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. …
THE NATIONAL Environment Tribunal Bill (NET) introduced in the recent monsoon session of Parliament, aims at providing a mechanism for speedy compensation of victims of industrial disasters. The bill was introduced by the government after rejecting a proposal to set up environmental courts in the country. The bill states it …
THE AMOUNT of rain falling in various parts of India has changed over the years, decreasing in some places and increasing in others. K Rupa Kumar and his colleagues at the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM) in Pune report in a recent issue of the International Journal of Climatology …
I WONDER how many people know that practically none of the country's forest departments has any women field staff? A few women have got into the Indian Forest Service by passing the all- India entrance tests, but they belong to the elite officer cadre, and do not ordinarily interact with …
AT A RALLY of 300,000 people in Shegaon, Maharashtra, last November, the Shetkari Sanghatana put forward a new farm programme called chaturang sheti (four-pronged agriculture). Sanghatana leader Sharad Joshi argued the economic crises and the collapse of statist development models have resulted in the state being unable to extract surpluses …
"ONE BY one each of the girls answered my questions. What was their name and age? What do they do during the day? What do their parents do? Had they ever been to school and for how long? The children were remarkably articulate. Half of the children had been to …
IT IS A daring and formidable task to synthesise the insights of social and physical anthropology, physiology, epidemiology, micro-economics and macro-economics. This has been attempted with considerable success in this book by focussing primarily on survival strategies of rural households in "developing" countries in the face of both chronic and …
THIS ORGANISATION (Council for Advancement of People's Action and Rural Technology or CAPART) has two elements. One is to advance people's action. This is not new at all... From time immemorial our rural societies have had a very great amount of autonomy built into their functioning. Whether it was a …
DOMESTIC critics of the country's nuclear programme campaign as stridently against it abroad as they do at home. With considerable help from some of them, Yorkshire TV, one of the ITV companies in UK, recently telecast an hour-long documentary entitled Nuclear India -- A Dream Gone Sour. Unfortunately, accusatory quotes …
DINESH Rama of Sathvadi village in Karnataka is 12, and typical of the youngsters in rural South Kanara district, who migrate in large numbers to Bangalore, Madras and even Delhi, in search of a livelihood. Long-exploited by the Shettys (landlords), Dinesh and his friends would normally have resigned themselves to …
How did you join the sangha? One day Venkates from Gramashrama came to the coir factory for a pooja. I asked him who he was. My friend Shankar was already a member and because I did not go to school, I decided to join. What do you get out of …
INDIA has been witnessing an explosive urbanisation. The percentage of total population living in urban areas increased from 17.3 in 1951 to 25.7 in 1991. But during 1981-91, the annual rate of urban growth decreased to 3.09 per cent, compared to 3.83 per cent per year during 1971-81. The rate …
TUBEWELL-related deaths in the green revolution districts of Haryana due to the victims getting trapped in poison-gas pockets formed, some say, by heavy use of fertilisers, are rapidly approaching their usual post-monsoon peak. Since 1987, there have been hundreds of tubewell-related deaths in Haryana, in particular in the districts of …
Babu Lala Sharma, Chairperson, Bharat Jan Vigyan Jatha 92, United Newspapers, 4 Windsor Place, New Delhi 110 001 G N A Nayar, Chairman, M N Sreedharan Nair, General Convenor, Exhibition Committee, Swadeshi Science Expo - 92 Amba, Pongumoodu, Thiruvananthapuram - 695 011 C N Krishnan Patriotic and Pupil-oriented Science and …
FLASH floods and landslides in the Himalaya are caused at times by unplanned development. On August 14 last year, the fast-developing town of Gopeshwar and its surrounding villages was inundated by heavy rainfall and 27 people were killed in resulting landslides. Flooding caused by an irrigation channel left incomplete by …
FEW OF the Fulani pastoralists in Nigeria have been inside a school and fewer still can read, but they have a very rich knowledge of the value of plants, especially browsable plants which can provide cattle food during the dry season. Researchers at the International Livestock Centre for Africa (ILCA) …
"The sky is going to fall on our heads," was the thought that ran through the mind of many of Dhedsari's residents. A cloud that should have caused rain to fall over a few days, burst like a bubble and the water poured down all at once in the evening …
SCIENTISTS at the Tamil Nadu Agricultural University (TNAU) in Coimbatore have successfully used viruses to control pests. Mass production units are now being set up to meet the rapidly increasing demand for these viruses, says P C Sundara Babu, head of the entomology department at TNAU. TNAU scientists are using …
Many springs changed colour and flow after the earthquake. The Wadia Institute of Himalayan Geology says a large number of springs became completely dry, but some began to discharge murky water with a burnt smell. In other places, discharge levels recorded perceptible increases -- about eight times the normal flow …
A report by a scientist claiming Indian chocolates are deliciously dangerous because they contain excessive cancer-causing nickel has sent the manufacturers to court and set off a panic among consumers. Not surprisingly, in the nasty slanging match that has followed, the manufacturers and M C Saxena. seem to be quoting …
A WORLDWIDE study of fertility research says men today have just about half the sperm count of men 50 years ago and there has also been an appreciable drop in the average volume of seminal fluid. These findings raise worries that male reproductive organs may be getting adversely affected by …
