SUNITA DUBEY On May 13, individuals and groups from from Kazakhstan, the Czech Republic, South Africa, Romania and the us gathered at Luxembourg for ArcelorMittal

punjab has finally made cancer-registry compulsory in the state. Despite numerous scientific reports revealing the public health crisis in the state, the government had obstinately resisted any redress mechanism. The recent decision comes in the wake of two new scientific reports. One shows that pesticides are damaging genes of farmers who spray them, often leading to mutations and cancers.

PRADIP SAHA talks to DILIP CHERIAN, founder and consulting partner of image management firm Perfect Relations, about the clash between public relations and public interest

There is a political process to public policy. Does corporate lobbying go against that democratic norm?

as the Right to Information Act of 2005 (rti) celebrates its third anniversary, the Union government has decided to do a review study. Officials insist that the study is meant to review only the implementation of the act and to find whether rural areas have benefited from it. But activists suspect that it may actually end up diluting the act and protecting the babus (See page 22). Their suspicion is not entirely unfounded.

The old Exxon ditty,"Put a tiger in your tank', has been adopted by the World Bank. Reportedly prodded by its president, Robert Zoellick, the Bank will announce a new global initiative to save tigers. The

The Right to Environment was not initially guaranteed by the Constitution as a fundamental right. Indira Gandhi's otherwise infamous 42 nd Amendment made it a constitutional expectation (Article 48-A). After the emergency, the Supreme Court of India converted this expectation into a guaranteed "collective' right for all people in India as part of their

BOOK>>Towards Water Wisdom

In the first week of April this year, a group of men came and stood outside the Centre for Science and Environment (cse), New Delhi. They carried placards with offensive slogans directed at me. We understood the

recently, the Indian Medical Association (ima) earned the dubious distinction of being the first association of medical professionals in the world to endorse a food brand. And that too of a company best known for its brands of non-nutritive and unsafe carbonated beverages. Going by the law of the land, this "endorsement' is illegal. The Prevention of Food Adulteration Act, 1954 clearly makes it illegal to label foods as wothy of being recommended by the medical profession.

the common wisdom of electoral democracy might call for politicians, specialising in arithmetic, who can identify the biggest number. But the post-modern understanding of electoral politics may demand integrating a small number of voters whose limit to power is tending towards infinity! Let us look at how a few road dividers on a stretch of 19 km in Delhi have completely divided the urban classes (see page: 32-38).

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