Entries by Keith Schneider

India’s Faltering Energy Production and Damaged Water Resources Demand Modi’s Close Attention

India’s new Prime Minister Narendra Modi swept into office in May on a message of aspiration, and a reputation for action.

Growth in Lima, Peru’s Capital, Served Without Water

Ubiquitous water trucks are a guide to Peru’s swelling metropolis. Photo © J. Carl Ganter / Circle of Blue Lima’s water trucks provide guides to understanding the circumstances affecting 21st century Peru, and to a larger extent the other fast-growing cities of Latin America. Municipal governments and taxpayers are not anxious to invest in water […]

India’s Treacherous Coal Mines in Meghalaya

National court orders end to feudal labor conditions, wanton water pollution, and deadly accidents. By Keith Schneider, Circle of Blue SHILLONG, India – In the coalfields of Meghalaya, a wild and rural state in Northeast India, income and social standing are, quite literally, correlated on a perpendicular scale. In This Series Uttarakhand’s Furious Himalayan Flood […]

Uttarakhand Flood Disaster Made Worse By Existing Hydropower Projects, Expert Commission Says

Report calls for new Himalayan development policy; stirs political battle in New Delhi.

Uttarakhand’s Furious Himalayan Flood Could Bury India’s Hydropower Program

A treacherous mountain range unleashes a torrent of water, mud, and boulders that was long anticipated and willfully ignored.

Warnings — They Are So Easy To Ignore

An American landslide as a global metaphor. Photo © Keith Schneider / Circle of Blue Six months after a Himalayan flood that may have killed 30,000 people and wrecked Uttarakhand’s hydropower sector, Sonprayag presents heart-rending evidence of the disaster. Click image to enlarge. WASHINGTON, D.C. — Reporting on a righteous disaster, one that unfolds in […]

This Is India — TII

A correspondent’s thoughts on food, wildlife, transport, and politics. Photo © Keith Schneider / Circle of Blue Shillong, the capital of Meghalaya, is a beautiful hill station city in Northeast, India. Click image to enlarge. By Keith Schneider Circle of Blue SHILLONG, India — This beautiful and tidy hill station city in Meghalaya, in Northeast […]

New Era of Much Drier Conditions Forecast For California

Federal and state agencies, communities and businesses not positioned well enough to respond, says new Circle of Blue report.

Choke Point: Meghalaya’s “Swiss-Cheesed” Hills, Increasing Violence a Stark Reminder of Cost of Coal

To the best of anyone’s knowledge – and that includes a tribunal of senior jurists who heard testimony in the state capitol, Shillong, on January 24 – 15 men drowned in a coal mine in Meghalaya’s mineral-rich Garo Hills on July 6, 2012.

As We Use More Water, Consume More Energy and Grain, The Earth Is Pushing Back Hard

PRAGUE — City Square erupted at the start of the 2014 New Year with a deafening and blazing midnight fusilade of rockets and cannon blasts.