Good Food is First Food. It is not junk food. It is the food that connects nature and nutrition with livelihoods. This food is good for our health; it comes from the rich biodiversity of our regions; it provides employment to people. Most importantly, cooking and eating give us pleasure. …
AFTER the pollution rights auction held earlier this year (Down To Earth, May 15, 1993), the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT) now plans to develop a market in recyclable materials. CBOT will develop an electronic bulletin board on which bids for reusable wastes can be displayed. The exchange will initially …
Moderator: I understand your centre was against the forest convention, which was presented in Brazil. For me it's amazing, because as an NGO, how can you possibly go against the convention? Sunita Narain: Through this convention we will actually end up destroying forests. We strongly believe that the forest convention …
THE FEAR of losing markets has finally made Indian carpet exporters fall in line with a move to regulate child labour, which is prevalent extensively in carpet-making and some other industries. After a prolonged period of disagreement, the All India Carpet Manufacturers' Association dropped its insistence on "self-certification" and there …
The proposed amendments to the Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act of 1986 seek to: • Regulate or prohibit child labour in all employment sectors. • Empower executive magistrates to prosecute in cases of Child Labour Act violations to avoid delayed judgements. • Make violations of the Act a cognisable …
EVEN AS Japanese computer firms plan to shift production of their personal computers to Taiwan in order to reduce costs, Microsoft Corp of the US has launched a Japanese version of its Windows 3.1 software package in an effort to dominate the world's second-largest personal computer (PC) market. This is …
MOST OF us know fish to be cold-blooded creatures that alter their temperature to match that of the surrounding water. But some fish, the tuna for example, are warm-blooded, a fact that had long puzzled biologists. Barbara A Block, biologist at the University of Chicago and three of her students …
FOR MORE than two decades, physicians have believed peptic ulcers to be caused by an excess of acids in the stomach, for which they have been prescribing antacids -- substances that treat acidity -- as a cure. But now it has been found that a bacterium called Helicobacter pylori is …
AFTER ten years of frustrating toil, a band of gene-hunters from USA and the UK have at last nabbed the gene that causes Huntington's disease, a debilitating disorder of the nerves. The researchers are hopeful the discovery will provide a better understanding of what causes the nerves to degenerate, and …
THE DAYS of the European corn borer, a notorious maize pest found in North America and Europe, seem numbered now that researchers have been able to inject into susceptible crops a gene fatal to the insect (BiolTechnology, Vol 11, No 2). But the gene, which has been taken from a …
THE UNITED Nations Fund for Population Activities (UNFPA) may quit China, the most populous country in the world, following indications that China is planning a harsh family planning drive in the countryside. But UNFPA executive director Nafis Sadik hopes Beijing will itself take the initiative and announce the end of …
FOR CHEMIST Andrea Stierle, it was like searching for the proverbial needle in the haystack. She was scouring the ancient cedar forests in Montana, USA, for a fungus that produces a compound called taxol, which is used to treat ovarian cancer. And find it she did, though she herself had …
IN AN ERA of global economics, global epidemics and global environmental hazards, a central challenge of our time is to promote our national interest in the context of its connection with the rest of the world. We share our atmosphere, our planet, our destiny with all the peoples of this …
THAT A capitalist USA wants to share with the world its ideas for cleaner businesses comes clearly through in Management for a Small Planet. The message: We have made mistakes and botched up the world's environment. So, beware the pitfalls of blind industrialisation that have made the US environment the …
ALL PLANETS are believed to possess hot interiors that periodic volcanic activity helps to cool. But now American geophysicists have found Venus to be the odd one out (Science, Vol 259, No 5100). Quite unlike its namesake -- the goddess Venus who was known for her profligacy -- the planet, …
THIRD World Network (TWN), a Malaysia-based environment group, has voiced its concern over some basic issues in USA's controversial interpretative statement of the Biodiversity Convention, which US President Bill Clinton has agreed to sign (Down To Earth, June 15, 1993). The US interpretation says, "Private parties (read companies) should have …
HOW DID birds learn to fly? For over a decade now, this question has been at the centre of a debate about whether Archaeopteryx, the world's oldest bird-like creature -- found nearly 150 million years ago -- was a bird or a dinosaur. While ornithologists believe Archaeopteryx was a bird …
COMPUTER manufacturers are propping up the all-too-familiar "sagging" image of the keyboard operator at last. A new class of designer keyboards now promises deliverance from slouches, painful wrists and embarrassingly fidgety fingers. The latest in the line is the innovative Maltron keyboard invented by Lilian Malt and Stephen Hobday of …
WHILE Washington continues to maintain there is no proof that China is exporting nuclear missile technology to Pakistan, US intelligence says it has proof China shipped components to Pakistan that made it possible for the Pakistanis to assemble their own version of the Chinese M-11 surface-to-surface missile. In addition, an …
MIDAS may soon lose his touch in Honduras because US mining giant RTZ's plan to exploit the Minas de Oro area is facing massive criticism from green campaigners, led by Wilfredo Sandoval Calix who warns, "The mine would be located in a mountainous area above springs that feed many local …
DISDAINING short-term profits for long-term moral principles, jeans giant Levi Strauss is pulling out of China, even as other US corporations scramble to get in. The reason: Levi Strauss considers Beijing's human rights record far short of the standard it expects of its trading partners. Levi Strauss, however, will continue …
