Reports

The way manure is thought of may change soon. An Eindhoven designer has developed a technology with which manure can be immediately transformed into bioplastic, biopaper and biotextile. Designer Jalila Essaïdi pursued the project titled Mestic with her BioArt Laboratories as a way of addressing the global manure surplus, which is responsible for excessive amounts of harmful phosphorus and nitrogen in surface and groundwater. Essaïdi, who is known for her work ‘2.6g 329m/s’, also known as...

The TenderSURE project of the Karnataka government has always remained in the news—for right reason or wrong, more so from the time that work on the project got under way. Almost all of those were either claims or allegations. But none of those come across as conclusive either way for the people because both claims and allegations were circumstantial. Everyone's point of view had been rightly raised and heard, but somewhere in between, truth had become a collateral damage. For the people of this...

When Swati Ramanathan, chairperson of tje Jana Urban Space Foundation (Jana USP), complained of not being treated properly by the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) and that she/Jana USP had "volunteered" to do all the construction drawings in the interest of "ensuring quality" of the "unique" project, she had been called out by the chief engineer for road instruction. The engineer had at the meeting of February 28, 2014 argued that the drawings would have been part of the detailed...

One of the reasons why allegations against the TenderSURE initiative of the Karnataka government has not made much headway is that all agencies and government departments have been pointing towards someone else, or simply passing the buck. No one wants to take ownership of the problems. For instance, the Jana Urban Space Foundation (Jana USP, as it calls itself), that has been at the forefront of the project, has always insisted that it is the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) that is...

When controversies erupted over the TenderSURE project of the Karnataka government that sought to re-engineer major roads of Bangalore, most of those were dismissed as conspiracy theories of activists or simply as fertile imagination of habitual detractors of "developmental" projects. A set of documents, procured individually under provisions of the Right to Information (RTI) Act, however indicate that most allegations against the state government—right from the decision to undertake such a...

The KG gas controversy now has some numbers to go by—the Comptroller and Auditor-General (CAG) of India has pegged "excess cost recovery" at $1,547.85 million (Rs 9307.22 crore). The numbers have been mentioned in a chapter of the CAG report that looked at Union government (civil) compliance issues for the financial year ending March 2015. This chapter pertained to the ministry of petroleum and natural gas; the report was released on Tuesday August 2. The statements made in the report, albeit...

The problem with buzzwords is that they invariably whip up such a mindless frenzy and needless hype that people often forget what was it that had resulted in the creation of that buzzword in the first place. That's what is increasingly happening with "sustainability". Critics argue that so mired are companies with the "ends" in mind that the "means" are not being adequately kept track of. Many forget that sustainability is not an end in itself, but the means towards an end: a better world that...

Threats of consumer backlash and criticism from unions and the media have sensitised many Western companies to pay greater attention to how their Bangladesh suppliers operate. But that's only a starting point, as many have been aseerting. So, what next? This subject has been explored by Motoko Aizawa and Salil Tripathi of the Institute of Human Rights and Business (IHRB) in a paper titled 'Beyond Rana Plaza: Next steps for the global garment industry and Bangladeshi manufacturers' in Business...

When research is narrowed down to specifics, they often narrate an interesting story. So it was with a recent study that looked at the current status of denim imports into the European Union (EU). The findings are clear: it is Bangladesh that emerges as the front-runner, though it does not yet have a stranglehold over the European market; and India is nowhere to be seen among the top exporters. And China, like everywhere else, has been on a steady decline. The findings of the said study 'Les...

On Wednesday last, many news establishments diligently reproduced a press release announcing Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) as the first Indian company to partner with the Global Goals Campaign that aims to reach seven billion people in seven days with news of the Global Goals for Sustainable Development. Among other things, this campaign seeks to tackle climate change for everyone by 2030. What went unnoticed, however, was that this news came just a few days after RIL figured miserably in...