Category: Campaigns
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NarcondaMn
Update: Apparently, the ayes have it! The Envt. & Forests Ministry’s committee decidees NOT TO go ahead with the proposal! The Narcondam Horbill, an endangered species of hornbill from the Narcondam Island in the Andaman & Nicobar chain of islands is under threat. A proposal (a short-sighted one, clearly) to install a RADAR and a…
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“old and fragile records” in an age of RTI and computers: How our heritage collections are managed by ZSI
The Zoological Survey of India has an illustrious history. On 1st July, 1916, the organisation was instituted with a mission to “…to promote survey, exploration and research leading to the advancement in our knowledge of various aspects of exceptionally rich life of the erstwhile British Indian Empire” (Emphasis mine). Alfred William Alcock was a British physician-naturalist,…
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Justice not so blind in Chhatisgarh
It is a shameful day in the history of Indian judiciary, when a doctor who stood as a voice for the poor, oppressed and marginalised is polished off in the most unceremonious way to a life in the prison. What is on trial is indeed justice itself in this case. Over the last few years,…
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Get it right, the copyright
Responding to a call posted on the Rajya Sabha Website where now and then, standing committees mulling over our collective future as a nation act responsibly by inviting comments, I sent off the following comments on the proposed amendment to the Indian Copyright Act, 1957. All in all an opportunity which has only been half,…
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Damned if I die, damned if I don’t
Farmer’s suicide is a silent killer being brushed aside as a marginal issue; after all, a few farmers taking their life ‘here and there’ can’t be that serious. Hmm….neither is it ‘few farmers’ (nearly 200,000 in 10 years) nor is it here and there (Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and Chattisgarh are just the…