Feature Article

The displaced and their advocates have been campaigning for a law that will limit the coercive power of the State in taking over land. The Land Acquisition Rehabilitation and Resettlement Bill 2011 adopts some of the language and concerns from the sites of conflict.

The world could be on the brink of a trade war over European Union efforts to impose carbon charges on the emissions of all planes landing or taking off within the EU.

As Antarctica melts, seaways will open up between oceans that are currently separated by the ice sheet.

Wildlife board worried over the impact of public-private project on wildlife habitats. The standing committee of the National Board for Wildlife (NBWL) has put the Demwe Lower Hydroelectric Project in Arunachal Pradesh on hold till an expert committee asseses its impact on the flora fauna downstream. The 1,750 MW project is being executed jointly by Athena Demwe Power Ltd, promoted by the India-based Athena Energy Ventures Pvt Ltd, and the Government of Arunachal Pradesh in Lohit district and is sheduled to be commissioned during the 12th Five-Year Plan.

An accurate, simple, and direct test for tuberculosis (TB) has been a priority for many years, but to date no such test has become available. Easily detectable sensitive and specific biomarkers are elusive and may remain so. In parallel to the essential extensive efforts in biomarker discovery performed in this field, we suggest it is also worthwhile to evaluate the utility of biomarkers of TB infection in a “treat-to-test” strategy.

Throughout the year, average sea surface temperatures in the Arabian Sea are warm enough to support the development of tropical cyclones1, but the atmospheric monsoon circulation and associated strong vertical wind shear limits cyclone development and intensification, only permitting a pre-monsoon and post-monsoon period for cyclogenesis. Thus a recent increase in the intensity of tropical cyclones over the northern Indian Ocean5 is thought to be related to the weakening of the climatological vertical wind shear.

A recent surge in the intensity of tropical cyclones in the Arabian Sea has brought unprecedented damage and loss of life. Anthropogenic air pollution might be increasing the destructiveness of these storms.

The collapse of the Maya civilization is often attributed to drought, but is the explanation really as simple as that? On the basis
of evidence from their respective fields, an archaeologist and a palaeoclimatologist call for a more nuanced assessment.

For more than two decades, the 1987 Montreal Protocol has served as a shining example of how to get things done on the environment in the international arena. By banding countries together to preserve Earth’s shield against harmful ultraviolet rays, the agreement has already eliminated many ozone-depleting substances and should see off most of the rest by 2030. And in doing so, it has done more to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions than the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which was signed expressly for that purpose. (Editorial)

Tropical South America is rich in different groups of pollinators, but the biotic and abiotic factors determining the geographical distribution of their species richness are poorly understood. We analyzed the species richness of three groups of pollinators (bees and wasps, butterflies, hummingbirds) in six tropical forests in the Bolivian lowlands along a gradient of climatic seasonality and precipitation ranging from 410 mm to 6250 mm.