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 …
PROLONGED use of chlorinated drinking water can cause cancer, says a study by scientists at the Indian Council for Medical Research (ICMR). When chlorine gas reacts with naturally occurring organic contaminants in water, minute concentrations of carcinogenic compounds are formed. The risk is greater in water got from rivers and …
SOUND waves can be used to measure factory emissions, say scientists at the Open University in UK. Pollution monitoring systems using light waves are often inadequate and direct sampling of air emissions is time-consuming as well as expensive, specially for smaller firms who need to monitor their own pollution levels …
The timber industry in tropical countries has aroused disapproval and import bans are increasing on tropical wood from forests that are managed "unsustainably". The disapproval is particularly virulent in Europe and Australia, where retail shops, companies and local governments have banned the import of tropical timber unless it can be …
CATCHING rats the way Irula tribals do is not only environmentally safe but also cost-effective -- for they don't use poison or chemicals. All they need are their bare hands. Field trials in controlling rat numbers using these methods were conducted in 1984 by the Irula Snake Catcher's Industrial Cooperative …
SURGEONS may soon be able to call upon living micro-organisms to fight tumours that cannot be reached by the surgeon's scalpel. US scientists are proposing a new form of "molecular surgery" involving the transfer of a viral gene into the tumour and then attacking it with the anti-viral drug, ganciclovir. …
KODAK is about to launch a L 30-million photo compact disc (CD) campaign in which ordinary snapshots can be stored on special compact discs and then flashed on the television. The player works in a manner similar to an audio CD and can also play audio CDs. It uses a …
A RECENT study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine has established that women with osteoporosis suffered fewer fractures after treatment with estrogen. Osteoporosis is a potentially debilitating disease characterised by weakened bones and an increased risk of fractures. Estrogen is already being used to prevent osteoporosis in postmenopausal women. …
SCIENTISTS have discovered that celery, which was used as a herbal remedy in ancient times, contains a chemical that may lower blood pressure. A University of Chicago Medical Centre team found that a chemical compound, 3-n-butyl phthalide, which is extracted from celery, can lower blood pressure in laboratory animals by …
AGRIDYNE Technologies, a US biotechnology company, recently announced a major project involving the genetic-engineering of pyrethrins, an insecticidal compound derived from the pyrethrum flower ( Chrysanthemum cinerariaefolium). The US $3 million, three-year project is expected to produce unlimited" supplies of pyrethrin, an environmentally friendly insecticide, in the laboratory. According to …
PARTS of National Highway No 34 and Eastern Railway's Farakka-Jangipur track are being eroded by the Ganga. Also being worn away are the Farakka feeder canal, the Jangipur barrage and a 94-km stretch of bunding from Farakka to Jalangir on the right bank of the Ganga near Murshidabad. Silting of …
Sunlight can be used to treat cancer using a method developed by University of Tokyo researchers. Their method focusses sunlight on the cancer-affected areas using optical fibres. The photochemical reaction with a previously injected substance kills cancer cells. Cancer treatment methods, using lasers in photodynamic therapy, already exist, but the …
FOR SCIENCE buffs television is no longer the wasteland it used to be.Though Calcutta Doordarshan's hardy staple, Quest, persists with questions like "what happens when liquid nitrogen is poured on water", and its two earnest Bengalis at a table format, a lot else has also come to pass. On the …
USA: 66 per cent above the international environmental aid levels of 1990 (though nobody knows what this means in dollars). Japan: Will increase its aid support from about US $1 billion a year by 50 per cent to about US $1.4 to US $1.5 billion a year from 1992 to …
WHAT DIRECTIONS are science and technology going to take now that UNCED has put environment on the political agenda? Though they were not very much in the spotlight, many scientists were present in Rio to stress that while the development of science and technology has been held responsible for the …
RIO MIGHT have been the biggest jamboree there was, but Doordarshan was not impressed. It preferred to depend on CNN and BBC for most of its live coverage of the event, even though it had a team there. It needed Prime Minister Narasimha Rao's presence at Rio at the fag …
ECONOMICS is going green. According to a growing band of experts, now labelled "green economists", sustainable development can only be achieved if economic theory can be utilised to determine sustainable natural resource use patterns. Oscar Wilde once alleged that while economists may know the price of everything, they know the …
HOW DO you value a tree? Do you account only for the timber and fruit that a tree bears or are there other intangibles that have a value, for instance, the carbon dioxide that the tree fixes, the oxygen that it releases, the soil erosion that it checks or even …
Norwegians now maintain regular "resource accounts" for energy, minerals, fisheries, forests, agriculture, land use and air emissions. Each account contains information on the state or quality of the resource at the beginning and end of a time period, together with information explaining any change that has taken place. Energy forecasting …
IN HUNGARY, the blue Danube is creating trouble. This fortnight the country withdrew from the controversial hydroelectric project on the river, fuelling a fierce row with its neighbour, Czechoslovakia. Hungary's new democratic government, which was born out of hostility to the dam, has abrogated the interstate treaty and threatened to …
Global warming, but so what? The data on its impact is still uncertain and contradictory. USA's Environment Protection Agency commissioned a study which involved 50 scientists from around the world for three years. The scientists found that the total cereal production by 2060 could be 1 per cent to 7 …
