LARGE-SCALE manufacture, transportation and application of chemical fertilisers are energy-intensive processes, which is why the hike in oil prices has made them more expensive. Moreover, the vast

Rameshwari has been working as a scavenger in the pilgrim town of Ajmer in Rajasthan for the last 15 years. She abhors her work, yet she does it as it is her only source of livelihood.

Individuals and voluntary agencies continue to make films in different parts of the country on subjects that interest them, though hardly any of these make it to the television screen.

THE NEW US administration of Bill Clinton and Al Gore promises to be environment-friendly. Gore, derided as the "ozone man" by outgoing president George Bush has sound environmental credentials. His

CRITICISING or condemning lopsided developmental priorities and highlighting their consequences is one thing; outright rejection of the very concept of development, science and technology is quite

... but the government has done nothing to monitor the prevalence of tuberculosis in the area.

INDIA'S politicians and bureaucrats have often been compared to the five blind men and the elephant, with the difference that they have consciously chosen to be blind. For years, they have woven a

Anna in Marathi means brother and Kishan Baburao Hazare is lovingly known as Anna Hazare in Ralegan Siddhi, the village in Maharashtra's Ahmednagar district that he helped transform from poverty to

Rigoberta Menchu, a Guatemalan human rights activist and peasant leader, was awarded this year's Nobel Peace Prize. Menchu was witness to the massacre of her entire family at the hands of the Guatemalan army. In this excerpt from her testimony, Menchu des

To most modern Indian writers, the environment means trees, birds and animals and human beings, in aesthetic or metaphysical communion with them.