News stories by Manipadma Jena, page 3

BHUBANESWAR, India, Jun 23 (IPS) - The COVID-19 pandemic has brought a new layer of challenges to inclusive education. As many as 40 percent of low and lower-middle income countries having not supported disadvantaged learners during temporary school shutdowns, finds United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization's 2020 Global Education Monitoring Report released today, Jun. 23.

NEW DEHLI, Feb 05 (IPS) - Last June when more than half of India was reeling under daily temperatures topping 40 degrees Celsius, Nursing Behera's 11-month-old son burned both his legs when a pot of boiling water fell on him.

KOLKATA, India, Jan 31 (IPS) - World Wetlands Day is on Sunday, Feb. 2. IPS senior correspondent Manipadma Jena marks the day by visiting the East Kolkata Wetlands (EKW), a unique wetland that operates as a natural water purification ecosystem.

Ramkumar Mondal's farm is awash in a brilliant yellow mustard bloom. A flock of grey cranes peck for food amidst the shallow watergrass. But Mondal's fishpond digs in there like a do-or-die last sentinel as nearby high-rise buildings, a symbol of development and encroachment, menacingly tower over the fishpond, permanently blocking the eastern sun so essential for the pondwater to convert sewage into fish-feed.

NEW DELHI, Dec 06 (IPS) - Dogged by intractable air pollution debilitating large northern swathes from mainly urban vehicle emissions, India earlier this year announced targets for a 40 percent non-fossil component in its fuel-mix by 2030 as part of its Nationally Determined Commitments (NDC) to the Paris accord on climate change. It aims for full electrification of public transit systems and of one-third private vehicles by 2030.

SHILLONG, India, Oct 29 (IPS) - The sun has barely risen when Phlida Kharshala shakes her 8-year-old grandson awake. He hoists an empty cone-shaped bamboo basket on his back, sets the woven strap flat across his forehead and off they go into the wilderness.

NEW DELHI, Aug 12 (IPS) - "The Perfect Storm" was a dire prediction that by 2030 food shortages, scarce water and insufficient energy resources together with climate change would threaten to unleash public unrest, cross-border conflicts and mass migration from worst-affected regions.

STOCKHOLM, Sep 12 (IPS) - Manipadma Jena interviews the Deputy Director and Water Sector Lead at the Global Green Growth Institute's (GGGI) Investment and Policy Solutions Division, PETER VOS.Today just over two billion people live without readily available, safe water supplies at home. And more than half the world's population, roughly 4.3 billion people, live in areas where demand for water resources outstrips sustainable supplies for at least part of the year.

STOCKHOLM, Sep 11 (IPS) - Manipadma Jena interviews the executive director of the Stockholm International Water Institute, Torgyn Holmgren.

Growing economies are thirsty economies. And water scarcity has become "the new normal" in many parts of the world, according to Torgyn Holmgren, executive director of the Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI).

NEW DELHI, Jun 12 (IPS) - This article is part of a series of stories and op-eds launched by IPS on the occasion of the World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought on June 17.As governments scramble for corrective options to the worsening land degradation set to cost the global economy a whopping 23 trillion dollars within the next 30 years, a humble grass species, the bamboo, is emerging as the unlikely hero.

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Feb 21 (IPS) - When Shiba Kurian alighted from Chennai's city train, the evening office-returning crowd was thick and jostling. Having booked a ride-hail cab she walked out to the entrance. Instead of the cab for which she had to wait an hour, ribald comments and derisive laughter came her way from a group of roadside Romeos.