Feature Article

The national vaccine policy draft, submitted by the government in the Delhi High Court recently, strongly favours inclusion of new vaccines in the Universal Immunisation Programme of the country.

Three days after violent clashes broke out between police personnel and farmers in Bhatta and Parsol villages in Greater Noida near Delhi, the residents of the villages were under virtual house arrest. The two adjoining villages in Gautam Budh Nagar district of Uttar Pradesh was cordoned off by police personnel of the Provincial Armed Constabulary (PAC) and the Rapid Action Force (RAF); media-persons were not allowed to enter the villages. Three fire-tenders lined the entrance of the villages. One tender was being used to douse flames in a charred building.

The Union environment ministry on May 6 lifted the ban on construction work at Maheshwar Hydel project in Madhya Pradesh. The relief for the project came despite little progress in the rehabilitaion of the project-affected people, the reason for which the work was stopped on the project.

Global policies and instruments to tackle climate change look very different once translated into domestic programmes of action, reflecting varied institutional capacity, competing priorities, and diverse political cultures and political economies. In light of these variations, this article analyses how clean energy is governed in India, both through and beyond the Clean Development Mechanism. Governance processes are assessed across a number of scales, including various actors involved in mobilising finance and providing political and institutional support for clean energy.

Targets to limit the global temperature rise won't prevent climate disruption. Tim Lenton says that policy-makers should focus on regional impacts.

Political hostility over global-warming policy in the United States is causing collateral damage. Plans for a national Climate Service deserve better. (Editorial)

Q. Is it time to stop building nuclear power plants and shift to thermal or other forms of energy?


Let’s be realistic. The world has limited sources from which electricity can be generated. Japan's fault was that it stored spent fuel. Electricity produced from thermal, natural gas and oil has its own cost. Coal is too polluting, natural gas contributes to global warming and fossil fuel is limited. Doing away with nuclear energy is not possible. We need to generate electricity from diverse sources but policy and technology needs to be upgraded.

Marine algae known as coccolithophores produce much of the ocean's calcium carbonate. A large survey reveals how these organisms' calcification processes and species distribution change in response to carbon dioxide levels.