Much has been made in the media of the apparent contradiction between what United Progressive Alliance chairperson Sonia Gandhi and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh recently said about development and environmental concerns.

Contaminated water sources and the virtual absence of health care claim dozens of lives in the State, now in the grip of cholera.

COME monsoon and the backward regions of Orissa are in the grip of water-borne diseases. This year too has been no different. According to official figures, 150 people had died of cholera and diarrhoea in the State as on September 15.

ON August 24, Jairam Ramesh, Union Minister of State for Environment and Forests, uploaded on the Ministry's website the text of his detailed decision rejecting the application from Vedanta Resources for forest clearance to start bauxite mining in Orissa's Niyamgiri hills.

THE August 24 decision of the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) refusing to allow mining in the Niyamgiri hills jointly by the Orissa Mining Corporation and Sterlite Industries (India) Limited, a Vedanta Group company, has given a boost to the movements against displacement of people and illegal mining and land acquisition for various mineral-based industries in violation of land ac

A poor understanding of the relationship between animals and our ecology has led to a lackadaisical attitude towards wildlife conservation.

INDIA'S national animal is a favourite with poachers. There is a large market for every body part of the Bengal tiger in South-East Asia.

In pushing for a greatly truncated PDS, the Food Security Bill proposed by the NAC, which has many right-to-food activists, undermines the PDS itself.

ENSURING food security was the big promise of United Progressive Alliance-2.

Floods in the Indus, triggered by the heavy monsoon rain, devastate vast swathes of land and render millions homeless in Pakistan.
MOVING at a furious pace from the mountainous north-western region of Gilgit-Baltistan to the fertile south, the Indus river, swollen and bursting its banks following heavy monsoon rain since late July, has ripped through Pakistan, laying waste at least 1,60,000 squar

Bolangir district in Orissa, facing drought conditions since 1965, sees an annual mass migration of farmers to other States in search of work.

SURESH GOHIR of Bhotapada village in the backward Bolangir district of Orissa consumed pesticide two years ago after his paddy crop failed. He survived the suicide attempt but found life doubly difficult as debt had mounted.

The National Advisory Council's move to restrict universalisation of the PDS to the most disadvantaged districts may ultimately end up limiting its impact.

RECENT weeks have seen rather contradictory statements on the challenge of ensuring food security and the set of feasible initiatives for managing the food economy.

To start with, the National Advisory Council (NAC), which recognises the

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