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Eco-logicExit endosulfan
India manufactures 70% of the world’s endosulfan, which explains why there has been such a strong lobby against its ban, despite evidence of its health hazards. But India has finally dropped its opposition to a ban on endosulfan, thanks largely to the campaign against the pesticide by Kerala’s people and government More... Making sanitation as popular as cricket700 million Indians have cell phones, but 638 million still don’t have access to proper sanitation. At this year’s South Asian Conference on Sanitation, social solutions to the problem were discussed, including “naming and shaming” and the CLTS programme which gets villagers to map the open areas where they defecate More... Rethinking fossil fuel subsidiesThe government has proposed direct cash transfers instead of subsidies on essential items including kerosene and diesel to the poor. The country certainly cannot permit the huge losses from subsidies any more, says Darryl D’Monte, but it remains to be seen whether cash transfers or a coupon system, or even a combination of such reforms, will work More... Small green hope in India’s burgeoning construction industryMost of India’s construction industry mimics the energy-inefficient glass-and-steel buildings of the West. But with the introduction of two green rating systems for buildings, the revival of traditional architecture and 30 architecture/engineering colleges introducing green certification courses, the country is slowly building up capacity to construct green buildings More... Ecological illiteracy regarding MumbaiEnvironment Minister Jairam Ramesh recently increased the floor space index in Mumbai’s coastal belts. It’s a move doomed to fail; and will only add to the city’s cup of environmental woes, writes Darryl D’Monte More... Renewable energies as big business opportunities?Biomass and biogas are the cheap, decentralised renewable energies to choose for India. But the ministry of renewable energies -- and the technocrats and entrepreneurs surrounding it -- appear to favour hi-tech solutions such as grid solar power, with only a few exceptions such as the project to produce power from rice husk in 10,000 villages in eastern India More... Extreme action from green campaignsFrom B Corp certification for environment-friendly businesses to baby carrot vending machines exhorting school children to ‘eat ‘em like junk food’, hundreds of innovative campaigns across the world are getting the message of social and environmental well-being across, says Darryl D’Monte More... The wrongs and rights of ‘watsan’Why has it taken so many years for the UN to pass a resolution on water and sanitation as a human right? Why did countries like the US, UK and Canada oppose such a resolution, leaving it to Bolivia, which has experienced the negative impact of privatisation of water, to propose the resolution and the poorest nations to support it? More... The real costs of oilThe recent Mumbai oil spill ought to serve as a wake-up call to the authorities on the reckless manner in which the country is building and maintaining its ports. In Mumbai, the outdated MbPT was to have made way for the modern JNPT on the mainland, but MbPT is hanging on to its 1800 acres of prime real estate, exposing the city to the threat of more oil spills and hazardous chemicals More... |
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