On November 1, United Nations Secretary General António Guterres opened his remarks at the UN COP26 climate summit in Glasgow, with these words: “The six years, since the Paris Climate Agreement, have been the six hottest years on record. Our addiction to fossil fuels is pushing humanity to the brink. We face a stark choice: either we stop it, or[Read More…]
In August 2019, in the middle of heavy monsoon rain and floods, my sister Sudakshina Sen (an avid wildlife photographer) and I arrived at the Western Ghats in southwest India, a global biodiversity hotspot. One day, we got stuck on the sinuous state highway SH-78, due to fallen trees on the road from the storm. Parked by the roadside was[Read More…]
Snow geese, Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge, New Mexico. After spending the winter in New Mexico, the snow geese go to the Arctic (Alaska, Nunavut, Siberia) for nesting and rearing their young. (Photo: Subhankar Banerjee, 1998). After a long stretch of public inattention, biodiversity conservation is a hot topic again, as if we had suddenly been jolted into awareness[Read More…]
This month, the leaders of nation states from around the world have been gathered in New York City to attend the 76th Session of the United Nations General Assembly. Covid, climate and biodiversity are among the topics they are expected to address. Indeed, on September 21, in his sobering yet passionate address to the assembly, UN Secretary-General António Guterres focused attention on all[Read More…]
On January 6, 2021, as many of us in the United States were glued to TV watching the horrors of the insurrection against the U.S Capitol, the AFP News in France posted, on its Facebook page, an infographic built with data provided by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), which “confirmed the extinction in 2020 of 36 plant[Read More…]
One million animal and plant species face extinction due to human activity, according to the United Nations. Now, think about cultural production—art and literature that we have invested to address the extinction of just a handful of species (passenger pigeon included). Quite a bit actually. The extinction of one million species feels rather abstract, beyond the comprehension of human cultural[Read More…]
Human calamities abound. The unrelenting coronavirus pandemic has already claimed more than 900,000 lives worldwide. The images of exploding wildfires from the American Southwest—California, Colorado, Oregon, and Washington—look apocalyptic. Racial injustice and inequity in the United States marches on. And, the economic suffering?—painful. In this moment of so much death and suffering—do we even have the capacity to extend our[Read More…]
Imagine this now: we try to create an acknowledgement for the loss of nonhuman lives in the Sundarbans caused by Cyclone Amphan—animals and trees; individual and relational; immediate and over time. That would be a monumental task and take not days or months but years and possibly even decades. Even after all of that efforts get expended, the tragedy will[Read More…]
“The coronavirus pandemic has made abundantly clear that if life is to thrive on this Earth, human and nonhuman, we need cooperation at all scales—global, regional, binational, within a nation, interstate, and in our local communities. And we need to learn how to coexist with and have compassion for our nonhuman relatives—and acknowledge in the midst of this pandemic that bats[Read More…]
“The most widely known visual representation of “justice” is a balanced scale. Imagine this now. We get up on the right scale-pan with our cattle and pigs—and all the rest of the wild mammals on Earth from land and the seas, blue whales and elephants included, jump up on the left scale-pan. The scale tips disproportionately to the right with[Read More…]
Signed by Rosemary Ahtuangaruak, Subhankar Banerjee, Finis Dunaway & Norma Kassi Fossil fuel development in the Coastal Plain would devastate an Arctic nursery of global significance. It would violate human rights, jeopardize food security, and threaten the health and safety of Indigenous communities. It would contribute to the escalating crises of climate change and biological annihilation. Signatories’ Note: We are inviting[Read More…]
If you’ve been paying attention to what’s happening to the nonhuman life forms with which we share this planet, you’ve likely heard the term “the Sixth Extinction.” If not, look it up. After all, a superb environmental reporter, Elizabeth Kolbert, has already gotten a Pulitzer Prize for writing a book with that title. Whether the sixth mass species extinction of Earth’s history[Read More…]
The Last Oil is not a warning that we are running out of oil. On the contrary, there is so much oil — and gas and coal and other unconventional fossil fuels like tar sands and methane hydrates — that if we continue to dig up and burn all these fuel sources, we will push the Earth’s climate toward a runaway[Read More…]
What happens in the Arctic doesn’t just stay up north. It affects the world, as that region is the integrator of our planet’s climate systems, atmospheric and oceanic. At the moment, the northernmost places on Earth are warming at more than twice the global average, a phenomenon whose impact is already being felt planetwide. Welcome to the world of climate breakdown — and to the world[Read More…]
The Tragedy of Footpaths: Impressions of a Pedestrian in Bangalore 
Altruism exists in nature, Reciprocal altruism in humans 
U.S. Trying To Cover Up Its Role In Nord Stream Sabotage, Says Seymour Hersh 
Open Letter To Rahul Gandhi, Indian National Congress Party 
Future Scenarios in Ukraine 
West Sends Depleted Uranium Weapons to Ukraine: MEP to Warmongers – “You Make Me Sick!” 
Sri Lanka’s unconvincing response to Universal Periodic Review’s forthright findings 
Kisan Mahapanchayat stages massive rally in Delhi 
The betrayers of Julian Assange 
The Truth About Our Failure to Curb Carbon Emissions 
They’re liars, Mexico’s President on U.S. 
Grameena Pedala Sangham, Telangana State conference, is an important mile-stone 
Imperial Visits: US Emissaries in the Pacific 
Enough is enough. Restore parliament 
Disgrace at the New York Times 
‘Israel is (Not) Back to Africa’: How African Countries are Challenging Israeli Plot on the Continent 
A Highway to Peace or a Highway to Hell? The Vast Power of the Military-Industrial-Congressional Complex 
Accelerating Change on United Nations World Water Day 2023 
Defence Daredevilry 
Selling One’s Soul – The betrayal of Christ and Constitution 
Climate Crisis Has Caused Increasingly Irreversible Losses, Says UN Report 
Yarrow Mamout Masjid Dedicated at Georgetown University 
Adolf Hitler, Carl Orff & Sophie Scholl 
Algeria’s Gas vs. Rightwing Ideology: Will Italy Change Its Position on Jerusalem? 
From Balloons to AUKUS: The War Drive Against China 
Paul Keating’s criticism of Australia’s AUKUS deal is damming but not “astonishing”, – in fact, timely! 
In memory of 20th anniversary of the Iraq War 
CBI investigation against Harsh Mandar’s NGO is nothing but travesty of justice 
Concept of Gram Swaraj (‘Village Self-Reliance’) and Its Increasing Relevance for Our Times Indian Democracy & Chaos in Parliament! 
Veterans Condemn Eviction of Aruna Rodrigues from her Residence 
America’s Wars 
Criminals at Large: The Iraq War Twenty Years On 
Massive White House Protest Against Endless Wars 
From ‘Progress’ to an Economics of Happiness 
On Missing Dr. Strangelove Or How Americans Learned to Stop Worrying and Forgot the Bomb 
The Arrest Warrant Against Putin and International Justice 
Illiberal Democracy and Anti-modernization waves in south-Asia 
To prevent a civil war that is about to happen in Pakistan 
Self-Reliant Farmers Improve their Economics and Also Contribute to Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation 
Our beloved K.P.Sasi is no more. Filmmaker, cartoonist, writer, mentor, friend and above all tireless activist championing the cause of every underdog, Sasi breathed his last, mid-afternoon this Christmas day – after battling a medical condition for months. I remember the last time I met him, almost exactly a month before he passed away, at the ayurvedic healing center in[Read More…]
