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 current drought across central and western India and Kerala is forcing attention once again on how to deal with the problem. Ecologists have always had a deep interest in the problem, their argument being that societal susceptibility to drought increases with ecological degradation. And, through ecological improvement, this susceptibility …
THE morning hours in Barapal, near Udaipur, present a curious sight. Hundreds of headloaders crowd around the national highway looking for vehicles to transport charcoal or firewood to Udaipur. All of them are victims of drought. Selling wood illegally felled from government forests is their last resort for survival. Kesa …
WITH so much worry about the rapid ozone depletion taking place in various parts of the earth, Indian scientists are closely monitoring the ozone layer over India for possible depletion trends. Opinions are many and varied. According to S K Srivastava, head of the National Ozone Centre in New Delhi, …
Vilas Salunke Grain Gaurav Pratislithan Post Box No 1202 67 Hadapsar Industrial Estate Puna 411 013 R K Patil Centre for Applied Systems and Analysis Ganesh Kutir 1st Floor 68 Prarthana Samaj Road Ville Parts (E) Bombay 400 057 Anna Hazare Village Ralegan Siddhi Taluka Painter Alunadhagar district Maharashtra M …
IT is at a time like this that the famous Ralegan Siddhi village in Ahmednagar district -- the handiwork of a social worker, Anna Hazare -- stands out with a difference. It is green and it is surviving. There is indeed stress but no distress. The village has received only …
CLOSE on the heels of the bitter land wars in the West Asia comes the bitter conflict over water. Israel and the West Bank Palestinians are at odds over scarce water; its Arab neighbours - Palestine, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria all contend that they have considerable legal rights to the …
WITH more and more local bodies showing a red bottomline, some of the core urban services may soon be up for grabs, if entrepreneurs are willing to take them on. The sectors under debate include water supply, garbage collection, sewage management and solid waste disposal, sanitation treatment plants and even …
AN entirely new breed of detectives has come up in the USA - the forensic entomologists. Detectives were stumped at the discovery of a 34-year-old man's decomposing body,'with a bullet through his neck, in a Washington house completely locked from inside and with no sign of the killer weapon. Till …
"IF the HIV virus spreads through the general population in India, it will be through blood and not, sexual transmission." says P N Talwar, director of the National Institute of Immunology. However, according to the new strategy document of the World Health Organisation's (WHO) Global Programme on AIDS (GPA), while …
RISING sea levels and drowning areas is one of the much publicised consequences of global waarming - in fact, sea levels do rise, the effect on island countries like the Maldives and those with long coast lines like India and Bangladesh could be catastrophic. However, according to P K Daformer …
FOUR buses of the Chola Roadways Corporation at Nagapattinam in the coastal district of Thanjavur are different from the rest of the fleet. They are fueled by a half-and-half mix of compressed natural gas (CNG) and diesel. The pilot project is the first of its kind in the country. India …
LARGESCALE use of CNG as an automotive fuel can give breathing space to people in the heavily-polluted metropolitan cities of India. Motor vehicles are said to be responsible for 60 per cent of the total pollution load in Bombay, some 12,000 tonnes of pollutants daily, including 40 tonnes of lead. …
AN octopus can learn tasks simply by watching other octopuses at work. This observation has surprised researchers who believed such mental capacities to be the sale preserve of higher vertebrates like mammals. The octopus belongs to the family of molluscs which are invertebrate. Research on Octopus vulgarid, the common octopus …
FOR the first time possibly since independence, the forest cover in India has recorded an increase. The green cover has gone up from 19.47 per cent to 19.49 per cent, with an annual incremental growth of- 28,000 ha, says the latest issue of The State of Forest Report, prepared by …
WHILE the developed world gears up to phase out ozone depleting gases by AD 2000, Mafatlal's Navin Fluorine Industries has set up India's first halon-1211 manufacturing plant, in Surat. Halons are major ozone destroyers. Under the Montreal Protocol, industrialised counti-les have agreed to phase out ozone-depleting gases completely by AD …
MERCK and Co's "hair raising" research involves Proscar, its experimental prostate shrinking drug, which holds out a promise of greening the bald heads of men. Scientists believe Proscar might grow hair by blocking the formation of the male hormone dihydrotestosterone. People born with reduced levels of this hormone are rarely …
MANUFACTURERS of hydraulic hammers are being forced to make them quieter, largely following environmental legislation which originated in Germany a decade ago and is rapidly spreading.'Most of them have come up with a solution which involves wrapping the harnmer in a mattress-like material. Krupp's Compact System, introduced three years ago, …
TWENTY-ONE members of Parliament have petitioned the Prime Minister to save Chilka Lake, a major wetland in the country. They have protested against the state government giving advance possession of 400 ha of the lake to the Chilka. Aquatic Farm Ltd for prawn culture to new agri-business company of the …
THE department of power has set up a working group to prepare new legislation to modify the 14 existing Acts that affect energy consumption. The 10-member panel comprises experts in energy, law, industrial development and representatives from the concerned departments and ministries. With this, the government would seem to have …
BRITAIN'S Automobile Association has developed an in-car navigation system that not only locates the nearest car park, but also tells you whether there is enough space available in the facility or if the route is congested, This is one of the several applications of the geographical informstion systems (GIS), which …
