It is a running battle between disability rights activists and government establishments to get officials to obey the law. Although it is six years since the new law on rights of the disabled was passed, the situation on the ground is far from improved, whether in public buildings, transport or...
A decade-long problem relating on hawking on the Chennai street resurfaced recently. The Madras High Court directed senior retired and serving IAS and police officers to appear personally for committing contempt on the issue of continued presence of hawkers on NSC Bose Road opposite the court...
The precipitous slide in India’s ranking on the Environmental Performance Index this year to rock bottom at 180 has triggered anger and denial by the Union government but it can provide lessons for Chennai environment protection. “Unfounded assumptions”, “surmises” and “unscientific methods”...
The controversy over YouTuber Karthik Gopinath collecting funds on a crowdfunding platform to “renovate” temple statues in Siruvachur of Perambalur in Tamil Nadu, and the State government coming down on him for accumulating money without authorisation has raised the uncomfortable question once...
Ethanol blending is recognised as a climate change fix since the carbon emission from the fuel comes from the atmosphere through the biological material. Bioethanol, a biofuel that can be blended with automotive fuels to reduce costs and pollution, is not new, but India as a whole and Tamil...
The Tamil Nadu government made the encouraging announcement during the Budget session recently that it would renovate 50 Uzhavar Sandhais (farmers markets) in the current year, strengthening its policy to revive and reopen more of these farmer-to-consumer outlets. As the price of a kilo of...
The buzz around wet bulb temperature has reached the Coromandel coast with cyclone Asani turning out to be only a brief interlude. The heat wave that has swept many parts of India in recent days, surpassing previously recorded peaks in April and May of 2010, has turned scientific attention to...
Tamil Nadu recently became a major State dedicating itself to strong action on climate change. It set up the Tamil Nadu Green Climate Company under Section 8 of the Companies Act, 2013, with an authorised capital of Rs 5 crore, to implement specific missions on agriculture, emissions...
The Chennai bus app does work fairly well on certain basic aspects but could be more user-friendly. Using the app, the next MTC bus on your route can now be spotted on a mobile phone, sparing the commuter the frustrating guessing game of whether there is any bus coming. Look for Chennai Bus by...
Cyclone Asani, one of the recurrent severe weather systems that visit the subcontinent in the pre-monsoon period, shows that a warming world poses a serious challenge to India’s States. This system was expected to recurve along Odisha, but actually moved towards the Andhra Pradesh - Odisha...
