A study by Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF) says that if efforts are made to preserve tigers’ breeding areas and it is ensured that they are connected by habitat corridors, the number of tigers can triple. At present, about 3,200 tigers live in the wild, down from 100,000 a century ago, and those that remain…
In an interesting revelation through an RTI, it is learnt that the environment ministry has been approving projects almost at the same rate as it did before environment minister Jairam Ramesh held reins and started his environment activism. The data provided by the ministry shows that the ministry in Ramesh’s leadership has cancelled only six…
An offhand question: Which are the eco-destinations in India? Suppose I am an eco-conscious tourist in the excruciating habit of calculating/guesstimating the ecological cost of random getaways, which are the destinations I might choose from? Who among my fellow holidaymakers are intent on reducing their carbon footprint? Is it taking things too far if one…
After completing her first fact-finding mission in the country, Margaret Sekaggya, rapporteur on human rights defenders appointed by the Geneva-based Human Rights Council, warned that the space for civil society has contracted in India. She said that the country’s human rights defenders are more vulnerable. ‘I am deeply concerned about the branding and stigmatization of…
Talking-and-thinking points from the report ‘Sustainable and inclusive innovation – strategies for tomorrow’s world’ by CII-ITC CESD – part 1 A hepatitis B vaccine that is 1/40th the cost of traditional vaccines but meets UNICEF’s quality requirements; cataract surgeries, performed on 300,000 patients annually by a single hospital, at a cost that is just 1/100th…
The environment minister’s office, which is the flagbearer of the eco-friendly norms and has been pulling up the environment code violators, seems to have no clue if the buildings of central government offices in the country are eco-friendly and follow the environment ministry’s guidelines. In June 2010, a right to information (RTI) activist, Lokesh Batra,…
One month from now, nearly 21,000 kids from 30 schools in Chandigarh might not get their midday meal as NGO Swami Shivananda Memorial Institute will withdraw its services and not supply food. The NGO says it is not being able to meet the increasing expenses and cannot afford to provide a meal at a mere…
The Direct Taxes Code Bill, which is scheduled to replace the Income Tax Act from April 1, 2012, proposes that charitable and not-for-profit organizations (NGOs) will be allowed a basic exemption of only one lakh rupees and any income over it will be liable to 15 per cent tax. The bill also proposes to tax…
‘We are aware that it has been the government’s endeavour to engage this sector (NGOs) in policymaking, to improve the delivery of public goods and services to the people and help in strengthening accountability of public agencies and public officials,’ said Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee in a meeting with several non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to get…
In the very beginning of the year, a news story in one of the leading dailies of the country talked about how one wedding matchmaking website was cashing in on the ‘ability matrimony’ platform. BharatMatrimony, as part of its corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiative, thought of connecting people with disabilities including physical impairment, mobility impairment,…
