In 2023, the Emergency Events Database (EM-DAT) recorded a total of 399 disasters related to natural hazards. These events resulted in 86,473 fatalities and affected 93.1 million people. The economic losses amounted to US$202.7 billion. The 2023 earthquake in Türkiye and the Syrian Arab Republic was the most catastrophic event …
The impending Lok Sabha and state assembly polls have brought a brief respite to Orissa's 2 lakh-odd traditional fisherfolk who eke a living off Chilika lake. For, electoral compulsions have forced political parties to shelve the controversial Chilika Fishing Regulatory Bill, 2002, which seeks to grant 30 per cent fishing …
up to 68 per cent of adolescents in India use dental products containing tobacco, despite the 1992 amendment to India’s Drugs and Cosmetics Act barring the use of tobacco in tooth-care products. This is the finding of a survey conducted by D N Sinha of Patna-based School of Preventive Oncology, …
The first comprehensive report on the economic value of wetlands warns that resources and services amounting to us $70 billion per year will be in danger if the world’s swamps and marshes are not managed in a sustainable manner. “This figure is important, as wetlands are often perceived to have …
Last year, a cricketing row broke out between New Zealand and India, when a member of the Indian team was fined for carrying soiled shoes. For India, it was cricketing pride at stake. But New Zealand customs authorities were merely following quarantine regulations. The shoes could have carried a possible …
What are the various methods of managing invasive weeds? The government generally comes to know about invasive weeds 10-15 years after they are introduced. By then, they are already spread over wide areas and their extinction becomes impossible. The only thing that can make a difference is the people's awareness. …
How easy is it to predict the potential of a plant to become invasive in a new habitat? When an alien species, be it a pest or a weed gets into another habitat, there is generally a time lag before it becomes invasive. Its introduction, as such is sudden and …
What are the modes of successful invasiveness? There have been some studies on recruitment of pollinators by lantana. When lantana invades as an invasive species into a native ecosystemit proliferates and increases its density and biomass. Consequently, there is a chance that it usurps the native pollinators from the native …
function alien2() { var popurl="image/20040229/30-illus.jpg" winpops=window.open(popurl,"","width=475,height=450,scrollbars=yes") } "A successful invasion is a rare event,' says Suresh Babu, a researcher at the School of Environmental Studies, University of Delhi. An accepted thumbrule is that only one in 10 introduced species become naturalised, and only one in 10 among the latter actually …
70 years ago, a species called the yellow crazy ant (Anoplolepis gracilipes) turned up at the Christmas Islands off Australia, perhaps stuck to a piece of timber. For a long time, it remained dormant. Then in the mid 1990s, its population began to explode. Yellow crazy ants began to form …
• A girl born in Japan today may live till she is 85, but another born in Sierra Leone can expect to live only 36 years • Despite global gains, in 2002, while life expectancy at birth reached 78 years for developed country women, it fell to less than 46 …
At one point in the epic Mahabharata, the pandavs and kauravs go to warfare school. Amid thick forests, they train hard. Then, the time comes when they must leave. Yudhister, the eldest pandav, gifts the space as guru dakshina to his guru, Dronacharya. In time, there came up a town …
what is poverty? The Planning Commission is set to undertake an exercise to find a quantifiable answer to the question. It has proposed to the Union government to set up an expert group to redefine poverty and, consequently, reassess the percentage of India’s population living below the poverty line. The …
after finding high levels of dioxin-related compounds in breast milk of women living near landfills, a Vadodara-based non-governmental organisation intends to file a public interest litigation (pil) against the Gujarat Pollution Control Board and the Vadodara Municipal Corporation (vmc). Paryavaran Suraksha Samiti (pss), the ngo, alleges that people's health is …
function openfact(){ var popurl="image/20031231/60.jpg" winpops=window.open(popurl,"","width=350,height=450,scrollbars=yes") } Click here to view the graph • The consumption of caloric sweeteners (sugar, maple syrup, corn syrup, sorghum) in the world has increased by 74 kilo calories per day since 1962. The increase is more in the lower and the middle-income countries as compared …
an impending shortage of science and engineering (s&e) personnel in the us has forced the country to look inward for talent. The country, which is the biggest beneficiary of brain drain in the post-world war ii era, has recently admitted that
• Developing countries devote more than a third of their budgets on education, healthcare, water and sanitation services, but little is actually spent on the poor • The poor often pay more than the rich for the same goods and travel longer distances to avail basic services • India's richest …
