In Bangkok, Thailand’s capital city, modern skyscrapers dwarf traditional Buddhist buildings. Thailand, known as the ‘Land of Smiles’ because of its friendly people, has been transformed in recent years. What were once small fishing villages, such as Pattaya, are now international tourist resorts. Cities are booming and the economy is bouncing back after the financial [...]
Mendeleyev’s Dream: The Quest for the Elements
Mendeleyev’s Dream is full of colorful, eccentric characters, acrimonious feuds, wars, religious schisms, magic, misogyny and the fumes from alchemist’s cauldrons. This is an entertaining and illuminating story of the centuries long search to discover the fundamentals of chemistry and how Russian scientist Dmitri Mendeleyev literally dreamed the solution we know today as the Periodic [...]
Language and Power
Interested in discourse? Few people are, but you should be. Most people think ‘discourse’ is just a word to describe talking. In fact, there are few areas of knowledge more practical than an understanding of discourse. Every discussion on dams, no matter where they are or what size they are, involves a range of stakeholders. [...]
H2O: A biography of water
Philip Ball’s ‘biography of water’ is not, strictly speaking, a book about chemistry, but there is enough interesting chemistry here to make it a welcome addition to your bookshelf. It is, Ball says, a biography because, “like a person, water has immediate, evident and familiar characteristics that can be understood only, it at all, by [...]
Writing: The hidden black hole of productivity
Everyone feels some degree of lack in their writing skills. Even native speakers of a language, whether it’s English or Urdu, will admit to problems with some aspects or forms of writing. The problem with writing goes much deeper than the simple human desire to improve ourselves. Writing is a source of power. Within professional [...]
Delhi Metro Delights
Sunday in New Delhi and all on my own. What to do? Getting around at street level is more than my fragile sensibilities can handle today, but I would like to see a bit of the city. Fortunately, there is the New Delhi Metro. With four lines spreading its arms high above the dust and [...]
International Water Management Institute
This is the third in a series of three guest posts written by staff at the International Water Management Institute (IWMI). IWMI is a non-profit organization supported by the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) that targets water and land management challenges faced by poor communities in the developing world to reduce poverty and [...]
Innovative Electricity Scheme Sparks Rural Development in India’s Gujarat State
Ten years ago, the Chief Minister of Gujarat, India faced a shrinking state economy and a host of seemingly intractable problems. High on that list was a nearly bankrupt electricity board and powerful agricultural lobbies vehemently opposed to any reduction in subsidies on electricity that farmers were demanding to pump irrigation water, most of it [...]
The Other Bottom Billion
Healthy agriculture and ecosystems ultimately depend on preserving biodiversity at the base of the food chain, where a billion organisms can live in a handful of soil.
Wasted food, lost water
Ethical imperatives for water conservation Fix leaky faucets, use low-volume toilet tanks, run the washer with full loads. These are just some of the many water saving behaviors commonly practiced by millions of people conscious of the need to conserve water and energy. In a growing number of communities, individual action, treatment and recycling are [...]
