Feature Article

Mangrove forests are extraordinarily diverse coastal communities anchored by salt-tolerant plants along certain tropical seacoasts. Their distinctive aerial roots help to trap sediment, prevent shoreline erosion, and provide habitat for a variety of sea life. Their unique mode of viviparous reproduction (producing seeds that germinate before becoming detached from the parent plant) allows for the rapid dissemination of viable young plants. Mangrove swamps or forests are among the most productive wetlands on the planet.

Weighing our own prosperity against the chances that climate change will diminish the well-being of our grandchildren calls on economists to make hard ethical judgments.

The relationship between malaria and obesity are largely unknown. This is partly due to the fact that malaria occurs mainly in tropical areas where, until recently, obesity was not prevalent. It now appears, however, that obesity is emerging as a problem in developing countries. To investigate the possible role of obesity on the host-parasite response to malarial infection, this study applied a murine model, which uses the existence of genetically well characterized obese mice.

The criticism of the government of Tamil Nadu's tsunami relief and rehabilitation programme (April 19, 2008) does not accurately reflect the situation on the ground and the progress made.

The poverty of an entity is manifest in her deprivation not only in income but also in other dimensions such as health, nutrition and sanitation. Hence, a comprehensive measure of poverty must ideally take into account the performance of an individual across multiple dimensions. Vulnerability to poverty captures the likelihood of an entity falling into poverty, given the current status of the household. Unlike poverty, which describes the status of an entity at a point of time, vulnerability is predictive in nature.

There are serious concerns about the entry of organised retailing in the Indian food sector. What impact will it have on farmers,

A discourse analysis of court documents in slum-related cases from the past 25 years leads to the conclusion that the basic statement that "slums are illegal' is a very recent juridical discourse and the rise of court orders to demolish slums is due to reinterpretation of nuisance law. The "new nuisance discourse' that arose in the early 2000s re-problematised slums as nuisances and became the primary mechanism by which slum demolitions take place at present.

Traditional cooperatives have been unsuccessful in linking small farmers to the global market. Can the development of producer companies as new generation cooperatives turn out to be different?

Land reforms in Kerala, far from being a remarkable success, have been a major failure. They were meant to redistribute land and not to improve productivity. It is time the state government considered ordering that redistributed land should be returned if the beneficiaries do not cultivate it and also reversing the existing anti-tenancy law. Kerala's food security demands that the state think afresh about its policies for land and production.