Jyoti basu, the cpi(m) stalwart who served as West Bengal chief minister for 23 years, never gave long speeches on environment. But his deeds spoke louder than words. Many of the steps he took to protect the environment served as the model. He was given a high ranking among chief ministers surveyed for green credentials by the Centre for Science and Environment, a Delhi non-profit, in 1999.
In the second week of January, the Bentara art gallery in the Indonesian city of Yogyakarta was full of paintings of geckos and crocodiles. Thirty three artists had come together to protest corruption in Indonesia.
The battered economy of Gaza in Palestine is a media staple in most parts of the world. Of course, not in Israel. The Israeli human rights group B’Tselem decided to do something to mend matters. In mid-2009, it distributed video cameras to 18 young people in Gaza and set them up with an instructor. The assignment: tell us about your lives.
“It was a major shock when I got here,” says Tom Krueger. “You can’t describe the sweat down your back, the smell of the pus that hits your nose.” Krueger is a doctor with the Medecins Sans Frontieres (msf). He is speaking of the pain of working at Mamba Point Hospital, the only free hospital serving about a million people in Liberia’s capital Monrovia.
Canada’s second-oldest magazine has bowed to the vicissitudes of the Internet. It is changing its name because its unintended sexual connotation has caused the history journal to become snagged in Internet filters and has turned off potential readers.
A 17th century world map with China at its centre, is on display at the Library of Congress in Washington. Printed on rice paper, the map was created by Italian missionary Matteo Ricci in 1602. It is rarely displayed and, because of its fragility, is called the “Impossible Black Tulip of Cartography”.
Ricci created the map at the request of the Chinese Emperor Wanli.
A hilarious prank led to Canada pulling the plug on thousands of websites in the first week of January. The Canadian government wiped out 4,500 websites in early January as it frantically grappled with a climate change hoax by the Yes Men. During the Copenhagen climate change conference the anti-corporate pranksters had some fun at the expense of Canada.
In the chilly month of December when nerves freeze and hands shiver, there is nothing more comforting than a hot cup of tea. But even the spiciest and strongest brew would fail at 3,500 metres above sea level, where temperatures plunge below -20°C in a ruthless winter. People in the Himalayan region, the highest mountain range in the world, know how to beat this cold—with a cup of warm gurgur cha.
Banker, housewife, engineer, pujari. They came from all walks of life, from across Maharashtra, and met up for the first time in a public meeting at Mumbai's Shivaji Park. They exchanged notes, bonded, and vowed to work together. Each of the 60 people gathered under the Mobile Tower Grievance Forum had their own story to tell.
