Feature Article

The Communist Party of India (Marxist)-led Left Front government
in West Bengal had handled the acquisition of land from the peasants for the Nano car project of Tata Motors at Singur in a hopelessly insensitive manner. The Trinamool Congress, the main opposition party, has ever since tried to gain all it can from this failing of the communists. The CPI(M), in its anxiety to pursue industrialisation at all costs, should have known better than to be more concerned about the incentives for private industry than about livelihoods and asset security for the local populace. (Editorial)

The breaching of embankments in the upstream areas of the Kosi river, in Kusaha village in Nepal, has resulted in yet another round of floods in north Bihar, in the districts of Supaul, Saharsa, Araria, Madhepura, Katihar and Purnia. The disaster this time is much larger than usual. More than three million people have been affected and a million have been forced to seek higher ground. (Editorial)

Confronted with land degradation, chronic water shortages, and a growing population that already numbers 1.3 billion, China is looking to a transgenic green revolution to secure its food supply. Later this month, the government is expected to roll out a $3.5 billion research and development (R&D) initiative on genetically modified (GM) plants. "The new initiative will spur commercialization of GM varieties," says Xue Dayuan, chief scientist on biodiversity at the Nanjing Institute of Environmental Science of the Ministry of Environmental Protection.

Atlantic tropical cyclones are getting stronger on average, with a 30-year trend that has been related to an increase in ocean temperatures over the Atlantic Ocean and elsewhere. Over the rest

As this year's Atlantic hurricane season becomes ever more violent, scientists have come up with the firmest evidence so far that global warming will significantly increase the intensity of the most extreme storms worldwide.

Recent weeks have seen the carbon footprint of the National Thermal Power Corporation - India