Reply affidavit on behalf of the Central Ground Water Board in the matter of Suo Moto case titled "Haryana 60.48% groundwater over exploited Kurukshetra worst Jhajjar best says" appearing in the Tribune, January 8, 2025. The CGWA report, May 3, 2025 addresses the issue of groundwater exploitation and violation of …
THE fact that evolution optimises structures is best exemplified by cases of regressive evolution. These refer to structures that are not 'needed'. Such structures wither away because they are superfluous and because maintaining them is a waste of energy. Spalax ehrenberghi is a rodent that lives in dark underground tunnels. …
AS IF AIDS, Ebola and the Achuapa Febrile Syndrome were not enough, it is now the turn of a mysterious viral disease whose outbreak in Australia is not only proving deadly for the horses but also for humans. Australian scientists are now grappling on ways and means to deal with …
Researchers at the Scottish Crop Research Institute near Dundee, working on the oilseed rape plant, have concluded that pollen from the genetically engineered crop actually spreads to a larger distance than earlier thought, and fertilises other plants thus imparting its genetic make up including the asset of immunity from pesticides. …
SCIENTISTS at the Philippines- based International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) are currently field testing a prototype of a new and sturdier variety of rice on the institute's experimental plots. This new and robust variety shall have thicker grain-bearing stems apart from having greener and more erect leaves. The redesigned plant …
EIGHT years of sustained excavations has located the lost city of Urkesh in what is now northeastern Syria near the Turkish border, The find was reported recently by Giorgio Buccellati, director of the Urkesh excavations. Urkesh was the capital of the Hurrian civilisation which existed more than 4,000 years ago. …
FROM rendering aroma to curries and pickles to warding off mustard pests - the common spice fennel or Foeniculum vulgare (popular name saunf) has come a long way indeed. At the Lucknow- based Central Institute of Medicinal and Aromatic Plants (CIMAP), experiments demontrated that saunf grown in between rows of …
Union Carbide Corporation was under fire from 25 environment and human rights groups across the US, on the eleventh anniversary of Bhopal gas tragedy. They demanded that the company should face legal proceedings in India on the charge of culpable homicide, as the "perpetrator of the world's worst industrial disaster". …
THE propagation of bamboo is certainly beset with problems like long flowering cycles and inadequate technology for storing seeds. Not so anymore - say experts who have evolved an innovative technique for vegetative propagation of bamboo (Science for Villages, No 193/194, August 1995). A giant fast growing grass, the bamboo …
THE microelectronic revolution that we've witnessed during the past decade has simultaneously aimed at miniaturising the components of a circuit as well as enhancing its performance. For instance, the Intel Pentium microprocessor is about twice as powerful as the now vintage Intel 80386 processor, while their sizes remain roughly the …
HUMAN beings have always tried to probe the profound mysteries of the universe. Continuing the search, a powerful electromagnet is being used to detect subatomic particles known as Iaxions' at the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory in the us. It is hoped that ultimately the answer to the dark matter may be …
TWENTYFOUR more chambers have been unearthed in Egypt's biggest Pharaonic tomb in the Valley of the Kings, Luxor in Southern Egypt. Archaeologists have discovered a total of 91 chambers in the tomb built for a son of Rameses ii. Around 67 funeral chambers were found in last May. In addition …
TRADITIONAL honey hunters in India have so far relied on crude methods for gathering honey which mainly involves lighting a fire under the hives to drive out the bees. The honey is then manually squeezed out of the combs. While this technique serves the main purpose - gathering honey - …
Caribbean agriculture has been laid low by a large variety of pests and a series of hurricanes and drought. "We have a crisis in agriculture in the Caribbean," admits Hayden Blades, executive director of the Caribbean Agricultural Research and Development Institute, based in Trinidad. The latest threat is the hibiscus …
To allow villagers access to many4on technologies available to them 140 before they decide to implementAIM them, the Society for Rural %IV Industrialisation (SRI) in Ranchi,A@ Bihar, has set up a rural technology park in the Chaingati village *in Ranchi district. The park is the firstem of its kind in …
Drip irrigation may be centuries old NGr but its revival in a novel form deserves mention. The department of horticulture in Orissa has evolved the 'pitcher-method-drip-irrigation' where earthen pitchers filled with water are placed under plants%? which require a constant flow of water. A hole at the bottom of the …
THE phenomenon of senescence or aging is one of those problems that - as Mark Twain said about the weather - everyone talks about but no one does anything to solve. A number of experiments carried out on animals suggest that we may age because we burn ourselves up. As …
SUN microsysterns has just released a new range of computers designed for multimedia applications on Internet and corporate networks. 'Ultra compmCTS' would provide access to three-dimensional (3-1)) 'virtual worlds', music jnd video at just half the price of today's 3-1) workstations. "Ultra computers will let you cruise the information super-highway …
NEW measures resisting women from selling human ova has been urged by the architect of Britain's human fertility, Baroness Warnock. Revelations about agencies paying upto us $1,500 for a single batch necessitated a legislation to put an end to this inhuman trade. The administrative body responsible for licensing and regulating …
It takes the right amount of venol from the snake to kill its p I go. Larger the prey, more the venom and vice versa. William Hayes of tho University of Wyoming, US, in a series of laboratory experiment-4 demonstrated that rattlesnakes indeed 'meter' the quantity of venom they inject …
