Water Scarcity Could Impact West Asian Credit Ratings

NAIROBI, Kenya, Jun 9 2016 (IPS) – Water scarcity, conflict and refugee exodus is the strongest megatrend in West Asia, indicating the status of current trends and how these factors may shape the future,...

Q&A: Crisis and Climate Change Driving Unprecedented Migration

Manipadma Jena interviews the director general of the International Organization for Migration, WILLIAM LACY SWING NAIROBI, Kenya, Jun 6 2016 (IPS) – Climate change is now adding new layers of complexity to the nexus...

Climate warming increases aflatoxin levels in crops

Farmers in South Asia are largely unaware that aflatoxin, a liver cancer-causing agent produced by fungi, accumulates on crops like maize, sorghum, coffee and groundnut as a result of stress from prolonged...

U.N. expert calls for India to ramp up action to help slum dwellers

NEW DELHI (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – India’s ambitious target to build 20 million new homes for the nation’s poor is failing slum dwellers and those living on the city’s streets, Leilani Farha, the United...

Not So Smart Idea

BHUBANESWAR, India, Apr 14 2016 (IPS) – As Bhubaneswar experiences scorching heat of 43.2 degrees Celsius in early April, 5 degrees above normal, 44-year-old Prasanti Behera barely sleeps at night. Two summers ago, a...

Safe haven elusive for Africans fleeing conflict, climate stress

In West Africa, people are moving from one risky place to another, triggering new tensions and dangers ANKARA, Nov 11 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – The growing flow of migrants into drought-prone Niger, whose own...

India’s Odisha readies pioneering plan to combat deadly heat

Heat action plan would stop work at brick kilns and construction sites on hot days – and even tigers get help. BHUBANESWAR, India, April 5 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – From stopping work at brick...

India builds solar plants atop canals to save on land, water

The canal-top plants will form part of India’s major push to boost investment in solar energy VADODARA, India, Jan 16 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – As India moves to ramp up investment in solar power,...

‘Intelligent’ power rationing eases Indian state’s irrigation woes

A scheme to separate agricultural and domestic power supplies in Gujarat has been recognised by the United Nations for making irrigation more efficient and dramatically improving farm productivity NEW DELHI (Thomson Reuters Foundation) –...

Can Land Rights and Education Save an Ancient Indian Tribe?

MALKANGIRI, India, Aug 19 2014 (IPS) – Scattered across 31 remote hilltop villages on a mountain range that towers 1,500 to 4,000 feet above sea level, in the Malkangiri district of India’s eastern Odisha...