Vandana Shiva
Vandana Shiva is one of India’s leading scientist-activists and the Director of Navdanya and Foundation for Research in Science, Technology and Ecology. She is a visionary who has been battling for India’s Food security and to uphold farmer’s rights. In 1993 she received the Right Livelihood award. She is the author of several books on Agriculture, Biodiversity, the politics of food etc.
Globalisation and Climate Change
Work on the 4th Assessment Report of the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change(IPCC) over the last few years involved 2500 scientific expert reviewers and hundreds of contributing authors from 130 countries.
Some of the alarming figures in the Report read as follows: Until 2100 temperatures are likely to rise by 1.10 degrees C – 6.40 degrees C and sea levels by 18-59 cm. ...
Who will feed the World?
As yet another example of the desperate ‘science’ of Monsanto, it is now being argued that genetically engineered Bt cotton – introduced in India in 1997 – has liberated Indian women. In a paper authored by Arjunan Subramanian, Kerry Kirwan, David Pink and MatinQaim, the argument is that the crop produces massive gains for women’s employment in India.
But ...
Earth Rights
We need a new paradigm for living on the Earth. An alternative to the present paradigm is now a survival imperative for the human species. And the alternative that is needed is not only at the level of tools or technologies: it is at the level of our worldview. How do we look at ourselves in this world? What are humans for? Are we merely a money-making and resource-guzzling machine? or do we ha ...
Swaraj: A Deeper Freedom
In Hind Swaraj, Gandhi exhorts using ‘soul force’ as a means to seek ‘right livelihood’ – which is what real freedom is all about.
Gandhi's Hind Swaraj has for me, been the best teaching on real freedom. It teaches the gospel of love in place of hate. It replaces violence with self-sacrifice. It puts 'soul force' agai ...
What every Indian should know about agriculture
Seed monopoly, patenting and arm-twisting by large transnational corporations in cahoots with government policies are engendering a new colonialism where we are losing our right to food sovereignty. The fact that 6 TNCs are controlling 60 to 80% of seeds, grain processing and trade in food crops is definitely leading to the disempowerment of the farmer as well as the city-dweller.
Se ...
Annadana - The gift of food
I think the very first thing to recognize about food is that it is the very basis of life, and this is something that ecologists often forget. They treat food as one thing and Nature as wilderness somewhere else: the assumption is if you produce food you cannot have Nature, if you have Nature you cannot meet human needs. And so we build up these amazing dualisms that force us constantly into mo ...