The last frontier of the Bengal floodplains, the Sunderbans is a sprawling archipelago of several hundred islands, some large, some minuscule, stretching nearly 300 km between West Bengal and Bangladesh.

The business of settling new-formed land, rehabilitation of environmental refugees and building and maintaining embankments is subject to much political manoeuvring. Anthropologist Amites Mukhopadhyay of Kalyani University, West Bengal, who's researched these machinations extensively, calls it " char politics'.

With Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee on a hunger strike, (as events stood on December 8, 2006), things are bound not to be normal. Banerjee's hunger strike comes as a mark of protest against

yes, radio: On November 17, 2006 the government approved an expansion of community radio stations by non-profit organisations. Applicants need to have a standing of at least three years.

• Parkland Medical Center in Derry, the US, has been honoured for becoming mercury-free. It got the