A four-year-old landmark law that was supposed to bring profound changes in the lives of India’s tribal and forest-dwelling peoples has failed to deliver on that promise.

According to activists and government officials alike, the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act – better known as the Forest Rights Act (FRA) of 2006 – has remained nothing more than ink on paper as general confusion, corruption, and an intransigent forest department ...
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The mighty Brahmaputra has wiped out nearly 4,000 square kilometres of area at a rate of 80 square kilometres per year, destroying more than 2500 villages and affecting more than five million people in Assam. Assam's Water Resources Department has identified 25 vulnerable and very severe erosion-prone sites and estimated that the Assam valley portion of the Brahmaputra has lost approximately 7.4 per cent of its land area due to river bank erosion and channel migration.

Experts from Assam and t...
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Take the next step with your digital photography, and start earning some money with it!  There are two avenues you can pursue – you can sell the photographs that you take, or you can provide your photography skills as a service to other people.
To read complete story, copy and paste the link below...
http://www.yourphototips.com/2009/12/13/earn-money-with-digital-photography-%E2%80%93-sell-your-photos/

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Scientists have found a new species of bird in Borneo, the ''spectacled flowerpecker'', and expressed the hope today that the discovery would help spur conservation of the island's threatened forests. The small bird, grey with white stripes, was spotted in June 2009 on flowering mistletoe in the Malaysian part of Borneo by a group including biologist David Edwards of Leeds University in England.

''We hope the announcement of our discovery will lead to our ultimate goal: conservation of the new...
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Google has threatened to shut down its operations in China after uncovering hacking attempts into email accounts of Chinese human rights activists, terming it as "highly sophisticated".

"These attacks and the surveillance they have uncovered - combined with the attempts over the past year to further limit free speech on the web - have led us to conclude that we should review the feasibility of our business operations in China," David Drummond, senior vice president of corporate development an...
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It is just the beginning of the year, but M. Manju Laxmi already feels anxious. In four months or so, she will be back to her old routine: stuffing the wide chinks under her weathered closed doors and windows with her old saris.

Laxmi, 42, along with her three children, her husband Nagaraju and his extended family, lives in Malyam village. Despite being one of the larger landholders with a 3.5 hectare-farmland, her family has been dogged by illness and debt even before she came here as a bride...
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With its vast renewable energy potential, South Asia can lead the world in achieving energy security. But sources within the region said it needs technological and financial support from the developed countries before it can tap its rich energy resources.

"Remember, renewable energy is not that easy to achieve. It needs a lot of resources and technology, which the South Asian countries don’t have," Sunita Narain, environmentalist and director of New Delhi-based Centre for Science and Environ...
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This story is about a man who once upon a time was selling "Wada-Pav" by the roadside.
He was illiterate, so he never read newspapers.
He was hard of hearing, so he never listened to the radio.
His eyes were weak, so he never watched television.
But enthusiastically, he sold lots of "Wada-pavs".
He was smart enough to offer some attractive schemes to increase his sales.
His sales and profit went up.
He ordered more a more raw material and "Pav" and used to sale more "Wada Pav's".
He recruited ...

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A great variety of endangered wildlife species end up feeding the illegal market for Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) thanks to poor enforcement in stopping the trade, say experts and activists.

"The Chinese market is like a 'black hole' sucking in wildlife products from neighbouring countries," said Peter Pueschel, head of global Wildlife Trade Programme at the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW), in an e-mail interview with IPS.

India, China's neighbour to the south, is most at r...
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