The Bikaner Development Authority Bill, 2025, passed by the Rajasthan Assembly, aims to establish a Bikaner Development Authority to regulate development activities in the Bikaner district. The bill was passed by voice vote, with the opposition Congress walking out of the House due to insufficient discussion. The bill was introduced …
Reportedly, bjp senior leader Arun Jaitley has contemptuously labelled Digvijay Singh's Madhya Pradesh government as " ngo -style". Why? Because it spends more on social development - education and health - and not on roads or electricity. I am not defending the potholes made famous by politicians and media in …
Panchayats, Democracy and Development . By Vinod Vyasulu . Rawat Publications, Jaipur and New Delhi, 2003 . 195 pages . Rs 395 In 1992 the Indian Parliament approved of the 73rd constitutional amendment, which made it mandatory for state governments to devolve powers to local bodies. More than a decade …
The outcome of the fourth and final mini-ministerial before the Cancun conference in September was on predictable lines. No breakthrough was made on contentious issues regarding agricultural and non-agricultural products, investment, competition, transparency in government procurement and trade facilitation and, most importantly, development. The meeting, held from July 28 to …
It was August 15, 2001, Independence Day, in an adivasi village of Bastar in Chhattisgarh. Two primary school teachers had invited me, the only adult literate in the village, to unfurl the national flag. I had arrived, but one of the teachers was absent, owing to a week-long drinking spree. …
easy rabies cure: Tobacco plants have been genetically modified to produce proteins used to combat the rabies virus. Till now, the only way to fight the virus was to use antibodies derived from either horses or humans; but they are difficult to get. Researchers from the Thomas Jefferson University, USA, …
till about a year ago, Gauzia Begum Mohammed, 40, and Velimela Kalavathy, 35, residents of the Bandalguda village of Andhra Pradesh, were counted among the 35 crore Indians who could not read or write. Not anymore. Both have learnt to read. Gauzia can now sign her name and Velimela knows …
the only semblance of fairness that exists in the various agreements of the World Trade Organization (wto) is contained in their 155 "special and differential treatment' provisions. These are meant to benefit developing countries exclusively by giving them preferential access to developed country markets on suitable terms, and allowing deviations …
Even as the cow-slaughter issue threatens to snowball into a major controversy, scientists at the Chennai-based Central Leather Research Institute (clri) have developed a novel method of preparing leather that obviates the need to kill cows. The technique involves transforming low-grade hides obtained from old and dead animals into high-quality …
Spanish researchers say a hand-axe, recently found at an archaeological site in northern Spain, may have been used in the world's first funeral. According to them, the discovery implies that humans were capable of symbolic thought much earlier than was previously assumed. The axe was found among the fossilised remains …
"Tonight I am proposing $1.2 billion in research funding so that America can lead the world in developing clean, hydrogen-powered automobiles,' declared us President George Bush in his State of the Union Address to the congress in January 2003. The announcement is just one among a spate of recent developments …
On the Vietnam war: No war in the 20th century has seen as massive an assault on the environment. Some 70 million litres of Agent Orange, a herbicide and defoliant, and other toxic chemicals were rampantly used by us armed forces. It completely destroyed about 10 per cent of forests …
The Afghanistan government and UNICEF (United Nations Children's Fund) will begin a new training programme for teachers before the new school year begins next month. Four million Afghan children are expected to return to school, many of them for the first time since the ouster of the Taliban regime. More …
us politicians and insurance companies proclaim they offer the best healthcare services in the world. These are nothing more than tall claims. Recently, top us experts have admitted that the system is about to collapse. During the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science
Kerala's popular fleet of tourist houseboats can now be differentiated by quality. Rising numbers of these backwater dwellings had disturbed the residents of Kuttanad, who demanded some regulation. Consequently, the state's tourism department has decided to classify the houseboats based on environmental and safety norms. Kerala's tourism minister, K V …
optimism is a great friend but a bad guide. The Asian Social Forum (asf) meeting in Hyderabad, India, deliberately avoided this truism while proclaiming grandly: "Another world is possible". Another world is definitely possible. In fact it exists. The numerous communities that gathered there, with their own stories of survival …
bored with the humdrum life of the office? Time to take some action, but Michael Keaton should not be your rolemodel. In the famous movie, Multiplicity, Keaton made his clone do all the dirty work, while he had the time of his life. However, the fun did not last too …
cities are slowly gnawing at the most fertile and productive lands. This was revealed in a study conducted by National Aeronautics and Space Administration (nasa) scientists. Though construction activity has been carried out on only three per cent of land in the us, the resulting loss in plant growth was …
intensive, industrial-scale farming may be damaging one of the very natural resources that successful farming requires: bees that help in pollination. A study by scientists at the us-based Princeton University found that native bee populations plummet as agricultural intensity goes up. In farms studied in and around the Sacramento Valley …
A new seed policy is on the anvil in Brazil. Why is it controversial? Farming communities and non-governmental organisations (ngos) working closely with farmers in Brazil are worried about the set of new seed laws the government is considering. The bill (Production, Marketing and Control of Seeds), proposed about two …
getting the de facto leader of the country to address a congress of scientists is a good way to familiarise the latter with political priorities. But Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee's speech at the 90th Indian Science Congress was a disappointment, even by his high poetic standards. It had two …
