Reviewer, The

The man never ends to fascinate. Filmmaker, composer, writer, artist - you name one creative-artistic aspect of life, and he would revel in it. If there has been any man in India who has been a one-man institution after Rabindranath Tagore, it has been Satyajit Ray. What went into the making of this genius? Most of what used to be known about India's greatest filmmaker's days prior to the making of his 1955 classic debut venture ( Pather Panchali) particularly about his days as a youngster is...

When the Assamese militant outfit, United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA), abducted social-environmental activist, Sanjoy Ghose, in July 1997, they did not what they were dealing with. There was an uproar. Protests, appeals and condemnations poured in from the world over. The ULFA panicked. It kept issuing contradictory statements - that he was safe and sound, and that he had died. Finally, the Indian Army intercepted an ULFA message indicating that he had died in the neighbouring mountainous...

The household environment of the poor, especially women and children in developing countries carries the biggest threat to health. These risks are said to be "traditional" in nature. In other words, they are associated with a lack of development. Household environmental problems typically include overcrowding, lack of sanitation and garbage disposal, indoor air pollution and vector-breeding grounds. Estimates are that around 30 per cent of the global burden of disease can be averted by...

Declining birth rates are slowing down the world population growth. India's population, 1 billion as of today, is set to increase by 540 million over the next 50 years overtaking China convincingly. Identifying India's population growth at "stage two", where death rate is low while birth rate is high, this another lucid rendition from Worldwatch, warns of falling living standards. Governments of countries which have been in this second stage for several decades are typically worn down and...

A century of remarkable progress has revolutionised health conditions the world over. Among high income countries, life expectancy has increased by 30 to 40 years. Most of today's low and middle income countries have experienced even more dramatic gains that have transformed quality of life and contributed to economic growth. That is sadly where the goods news ends. The bad news is that over a billion people will enter the 21 st century without having shared in these gains: their lives will...

Anthony Baez was playing football with his brothers one December evening in New York in 1994. The football accidentally hit a parked patrol car. An infuriated police officer grabbed Anthony and held him by the neck, then other officers knelt on his back as he lay down on the ground. Anthony choked to death. It emerged that the officer had a long history of brutality - there were at least 14 prior complaints against him - yet he was still on duty. He was put on trial but acquitted. The tragedy of...

Did you know that the humble harmonium, that simple, mellifluous, wooden casket of music, was once banned by state-owned All India Radio? Hark back to 1940, and one learn that the ban was promulgated as "its tempered scale, adapted from the organ, is (was) considered antithetical to the shruti or microtones that give Indian music its continuous scale." This was the same year that the All India Muslim League adopted the 'Pakistan Resolution' at Lahore as also when Devika Rani took over Bombay...

Certain annual publications remain something to be on the lookout for. Worldwatch Institute's "Vital Signs" is one such. For the uninitiated, the eighth edition in the series tells readers, this time again, in a nutshell what is happening around the world; how good or bad things essentially are. It presents a kaleidoscopic view of a fast-evolving, dynamic world, packed with user-friendly charts and tables. As in the previous editions, "Vital Signs 1999" encourages readers to compare related...