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. …
A scientist in Nagpur, A S Khalatkar, has claimed to have developed a new variety of mustard - Hoora - that will yield oil cheaply. The improved variety is a low-input crop requiring little iffigation and fertiliser and no weeding. It has a high output of 4 quintals to 4.8 …
SPRINGS in the Himalaya are drying up on a massive scale, says a detailed study of a 59,723ha catchment area in the Kumaon. The study conducted by geologists K S Valdiya and S K Bartarya of the University of Kumaon -claims that springs in as much as 40 per cent …
NEEM is being tested as a contraceptive that can be injected or applied in the vagina. While the contraceptive effect of the injection is expected to last for as long as six months, the vaginal application is for use at the time of intercourse and is 1b believed to be …
SUSTAINABLE development has become the new catch phrase. Every international agency -- from the World Bank to UNICEF -- and almost every country is talking about it. But what does this mean? For environmentalists, sustainable development denotes a radical change from the past. But as a Western joke now goes, …
LARGE parts of India are again in the grip of drought -- from the dry regions of Rajasthan, Gujarat, Marathwada and Vidarbha to the high rainfall state of Kerala. By official meteorological accounts, this was a near normal year. The pundits in New Delhi's Mausam Bhawan have a map of …
THAT rural Indian women are the worst victims of environmental degradation is well-known. But what happens when women assert themselves? This is the story of the four-year-long struggle of the women of Muvasa village in the Panchmahals district of Gujarat who made degraded common land arable. To my mind, it …
THE misery caused by this year"s drought was unnecessary. Typical of India"s weather, rainfall in several parts dipped below the normal last year but these fluctuations were small. Yet we failed to deal with the problems caused by this shortfall in rain. It is obvious that as India"s population grows, …
ADVANCE copies of the World Bank's prestigious World Development Report, 1992, duly printed on recycled paper, focusses on development and environment this year. It came bound with a paper seal bearing the words, "Embargo until May 18". The report, taken in its entirety, is truly an embargo on greening the …
IT was in 1989 that we first thought of adapting the traditional Indian form of mass mobilisation - the padyatra - as a means of reaching out to people in Europe. Our Indian friends first gave us the idea and later helped us to develop it. We first "tested" the …
THREE kilometres off the Hoshangabad-Itarsi road in Madhya Pradesh lies the village of Nitaya. If you can't get hold of a bicycle to get to this village then you'll have to walk down. And that was what I was doing one afternoon in early March. On my way to a …
ROY, Tisdell and Sen"s book on economic development and the environment is certainly timely, having come out only months before the June UNCED summit at Rio. Interest in the subject is therefore at its peak. The book sounds a much needed warning about the environmental cost of economic development and …
SATYAJIT Ray"s formidable body of work has given both-form and substance to the cultural landscape of the nation and, thereby, helped shape its cultural consciousness. The range is astonishing: from period pieces like Charulata and Jalsaghar to films with a rural setting like Pather Panchali and Sadgati, to works like …
ABOUT 60 km from the historical town of Bijapur is a latter-day human-made wonder - the Chikka- padasalagi barrage. This half-km long dam on the River Krishna is testimony to the collective will and undaunted efforts of the people from 21 villages around the Jamkhandi taluk of Karnataka's Bijapur district. …
THE Banihal Valley in Jammu's Pirp.anjal range, which separates the Jammu region from the Kashmir Valley, appears like an oasis amid barren hills. This area, 2,000 m above sea level, which was until recently totally denuded, is now green with fruit trees and vegetable patches. The transformation is due to …
THE Himalayan yew Taxus baccata is in the news. Researchers at the University of Kansas have found that the yew contains the anti-cancer drug, taxol, in sufficient quantities for it to replace its cousin, the Pacific yew. Indian botanists fear that the graceful tree may become gradually extinct. American researchers …
RABINDRANATH Tagore's much loved tree, the scholar's tree or Alstonia scholaris, is today a bone of contention within the faculty of the Indian Institute of Technology (11T) in Kanpur. Last year, when about 10 Alstonia trees were felled on the campus after several staff members complained of asthma attacks, it …
RULERS, universally, create beliefs to justify their rule. The British, certainly, were convinced that the lazy, hungry Indians were incapable of ruling them- selves. In this book, Famines, David Arnold, a British historian working at the London School of Oriental and African studies, has placed the subject of famines on …
Over 2,500 hectares (ha) of forests in Kerala have been destroyed by fires this summer. Fires are reported to have destroyed extensive acreage in several of the 14 sanctuaries and national parks in the state, including 250 ha in the Erakivulam National Park, 500 ha in the Thakkady Wildlife Sanctuary …
USA, Japan and the European Community have together pledged a total of US $75 million to the establishment of an International Science and Technology Centre in Moscow which will provide stable employment to scientists in the erstwhile USSR. That this is primarily a bid to scotch the likelihood of these …
Act 1 (18 April): Yeltsin suspends rocket technology transfer to India following the threat of sanctions by USA. Act 11 (26 April): Prime Minister P V Narasimha Rao assures Parliament that the contract has neither been suspended nor cancelled even as U R Rao, chairperson of the Space Commission, returns …
