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. …
CIVIC authorities in Kanpur never seem to find the time or the resources to solve the problems of the 3,000 residents of Rajapurva, a slum in the heart of the city. This must be so, otherwise how can one explain why a slum settlement that's older than the nation was …
Central Ganga Authority Ministry of Environment and Forests Paryavaran Bhavan CGO Complex Lodhi Road New Delhi 110 003 V Rajamani Chairman, Steering Committee Ministry of Environment and Forests New Delhi 110 003 Vinay Shankar Director, Ganga Project Directorate Ministry of Environment and Forests New Delhi 110 003 INTACH 71 Lodhi …
In an ambitious Italian-US experiment, the crew of space shuttle Atlantis tried to release an Italian-made satellite tethered by a 20-km copper cord into orbit -- and failed, when the release mechanism jammed repeatedly. The scientists had hoped to learn about new ways to power spacecraft and how to use, …
RELIGIOUS and social practices are responsible for a tradition of prejudice in India against human dissection, which has resulted in surgery being generally ignored in indigenous medical systems such as ayurveda and unam. Poonam Bala sets 1836 in her book, Imperialism and Medicine in Bengal, published by Sage, New Delhi, …
THE GENERAL reaction to the Forest Conservation Act (FCA) in the UP hill region of Uttarakhand is, "Hum paryavaran shabd se hi tang aa gaye hai." (We are fed up of the word environment.) The cry "Paryavaran murdabad" (Down with environment) first rang across the Uttarakhand hills in 1989, setting …
PHYSIOTHERAPY researchers in Australia have developed a device that can predict the probability of back pain in humans. Many devices can measure spinal muscle functions, such as strength and endurance, but the Australian device called the Pressure Biofeedback Unit (PBU), can calculate the supportive capacity of muscles that protect the …
IT WAS a routine job of replacing the defective safety valve of the spare ammonia feed pump at the 15-year-old urea plant of the National Fertilisers Limited (NFL) at Panipat. Around 11.00 am on August 26, eight employees climbed the steps to the open-air ramp, which had been declared a …
PANIC-STRICKEN by an illicit liquor that has taken a toll of at least 75 persons and a mysterious fever that may be Japanese encephalitis or simple food poisoning, Patna medical authorities have issued a series of directives that range from the irrelevant to the naive. Many days after the outbreak …
The silver ant -- Cataglyphis bombycina -- is the undertaker of the Sahara desert -- a role it has been forced to adopt because of its own body limitations and because of a small lurking, desert lizard that loves to gobble them alive. Rudiger Wehner of Zurich University began a …
INDIAN scientists find lichens can be used to monitor urban pollution levels. Lichens are disappearing within the core zone of the highly industrialised Haldia township in West Bengal, due to increasing air pollution. (Pollution Research, Vol 11, No 1). Sensitivity of lichens - essentially symbiotic associations of fungi and algae, …
INDIAN students already have classes beamed via an Indian satellite. Now they can talk back to their teachers via a new link. If a 10-day experiment of a satellite-based continuing education programme of the Institute of Electronics and Telecommunication (IET) and the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) takes off, a …
TRIALS conducted in Pali, Rajasthan, indicate, that the ramkathi babul (Acacia nilolica, variety cupressiformis), indigenous to Andhra Pradesh arid Maharashtra, is an appropriate agroforestry species in and areas, according to a report in Indian Farming. (Vol 4 1 No. 11) The tree rp-sprouts when cut provides nutritious fodder and tough …
JOINING the Russians and the French, the US senate overwhelmingly voted to suspend, and ultimately ban, the testing of nuclear weaponry. Two months back the House of Representatives also voted in favour of the ban. Yet, this concession to the new world order may fail if defense secretary Dick Cheney …
THE COUNTRY'S first-ever agitation on the right to defecate has come to a sorry end. Residents of a slum in Ashok Vihar, a north Delhi colony, find themselves sandwiched between a court verdict that requires some of them to shift to create space for toilets and local residents opposing their …
MEDICAL education is suddenly making news. A spate of student agitations in Tamil Nadu; an ordinance banning capitation fee in the state; a petition against private colleges in Andhra Pradesh; and, two ordinances by the Centre making it mandatory for new medical colleges to get prior approval from the government, …
SCIENTISTS at the School of Marine Sciences in Cochin have discovered that shells of some molluscs, such as two-shelled clams, which store trace metals in their shells and tissues, are good biological indicators of water pollution levels. Detailed investigations on accumulation of trace metals in the clam Villorita cyprinoides, found …
THE RICH out of greed and the poor out of need have damaged the fragile ecology of the Himalayan region so extensively the eight districts in the Kumaon and Garhwal region are gripped by a water shortage and law and order is gravely endangered, with village pitted against village and …
STEWART Cole and his team of scientists at the Pasteur Institute in Paris have discovered that the absence of a single large gene is responsible for making certain strains of tuberculosis bacteria resistant to isoniazid, the principal drug used to treat the disease. (Nature, Vol 358, No 6387) On reinserting …
A NON-GOVERNMENTAL report on the state of India's health has expressed concern that environment impact assessments of development programmes almost always ignore their effect on people's health. "What is important is that infrastructural projects that are sanctioned -- even after impact assessment -- might even be increasing morbidity (illness) or …
PIGS MAY may now rule the heart's of men. Dr David White, an immunologist and lecturer in clinical surgery at Cambridge University in UK, has discovered a way of transferring human genes to pigs, to breed hearts on demand. A breakthrough has come in isolating and engineering the gene responsible …
