Pest Control

Order of the National Green Tribunal regarding the deplorable condition of a water tank, Golconda Fort, Hyderabad, Telangana, 05/06/2025

Order of the National Green Tribunal in the matter of In Re: News Item Titled "Neglected Katora Houz in Hyderabad’s Golconda Fort Cries for attention appearing in ‘The Siasat Daily’ dated 25 May 2025". The application was registered suo-motu based on the news item titled “Neglected Katora Houz in Hyderabad’s …

Bt cotton in India

Since the first transgenic plant was obtained, great progress has been achieved in GM crops. During the past seven years, the global area of GM crops has increased by more than 35-fold to over 58.7 million hectares (mha) in developed and developing countries. This trend is continuing.

Invasive Alien Species

70 years ago, a species called the yellow crazy ant (Anoplolepis gracilipes) turned up at the Christmas Islands off Australia, perhaps stuck to a piece of timber. For a long time, it remained dormant. Then in the mid 1990s, its population began to explode. Yellow crazy ants began to form …

"Biological control is the way out"

What are the various methods of managing invasive weeds? The government generally comes to know about invasive weeds 10-15 years after they are introduced. By then, they are already spread over wide areas and their extinction becomes impossible. The only thing that can make a difference is the people's awareness. …

"We need to be more proactive"

How easy is it to predict the potential of a plant to become invasive in a new habitat? When an alien species, be it a pest or a weed gets into another habitat, there is generally a time lag before it becomes invasive. Its introduction, as such is sudden and …

"Serious study has not yet begun"

What are the modes of successful invasiveness? There have been some studies on recruitment of pollinators by lantana. When lantana invades as an invasive species into a native ecosystemit proliferates and increases its density and biomass. Consequently, there is a chance that it usurps the native pollinators from the native …

Appalling ability

function alien2() { var popurl="image/20040229/30-illus.jpg" winpops=window.open(popurl,"","width=475,height=450,scrollbars=yes") } "A successful invasion is a rare event,' says Suresh Babu, a researcher at the School of Environmental Studies, University of Delhi. An accepted thumbrule is that only one in 10 introduced species become naturalised, and only one in 10 among the latter actually …

Pest attack

The armyworm has devastated crops in several provinces of Pakistan. Sindh is plagued by the pest, which has damaged 25 per cent of the rice crop and a substantial part of the banana crop. Even as Sindh is expected to face a crop deficit of 100,000 tonnes, the current wheat …

Better paranoid

Last year, a cricketing row broke out between New Zealand and India, when a member of the Indian team was fined for carrying soiled shoes. For India, it was cricketing pride at stake. But New Zealand customs authorities were merely following quarantine regulations. The shoes could have carried a possible …

Green light given

After a protracted debate over genetically modified (gm) maize in the uk, the British government is all set to approve the commercial production of the transgenic crop. The government advisers, however, plan to impose strict regulations on gm maize and ban commercial gm sugar beet and oilseed rape, since tests …

Buzz of distress

extensive use of Gaucho, a pesticide containing the active substance imidacloprid, has killed hundreds of thousands of bees in France, as per a report. "The results are alarming. The treatment of crops by Gaucho poses risk to bees in several stages of life,' concludes the 108-page report, compiled on behalf …

Pest mismanagement

In December, it will be five years since the World Bank (wb) formally adopted its Operational Policy on pest management (op 4.09). However, two recently released reports of the Pesticide Action Network North America (panna) clearly show "widespread violations of the wb's pest management policy'. op 4.09 requires World Bank …

Bytes

gm on the platter: The US government has recently issued a notice to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign for failing to comply with safety laws when it allowed offsprings of animals used in a genetic experiment to be sold as food. The pigs had genes from different species; the …

Bytes

simple remedy: Garlic not only keeps the vampires at bay, but also pests such as slugs and snails, which cause millions of dollars worth of damage in countries with cool or temperate climates. Scientists from the uk-based University of Newcastle upon Tyne have found that the pungent herb could act …

Time for total recoil

mosquito coils are finally in the dock, after a prolonged deference. Two independent studies indicate that coils commonly used in Asian countries, including India, can be disastrous for human health. While one indicates they contain a cancer-causing substance, the other estimates that a single coil releases particulate matter equal to …

Coconut cracker

dibyaranjan Dash, a farmer of the Puri district of Orissa, has a forlorn look on his face as he mutely watches the basis of his endurance fade into extinction. A killer has been let loose in his fields and it is ruthlessly devouring all the coconuts

Pink bollworm a potent threat to GM cotton

the quest to promote Bt (Bacillus thuringiensis) cotton may suffer a serious setback with scientists from the us-based University of Arizona discovering that the pink bollworm

Virus trap

Australian researchers have developed a unique technique to check the rapid growth of mouse population. The government-backed Cooperative Research Centre (crc) for Biological Control of Pest Animals has produced a genetically modified herpes virus that makes sexually prolific female mice infertile by blocking sperm from entering their eggs. "We know …

Pest problem

A recent seminar in Pakistan on the topic of integrated management of fruit flies, highlighted the issues of pests destroying fruit crops and the resulting indiscriminate use of pesticides for curbing the insects. The workshop was organised by the Nuclear Institute of Agriculture (NIA) and the Pakistan Agriculture Research council. …

Book Review

Accountability in the Pesticide Industry - a report based on a forum held at the Pocantico Conference Center . June 25-28, 2002 . Paper No 5 What constitutes corporate responsibility is an oft-debated question. This truism, if you like, certainly applies to the pesticide industry (because of its environmental and …

Europe to phase out major pesticides

europe will not walk the toxic trail. To improve environmental safeguards, the European Union (eu) has decided to withdraw some 320 substances used in plant protection products - including pesticides, fungicides and herbicides - from the European market by July 25, 2003. The move is part of the European Com-mission's …

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