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 …
AFTER a decade of academic exercises, Indian planners have decided to incorporate the concept of agroclimatic regional planning in the Eighth Five-Year plan to ensure sustainable crop yields and spread of agriculture through ecologically-sound land and water management programmes. "We are moving from Ram rajya to science fiction," was the …
NEWS FOR smokers gets worse and worse. According to earlier studies, about one-fourth the number of regular smokers were expected to die of tobacco-related diseases. Latest estimates put the figure at one-third. Richard Peto of the Imperial Cancer Research Fund in UK, along with the World Health Organisation and the …
The current drought has spurred Indian agricultural scientists to formulate guidelines for combating different rain scarcity situations -- when rains start late, when they are less than normal, when they taper off early, and when there is a big break in rainfall in between. This exercise will be the first …
THE GAS-guzzlers of today may speed their way to extinction as the electric car of the future changes to fourth gear. USA's Advanced Battery Consortium -- formed by Ford, Chrysler and General Motors -- recently awarded Ovonic Battery Company a US $18.5-million contract to develop a battery which will take …
BIOTECHNOLOGY is turning flower farming into a very lucrative profession. Growing middle-class affluence has swelled the demand for ornamental flowers, which have become fashionable at social ceremonies, be it a wedding, a birthday, or a funeral. Doing business in flowers is not something new. It dates back to the 17th …
TODAY, the world seems to be divided into two groups: those who believe in the restrained use of natural resources as they are finite and those who hold that human technological intervention can stretch these resources indefinitely. Ponting, a British civil servant and historian, places himself firmly in the first …
TAIWAN is getting ready to counter the spread of hamburgers and pizza with its very own home-grown rice. The council of agriculture has recently launched a US $2 million campaign to promote traditional Chinese meals based on rice as it needs to meet the challenge of US and European fast …
THIRTY years of deforestation in the temperate regions has caused more pollution than 140 years' use of forests in the tropics. When' temperate forests were cut down in the 19th century by the colonial Europeans 12 North America, New Zealand, Australia, South Africa and East Europe, they put into the …
WHILE rice transplantation is a traditional practice in Asia, maize transplantation, a fairly recent technique, is now gaining ground in many countries. The technique helps farmers harvest a third crop in areas where none would have been possible because of a short summer. North Korea has already doubled its maize …
THE US National Cancer Institute plans to test nationwide a drug called taihoxifen that might prevent breast cancer, lower the number of deaths from heart attacks and reduce the number of broken bones among middle-aged and older women. The trial, over a period of five years, will involve about 16,000 …
SCIENTISTS are now advocating that harvesting locally used medicinal plants from tropical forests could be more lucrative than clearing the land for farming or growing timber. When compared to other land uses, medicinal harvesting appears to be more valuable. For example, clearing the rain forest for agriculture is 'worth US …
THE Indian Agriculture Research Institute (IARI) has devised now techniques of using fertilisers - through the split application and the deep placement methods and using granules rather than powder - which will prevent the loss of nitrogen into the atmosphere and the water table, and result in higher crop yields …
THREE documentaries that have just won the 39th National Film Awards this year are a welcome addition to the growing body of audio-visual material on science and environment. The pity is that apart from a possible late night telecast on Doordarshan or a littlepublicised screening at the Films Division auditorium …
In India, as in other countries, problems associated with locally overabundant wildlife species have emerged as important management issues for reason of some species losing their natural habitat but adapting themselves to the manaltered habitats. Consequently, there is a clash with the interests of local people. Crop-raiding by locally overabundant …
Pest and pest management by vegetable growers were evaluated by interviewing and close monitoring of randomly selected 204 farmers over a period of one and half years. Two villages selected namely Kolabissa and Marassana located about 45 km from Peradeniya, practiced intensive mixed cropping of vegetables, Study showd that 95.6% …
BIOLOGY Yellow pigment clue to evolution Bilirubin, responsible for the yellowish tinge in the skin, eyes and nails of jaundice patients, has for the first time been identified in plants. The pigment was discovered in Strelitzia reginae Aiton, commonly know as the Bird of Paradise plant. It is indigenous to …
For growing economies the stress has to be on patterns of natural resource use and not on the status of natural resources; that is, dealing with the causes rather than the symptoms of the problem of climate change. The time has come for rapidly growing Asia to distinguish between the …
With relations between countries now being shaped by geo-economics rather than geo-politics, an emerging issue is to what extent the United States, China and India, all populous countries and top tier economies, see their national interest in giving a new meaning to words like “responsibility”, “development” and “growth” by shifting …
The US submission on elements of the post-2015 agreement is a good basis for further deliberation by countries, as it is exhaustive with only some elements needing to be debated for a global consensus. The US quite rightly acknowledges that “with respect to CBDR/RC in particular, we endorse the view …
