Irrigation

June signals the start of the monsoons in many parts of India. Pune and its surrounding areas in Maharashtra have witnessed heavy showers since the first week of June. The rains let up for a weeks time during which I visited a few places on the outskirts of Pune city.

When the DNA of a plant is modified using genetic engineering techniques or biotechnology, the plant is said to have been genetically modified (GM). What does this mean to you and I? Quite simply, it means that the crop could have undergone this process in order to become something that it wasn't in the first place. 

Did you know that the planet would die in three days if it ran out of water? Water is a basic necessity and the United Nations recognized the right to it as a basic human right in 2010. Isn’t it ironic that we are still allowing a few utility companies privatise it, speculate over it and control it?

Floods are an annual event in the north-eastern state of Assam. The newspapers expect it at this time of year, every year. For the world, this is routine, something not even worth a front-page story like the Uttarakhand floods maybe because it does not involve pilgrims or religion.

Dongria Kondh tribals stand firm against mining of Niyamgiri

Pallichal panchayat in Thiruvananthapuram is one of its best performing panchayats. It has received a number of awards for achieving high literacy levels, keeping up good sanitation practices and for implementing a number of agricultural and irrigation initiatives.

We sat in a plush climate-controlled room and deliberated climate change as the outside world collapsed around us..

Sudha Gunavante is a contented woman. She has reason to be. After all, she and her husband have managed to prosper on their farm, her children are well-educated and well-settled, and her rhododendron syrup is the pride of the village. If that is not enough, she has also managed to escape a centuries-old curse.

Left, right, up, down...bump, bump, bump! That was me… being thrown about on all sides of the jeep that I was in. No, I wasn’t off-roading! I was on an investigative mission to Pinrow, a village in Nainital district, Uttarakhand from my home. I was investigating the impact of the state government's push for 100% of child births to happen in the hospitals.

The construction industry went through a boom in the 1990s due to more people demanding and affording houses. This put a lot of pressure on the Pennar area in Andhra Pradesh. Sandmining, which is the process of taking sand, became rampant at that time.