Amita Bhaduri

Amita Bhaduri
Seed of doubt
While several studies confirm that GM crops can have serious impact on the safety of both humans and environment, the government is going ahead with GM mustard.
Posted on 21 Jun, 2017 05:30 PM

Signs of mustard aphid, a key pest of the mustard crop appeared predictably in November last year in Dinesh’s farm. Drifting across the open green fields, it landed on the tender leaves of the mustard crop. “It sets in November during the flowering and pod bearing stage of the crop and lasts till January.

Opposition to GM mustard intensifies in India. (Image: Swadeshi Kheti)
Clean Kali: All eyes now on government
The water of East Kali is heavily polluted. It would hopefully change with the NGT taking notice of it.
Posted on 03 Jun, 2017 07:58 AM

Rampura, situated in Bulandshahr district in western Uttar Pradesh, is one of the 1,200 villages on the banks of the 300-km long East Kali, a tributary of the Ganges. The river is named after goddess Kali who, according to the Hindu mythology, is fierce and fights evil by ingesting it.

The polluted Kali river. (Image source: Neer Foundation)
Living on the edge
The increasing cases of tigers straying outside the reserves are leading to man-animal conflicts. A film tries to find solutions.
Posted on 23 May, 2017 01:03 PM

A tiger takes a stroll outside the reserve area, breeds on forest patches and looks out for waterholes, all under the curious eyes of visitors. This footage is from Tadoba, a popular tiger habitat in Chandrapur, Maharashtra that draws a lot of domestic and foreign tourists these days. The number of tigers in Tadoba is increasing.

Tiger in Corbett national park. (Source: Soumyajit Nandy, Flickr Commons)
The dirty picture
A hard-hitting documentary film ‘Kakkoos’ looks at the politics behind the banned practice of manual scavenging and how the civil society connives to keep it alive.
Posted on 12 May, 2017 11:27 AM

Kakkoos, a compelling documentary film on manual scavenging in Tamil Nadu is all about showing the practice as it is without any filter.

Manual scavenging is a caste issue. (Image: Divya Bharathi, Facebook)
In the name of development
The indigenous community of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands has been systematically alienated from their land by the colonial and post-colonial policies. A new book chronicles the change.
Posted on 06 May, 2017 08:12 PM

Pankaj Sekhsaria’s recent book Islands in flux--The Andaman and Nicobar Story is a collection of around 20 years of his writings on the environmental and conservation concerns faced by the indigenous tribal communities of the region.

The forests and the tribal communities of the islands are being decimated. (Source: Wikimedia Commons)
When streets get smart
While the states prepare to build their smart cities, we look at the feasibility of the government’s smart city mission.
Posted on 17 Apr, 2017 05:13 AM

India's urbanisation continues unabated but most of its 53-million plus cities offer an appallingly low quality of life.

Smart city model at Trade Fair, New Delhi (Source: Wikimedia Commons)
Ryots wronged, take protest to Delhi
As the TN farmers’ protest in Delhi enters its fourth week, all eyes are on the Centre which is not budging.
Posted on 13 Apr, 2017 05:51 AM

A woman stands with a begging bowl and a placard strung around her neck. An old man shuffles along barefoot in the street at Jantar Mantar, the official site of a farmers’ protest in the heart of New Delhi. He finds his way through a group of farmers gathered at the protest site on a hot summer afternoon.

Tamil Nadu farmers protest for drought relief in Delhi.
Budget beyond gender
Women are not considered farmers despite their active participation in farming in rural India. A gender responsive budget and its implementation are essential to support and empower women farmers.
Posted on 08 Apr, 2017 08:00 PM

Sneh Bhati, a 52-year-old farmer from Madanpur Khadar in Delhi’s fringes finds the change in the landscape of her 100-year-old village in the last two decades remarkable. Yet it has not taken away the rural charm.

It's her field too: Policies and budgets for women are a good beginning towards gender parity in agriculture.
Election update: Its hills vs plains in Manipur
The land of gems will have a new government soon. We look at what leading political parties have to say about issues related to natural resources.
Posted on 04 Mar, 2017 05:33 PM

The key issue in the Manipur Assembly election is the ongoing economic blockade in the state, which, in turn, is attributed to the present government’s decision to

A Manipuri family. (Source: Coffee Table Book, Government of Manipur)
Act to clean up the system
In our quest to feature unsung heroes who go about their good work silently, we met Pushpa RTI, an enthusiastic right to information activist, who fights for transparency in governance.
Posted on 27 Feb, 2017 01:53 PM

With the Right to Information (RTI) Act coming into force in the year 2005, the country saw many RTI activists making the most of it to demand the rights and entitlements of the people from the government. Pushpa, warmly known as Pushpa RTI, is one of them.

Women at Jan Jagriti Sanvad organised by Lok Shakti Manch. (Source: Lok Shakti Manch)
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