to life; they need to be valued and protected. The unsaid (and often stressed) corollary is that any discussion on the need to improve productivity of forests through the involvement of people needs to be shunned. The stretched and simplistic positioning of this view is that forests and people cannot go together.

Rethink growth with forest capital

Can you love tigers but hate forests? This is the question that troubled me as I visited the middle of India last fortnight. I was in Nagpur, where local politicians, conservationists and officials were discussing what needed to be done in this chronically poor and backward region endowed with forests and tiger habitats.

Shifting sands of (mal) development

We were on a beach. Somewhere close to Puducherry. The sight was surreal: half-smashed houses with wide open fronts, people still living in them. The devastation was caused not by a sea storm or a cyclone, but by the eroded beach. The sea had crept up to the village; there was no protection between the sea and the village.