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Kicking up a stink

Members of SWaCH at a press conference with bags of soiled sanitary napkins addressed to the manufacturers (Photographs Courtesy : SWACH) For two years, a waste pickers’ cooperative in Pune had been trying to draw the attention of sanitary napkin makers towards the woes of waste pickers, who segregate and…

Uttarakhand: Inheritance of loss

Kamla Jethai of Gothi village in Dharchula is unable to hold back her tears every time she sees her four-storey damaged house by the river. She now lives in a camp 2 km from her house. “Those who had kutcha houses have been getting Rs 2 lakh. We had a…

End-of-life neglect

Safe recycling of e-waste remains a pipe dream despite government rules Much hope was pinned on the e-waste management rules when the Union environment ministry introduced them in May last year. The rules placed India on a par with a select few developing countries that have laws in place to…

Wasted e-waste

Electronic waste is a mine of precious metals, but poor regulations simplify its squandering away The old, dilapidated mobile phone you replaced with a snazzy, up-to-date version was disposed of properly at the company’s collection centre. You think it has been discarded in an environment friendly way. But often that…

Can faith heal?

Billed as the largest gathering of humanity in recorded history, Maha Kumbh has commenced in Allahabad. Over the next few weeks, pilgrims will jostle to take a dip at Sangam—the confluence of two polluted rivers of the country, the Ganga and the Yamuna. Soma Basu reports on its impacts on…

Salvation for seers, curse for farmers

Practice of jal samadhi makes life hellish for people downstream of Sangam No one in Rasulpur Maryadi, near Bamrauli in Allahabad, dares to visit the village’s melon fields alone. Decomposed bodies, covered in saffron coloured silk, dot the wide expanse of the river bed of Ganga that meanders through the…