With misclassification of different grades of minerals by mining leaseholders found to be at the root of illegal mining, the Union mines ministry has tightened the procedure to be followed by states for grading and determining the average sale price (ASP) of iron ore and other major minerals. Pointing out …
states of eastern India are locked in a tussle over private investment in steel plants. Jharkhand chief minister Arjun Munda recently avowed to not allow private investors access to his state's iron-ore reserves unless they set up plants in the state. In an impassioned speech before fellow chief ministers at …
sponge- iron units have mushroomed in West Bengal since the turn of the century. Lack of space in urban industrial estates has pushed them into rural areas. The state government has been flaunting the units as a sign of industrialisation and development. But Harirampur village in Bankura district shows the …
iron deposits on the roots of rice plants can block their uptake of arsenic, as per scientists from China. The findings could help researchers breed rice varieties that are able to resist contamination. Arsenic contamination of groundwater is a key public health problem in India and Bangladesh. The toxin even …
mineral-rich Orissa is being eyed by the corporate sector seeking to cash in on its iron ore reserves. Work on projects worth Rs 30,000 crore has already begun in the last two years and the Orissa government is considering investment proposals of another Rs 1,22,000 crore. The state's industry department …
only mother's son: Japanese and Korean scientists have created a mouse without using a sperm. The feat is akin to the birth of Dolly, the world's first cloned mammal. Bees, ants, aphids, some fish and reptiles reproduce without having sex in a process called parthenogenesis. But creating a living mammal …
SPONGE iron units seem to be mushrooming in Orissa like never before. The status as on September 16, 2003: around 22 proposals pending with the Orissa Pollution Control Board (OPCB), and 26 plants already functioning. The industry-starved state views the boom as economic convalescence, but is turning a blind eye …
they are small, almost undetectable; but their adverse impacts are very apparent, at times lethal. A new study, once again, narrates the nightmarish story about how small-sized particulate matter (pm) invades our lungs much more fiercely as compared to their bigger counterparts. The study provides a breath of fresh air …
bioaccumulation of metals in certain plants has attracted a lot of attention for monitoring of pollution. India too has seen new studies throwing up interesting research in the field. During a recent study, traces of heavy metal have been found in the samples of five mangrove species in the Bhitarkanika …
ever wondered why the 1,600-year-old iron pillar located near Delhi's Qutab Minar has never got corroded despite harsh weather conditions? Metallurgists at the Indian Institute of Technology (iit), Kanpur, have recently found the reason behind this. They have discovered that a thin layer of misawite, a compound of iron, oxygen …
a plant derivative might be the promising cancer cure that oncologists have been seeking. Researchers from the University of Washington, usa, claim that a derivative of Artemesia annua (wormwood) could help cure cancer. The derivative called artemisinin is used extensively as a remedy in malaria prone regions of Asia and …
a new process, devised by researchers at the us department of energy has made it commercially viable to recover a valuable rare-earth element from tons of stockpiled magnetic scrap. They have refined high-energy neodymium-iron-boron magnets, which are used extensively in automotive, consumer electronics and biomedical applications. The superior performance of …
scientists in South Korea have shown how sunlight could be used to prevent rusting of steel. And the method promises to be inexpensive and easy. Rusting of iron leads to losses worth billions of dollars. Preventing rust with either paint or galvanisation of iron is also an expensive proposition. Rusting …
scientists have imitated a key process that might have triggered the beginning and end of the ice ages and also could solve the present day problem of carbon emissions. An international team of scientists working on the Southern Ocean Iron Release Experiment ( soiree ) has "fertilised' a part of …
The Supreme Court has ordered the closure of 53 iron foundries around the Taj Mahal in Agra to save the monument from further destruction. The court directed the district authorities to take immediate steps to close down these polluting industries for not using natural gas instead of Coke. The directions …
The Delhi High Court recently upheld the government's decision to transfer some iron ore mines at Bailadila in Madhya Pradesh to Nippon Denro Ispat and dismissed a petition challenging the transfer. A division bench comprising Justice Y K Sabharwal and Justice A K Srivastava in a detailed order said, "It …
PYROMETALLURGY, or the process of producing iron, was introduced in India around the second millennium BC. The Harappan people were not familiar with iron, although they made artefacts from copper and bronze and jewellery from gold and silver. Production of iron and steel is mentioned in the Rig and the …
A MINIMAL amount of iron is critical for our health and perhaps life itself. But what researchers are now concerned with relates to the indiscriminate loading of iron supplements as well as the widespread use of vitamin C, which enhances the absorption of dietary iron from the gut. Our bodies …
problems of environmental degradation can be ironed out, literally! Christopher Nagel and his team at the Molten Metal Technology in Waltham, Massachusetts, along with Robert Bach, a chemist at the Wayne State University, have arrived at the conclusion that molten iron could do the trick of recycling everything from toxic …
IRON alloys are usually hardened before they are shaped into products -- by a technique that is slow, polluting and expensive. But recently, scientists at the Pune-based Institute of Applied Research claim to have developed a process that is little of the above. The hardening process, called nitriding -- from …
