KumKum Dasgupta is with the opinion section of Hindustan Times. She writes on education, environment, gender, urbanisation and civil society.
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Articles by KumKum Dasgupta
Collateral damage
The Maoist menace needs to be tackled by the State. But surely not at the cost of random acts of harassment, writes KumKum Dasgupta.
Updated on Mar 18, 2010 11:51 PM IST
Hindustan Times | KumKum Dasgupta
Not on fertile ground
There are so many groups fighting for Indian farmers today. But why aren’t they equally vociferous, as they have been on GM crops, about the existing problems? KumKum Dasgupta writes.
Updated on Feb 24, 2010 11:50 PM IST
Hindustan Times | KumKum Dasgupta
Sikkim makes settlers ‘second-class’ citizens
Sixty-year-old S K Sarda’s ancestors migrated from Rajasthan to Sikkim 150 years ago. In the course of time, the family learnt the local language, developed links with Sikkimese society, set up businesses — and made Gangtok their home.
Updated on Feb 21, 2010 11:25 PM IST
Hindustan Times | KumKum Dasgupta, New Delhi
Let’s get energised
A handy book, the rather blandly titled Energy Efficiency And Climate Change has the strength to draw in a wider range of readers and not only get academics and policy wonks to nose their way through the chapters, writes KumKum Dasgupta.
Updated on Feb 19, 2010 11:24 PM IST
Hindustan Times | KumKum Dasgupta
Open up the shutdown state
Schools have reopened in Manipur. Now for the rest of the state to follow, writes Kumkum Dasgupta.
Updated on Jan 26, 2010 09:43 PM IST
Hindustan Times | KumKum Dasgupta
Wrong swing
It’s been a little over a fortnight that Tiger Woods drove his SUV into a fire hydrant and then a tree and landed straight into hot water. By the time he regained consciousness, the world that the champion once knew had changed.
Updated on Dec 15, 2009 09:38 PM IST
Hindustan Times | KumKum Dasgupta
In the woods
Once upon a time, Pekanbaru was a sleepy river port town on the Sungai Siak, a sluggish river that drains into the Straits of Malacca. Today, it is Indonesia’s oil capital -- and as some call it, the ‘ground zero’ of the world’s fight against climate change.
Updated on Dec 03, 2009 11:04 PM IST
Hindustan Times | KumKum Dasgupta, Pekanbaru, Indonesia
Swallowed by the rising sea
Rising temperatures are raising sea levels in coastal Orissa. In Kendrapara district, all that’s left of a cluster of seven villages is a few mud huts. And the Bay of Bengal is still marching forward, writes Kumkum Dasgupta.
Updated on Dec 01, 2009 01:14 AM IST
Hindustan Times | KumKum Dasgupta, Kendrapara
A journalist’s misadventure in Indonesia
The clampdown on Greenpeace by the Indonesian authorities rubbed off on journalists too. Kumkum Dasgupta reports.
Updated on Nov 19, 2009 12:47 AM IST
Hindustan Times | KumKum Dasgupta, Jakarta
Windward island
An island of Denmark is run wholly on renewable energy. It has inspired other countries to follow suit, reports Kumkum Dasgupta.
Updated on Nov 08, 2009 10:58 PM IST
Hindustan Times | KumKum Dasgupta
India a climate change deal maker: Jairam
Minister of State for Environment and Forests Jairam Ramesh said on Saturday that India will come to Copenhagen in December as an “interested party” and a “deal maker, not a deal breaker”. KumKum Dasgupta writes.
Updated on Oct 25, 2009 08:18 PM IST
Hindustan Times | KumKum Dasgupta, Copenhagen
Manipur: A state the Centre forgot
Manipur is three hours away from Delhi by air. But it might as well be a world away. Caught in a whirlpool of corrupt politics and 59-year-old insurgency, it’s become a flailing state. Kumkum Dasgupta reports.
Updated on Oct 05, 2009 12:46 AM IST
Hindustan Times | KumKum Dasgupta, Imphal
A state in disrepair
“Clear out, clear out,” a middle-aged Manipur Police constable shouted angrily. A white Maruti 800 stood next to what was once a pavement, but is now a garbage dump. Shattered glass panes lay scattered around a thin rivulet of blood on the tar. “It must be an encounter killing,” the driver muttered, reports KumKum Dasgupta.
Updated on Oct 05, 2009 12:33 AM IST
Hindustan Times | KumKum Dasgupta, Imphal
'In this field of war, I am crying for peace'
"The general public has understood what is happening in Manipur. They are more involved now. But very little has changed on the political side," says Irom Sharmila in an interview with HT.
Updated on Oct 04, 2009 11:14 PM IST
Hindustan Times | KumKum Dasgupta, Imphal
Local warming
You hear ‘climate change’ and you think it’s just a ‘developed vs developing world’ debate. KumKum Dasgupta points out that it’s also an ‘India vs India’ tussle.
