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 …
A study in rural Bangladesh has found victims of watery diarrhoea treated with rice-based oral rehydration solution (rice-ORS) recover faster and require fewer hospitalisations than those treated otherwise (Glimpse Newsletter, Vol 14 No 4). Rice gruel has traditionally been used to treat diarrhoea. Packaged rice-ORS and glucose-ORS were supplied to …
While growing up in Rajasthan, Deepak Bhatnagar often saw his parents using neem leaves to keep insects out of the wheat they stored in their home. He also saw how well the leaves worked against skin infections when they cured a persistent ulcer on his leg -- one that had …
BEANS are one of the few crops grown for beauty as well as nutrition. Archaeologists in South America have excavated beautiful, multicoloured bean seeds buried with Indians 10,000 years ago. Analysis showed the Indians ate only fresh, young bean pods and seeds. Pottery, which made boiling beans possible, began only …
THE RECENT ammonia gas leak in a Haryana factory claimed 11 lives ans brought back the nightmare of the Union Carbide (UC) and Shriram gas leaks. Now, as the eighth anniversary of the UC disaster in Bhopal draws near, some questions remain: How were the victims compensated? What roles did …
AT 52, Ramachandra S Hegde is a broken man. After more than 25 years as a primary schoolteacher in Karnataka, he recently became a headmaster of a primary school in Kumta, about 150 km from Mangalore. But, at the fag end of his career, this talented teacher and rural technologist …
APPEARANCE is definitely more important than substance, or so our advertisers believe. They have adopted a 'green code' which determines the aesthetics of outdoor advertising. For instance, a hoarding cannot come up near or on a protected monument. The Indian Society of Advertisers, the Advertising Agencies Association of India and …
THE DISCOVERY that bird brains call appreciate the finer nuances of music has a learn of scientists harmonising at Rockefeller University in New York. The scientists, led 13, Claudio Mello, have identified a Aile in song- birds that responds to music made by other birds. Scientists studying canaries and zebra …
GOAT RAISERS in the Philippines have discovered that ipil-ipil (Leucaena leucocephala), which has been planted in several parts of the world including India, and is a panacea for environmental ills, from soil degradation to fuelwood and fodder shortages, can also deworm goats. Young seeds ground into a paste and mixed …
WHEN THE slogan "Declare agriculture an industry" was raised at the All India Congress Committee (AICC) session in Tirupati some months ago, it was an attempt to include rural toilers in the ruling party's grand policies of social reconstruction. But, at best, the slogan is a redundancy, for agriculture is …
AJIT THOMAS, 37, is chairman of A V Thomas & Co, one of south India's leading business houses owning plantations in Palghat and Idukki producing tea, spices and rubber. The company has now expanded into biotechnology and this year, it hopes to reap bumper harvests. Down To Earth interviewed him …
BATS. THE very mention of the word conjures up chilling images of bloodsucking creatures that attack humans insidiously at night. Much maligned in fiction -- who will ever forget the evil Count Dracula? -- these animals have been extensively exterminated over the years. Estimates presented by the Chiropteran (bats belong …
THE INCREASE in phosphate wastes released into rivers over the last 20 years may in turn have increased the frequency of "red tides" (coloured springtime algal efflorescences) which poison and kill numerous fish in American estuaries. Certain single-celled algae called dinoflagellates , which make up a large part of ocean …
BACTERIA large enough to be visible to the human eye have been discovered within the gut of a surgeonfish (Acanthurus nigrofuscus) caught off the Great Barrier Reef in Australia (Science, Vol. 256, No. 5064). These symbiotic bacteria, about one million times larger than ordinary bacteria, probably digest the algae the …
THE "arms race" between plants that produce defence mechanisms to ward of foragers such as deer and animals who attempt to evolve mechanisms to counter these defences, have long intrigued evolutionary biologists. Scientists say the moose (Alces alces), a large herbivorous mammal found in temperate regions, appears to be leading …
ANXIETY over ozone-layer depletion and global warming have inspired numerous studies into the changing nature of the earth's atmosphere. Indications are that increasing air pollution has not just dirtied the air, its graver effect has been its influence on the capacity of the various atmospheric constituents to oxidise or burn …
Farm forestry was promoted in India in the late 1970s to produce fuelwood for rural consumption. The program was immensly successful in the green revolution region in the early 1980s, but farmers produced wood for markets, and not to meet local needs. This market orientation of farmers was recognized in …
JAPANESE cows now have their personal paging systems... call, and they come -- more eagerly if its piano music that has distinct and individual notes. With cowherds becoming unaffordable in Japan, researchers considered the feasibility of an individual musical call that would be transmitted to the cow via tiny pagers …
THOSE who linked the exit in July of Carlo di Meana, former European Community commissioner for environment, with England's assuming the presidency of the EC commission, have been vindicated. British environment secretary Michael Howard recently stated that a primary British goal during it six-month EC presidency will be to dismantle …
GLOBAL attention was drawn to the cholera bacteria (Vibrio cholerae) following the epidemic raging in Peru since January 1991, which claimed as many as 4,000 lives and affected another three lakh lives in the country. In all, till early July 1992, 5.3 lakh cases of cholera and 4,700 deaths were …
PLANT breeders at the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture in Nigeria have developed a high-yielding variety of cassava that will be able to withstand even drought conditions. Cassava, a tuber that resembles a large potato, is Africa's most widely-grown and staple food. When the researchers at the institute crossbred cultivated …
