Opinion & Comment

13.05.2008 David Dickson, Director, SciDev.Net, presents the critique of a recent report on the future of modern agriculture. Even as we fight the current needs of a hungry world in an environmentally sustainable way, the contributions of science and technology deserve recognition and not merely blame, he asserts.

06.05.2008 Indian government has decided to table the contentious Women’s Reservation Bill in Rajya Sabha on May 6. Earlier in an interview with OWSA, Dr Ranjana Kumari, Director, Centre for Social Research spoke on the whole gamut of issues concerning the need for women in governance.

06.05.2008 Soaring prices of food items are making it difficult for poor countries to achieve the Millennium Development Goals by 2015. Any long-term planning has to focus on MDGs and cross-sectoral linkages with adequate budgets if governments wish to tide over the present crisis, says Salil Shetty, Director of the UN Millennium Campaign.

01.05.2008 Environmental activist Sunita Narain offers a glimpse of what the future holds for coastal towns and villages as sea waters rise at a high rate. Climate change, rising salinity in waters and intense winds are eroding and depressing land at the same time in the Sunderbans, leaving people with no ways to survival.

28.04.2008 Helena Norberg Hodge first visited Ladakh in northern India in 1973 to study its culture and language. Fascinated by its gentle people and their earth-based way of life, she kept returning every year since then. In a freewheeling interview, she discusses how annihilation of the local culture can be stopped.

24.04.2008 Dr Marcella D’Souza, executive director of Watershed Organisation Trust (WOTR) in western India, has been awarded the Indian Merchant Chambers' Woman Of The Year Award. During an interview to OneWorld South Asia, she talks of her dream where rural folk live in harmony, secure sustainable livelihoods and enjoy an enhanced quality of life.

22.04.2008 Women’s contribution to the economy and society remains largely unrecognised, underpaid and unpaid in most cases. The need for women to secure land and property is even more critical now, writes Dr Vibhuti Patel of SNDT Women’s University, Mumbai, India.

14.04.2008 The rise in food prices, the [Indian] government says, is an international phenomenon. But this argument is unlikely to cut much ice with the people. At the crux of the crisis is the tardy pace at which farm output has been growing in recent years, says senior journalist Paranjoy Guha Thakurta.

11.04.2008 Even in his criticism of the Chinese authorities in handling the current standoff in Tibet, the Dalai Lama never lost his composure. In a recent interview, the Tibetan spiritual leader has reiterated his stand that he wants a ‘meaningful autonomy’ for the protection and preservation of Tibetan ecology and culture.

10.04.2008 Despite the ban on hunting since 1991, rampant corruption and poor law enforcement have made it possible for poachers and forest dwellers to feast on some of India's endangered species. The craze for bushmeat is leading many creatures to near-extinction, says Shruti Ravindran