Updated on Sep 15, 2009 11:25 PM IST
Hindustan Times | KumKum Dasgupta
A nation of shopaholics
Naina Bhatnagar, 16, keeps really busy these days. Her board exams are some months away and much of her time is spent on fine-tuning her accountancy calculation skills, reports KumKum Dasgupta.
Updated on Aug 17, 2009 08:29 PM IST
Hindustan Times | KumKum Dasgupta
His land, his vote, his voice
National Highway 2, a smooth six-lane ribbon of tar, winds into the horizon past green fields of paddy.It connects two Bengals — the Bengal of Singur, where furious farmers refused to give up their land for a factory that would build the world’s cheapest car, and the Bengal of Raghunathpur, 200 kilometres away, where they have agreed to give up land for a steel plant.Somewhere between them is the great faultline, between the new India that is expanding towards the countryside, hungry for land to build industries and infrastructure projects, and the India of the impoverished farmer who wants a better future — but clings to his land because it is all he has, reports KumKum Dasgupta.
Updated on Aug 13, 2009 11:02 PM IST
Hindustan Times | KumKum Dasgupta, Purulia, West Bengal
No soft landing
Considering that the new Land Acquisition Bill would have brought some improvement, one wonders which would have been better: an improved law, though definitely not the perfect one, or an old one which is Draconian. KumKum Dasgupta writes.
Updated on Jul 30, 2009 02:55 AM IST
Hindustan Times | KumKum Dasgupta
With nowhere to go
But today, as we observe Earth Day, the Olive Ridley turtles are stuck in the mudflats of the development versus environment debate. KumKum Dasgupta examines...
Updated on Apr 21, 2009 11:12 PM IST
Hindustan Times | KumKum Dasgupta
The ABC of a whole new world
Tribals in Chhattisgarh are yearning to learn English, and dreaming new dreams. For the BJP-led government that just returned to power, it’s proof that good governance pays. A report by KumKum Dasgupta.
Updated on Apr 10, 2009 08:13 PM IST
Hindustan Times | KumKum Dasgupta, Chhattisgarh
Missing the mark
4 farmers commit suicide in Chhattisgarh daily. But ahead of the polls, politicians are locked in a populist battle over cheap rice. Kumkum Dasgupta reports.
Updated on Apr 07, 2009 12:04 AM IST
Hindustan Times | KumKum Dasgupta, Durg, Chhattisgarh
One for the road
At last, I have found something nice to say about the humble bread pakora, north India’s favourite munch-it-anytime snack: they look inviting in glossy coffee-table books, writes KumKum Dasgupta.
Updated on Apr 05, 2009 12:18 AM IST
Hindustan Times | KumKum Dasgupta
Father of the tribe
Anthropologist Verrier Elwin rubbed elbows with the elite of both Britain and India. Yet, he was the subaltern’s trusted friend, writes KumKum Dasgupta.
Updated on Feb 21, 2009 10:56 PM IST
Hindustan Times | KumKum Dasgupta
The food critique
To avoid an imminent food crisis, the report — and the work of 400 international scientists — states that there’s an urgent need to shift to a more eco-friendly mode of farming, writes KumKum Dasgupta.
Updated on Feb 20, 2009 12:34 PM IST
Hindustan Times | KumKum Dasgupta
Knowing after the learning
The gap between the reach of education and its quality has to be bridged, writes KumKum Dasgupta.
Updated on Jan 21, 2009 10:38 AM IST
Hindustan Times | KumKum Dasgupta
Kosi, anyone?
Sharma’s death will, of course, ‘not go in vain’. It will be used to fuel the war of words already on between the leaders of Bihar, writes KumKum Dasgupta.
Updated on Jan 14, 2009 10:41 PM IST
Hindustan Times | KumKum Dasgupta
Less on our plate
India, no doubt, will be hit hard because even before the meltdown, the country had a staggering 230 million undernourished people, the highest number for any one country in the world, reports KumKum Dasgupta.
Updated on Dec 29, 2008 10:58 PM IST
Hindustan Times | KumKum Dasgupta KumKum Dasgupta
Caught in the middle
They fled when their villages turned into battle-zones. Now, some of the villagers in Chhattisgarh’s Naxal-affected areas are trying to return. But they’re facing the same horror again, reports KumKum Dasgupta.
Updated on Dec 20, 2008 08:48 PM IST
Hindustan Times | KumKum Dasgupta, Dantewada/chhattisgarh
Green alert
RG, a fellow journo, called me from Bangalore last week. He had just come back from a party hosted by a liquor baron and was terribly excited.
Updated on Dec 13, 2008 11:02 PM IST
Hindustan Times | KumKum Dasgupta
Such filthy delay
Sanitation is the cornerstone of public health and a tool for social inclusion of marginalised classes. Only 23.7 per cent of Dalit households and 17 per cent of tribal households have access to toilet facilities, writes Kumkum Dasgupta.
Updated on Nov 17, 2008 08:11 PM IST
Hindustan Times | KumKum Dasgupta
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