| G ood ideas for a better world |
I was at the entrance of the compound leading up to my house when I saw the most spectacular sight: a magnificent hooded cobra. It was a baby cobra fighting off a crow. This was not the first time I had come face to face with the wild in the busy polluted city of Pune; I have counted at least 54 different species of birds from my window, thanks to the surrounding trees and green areas.  |
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| I n the news |
The world enjoyed a record bumper harvest of 2.1 billion tonnes last year. This year, there is a food crisis! How have we landed ourselves in this mess?  |
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| F ind out for yourself |
When you buy and use a product, how do you know if it's good or bad? In a general sense, if it is useful, works well, and fulfils its purpose without costing you too much, you can say that the product's good. But now that caring about the environment is becoming important, judging whether something is ‘good' or ‘bad' goes beyond its usefulness  |
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| S cience for everyday life |
As temperatures continue to rise over the long summer months, so too do our thirst levels and we need to drink lots of water to avoid getting dehydrated.  |
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| A lternatives |
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We need energy for everything we do. For our bodies the energy comes from food. But for everything else, like the machines we depend on for our transport, communications, entertainment and health, we need to produce energy.  |
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| W hat people are talking about… |
The need for countries all over the world to cut down on their greenhouse gas emissions is becoming more and more urgent. Almost every day there are news reports on these gases and the harm they are causing the world. The most interesting recent news has been that the American state of California is suing the world’s major car manufacturers for damaging the state by being major contributors to greenhouse gases.  |
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| P oetry for change |
| When we think of poetry, we think of something that has to be learned by heart and recited. We think of a classroom and a teacher.
Our poetry page lets you read poetry just for the fun of it – to enjoy the words, the rhymes, the ideas and the images that poems create in your head.
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| One World |

Military conquests have many repercussions. But the desire to conquer does not always spell destruction. While it is all about power and control on the one hand, it is also about union. It is subjugation. It forces entire regions into submission. But it is also about the slow and gradual amalgamation and resurgence of cultures. 
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| E arth warriors |
The other day I was reading about retired people in a Mumbai suburb who protect their local trees from being cut. This led me to thinking about ordinary environmental heroes. People who are not doing some amazing scientific or technological feat, but merely looking after the environment in simple ways, making small differences that add up.  |
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| S torybook |
There have been a lot of stories in the papers recently about people who go hunting, often for animals that are protected. A few months ago it was the Nawab of Pataudi, former captain of India’s cricket team and father of Saif Ali Khan. Saif too has been arrested for hunting protected animals, and so have Sunjay Dutt and Salman Khan. 
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| D o It Yourself |
If you carefully observe the aerial space around your house, you will notice that besides sparrows, crows, pigeons, mynahs and bulbuls there are scores of other species of colourful birds flitting about the trees, shrubs, bushes, antennae, cable wires, terraces and balconies. Although you are bound to see a larger variety in winter, summer is a good time to create a bird sanctuary in your garden, park, backyard, terrace or balcony, to attract and offer sanctuary to birds.  |
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