Good Food is First Food. It is not junk food. It is the food that connects nature and nutrition with livelihoods. This food is good for our health; it comes from the rich biodiversity of our regions; it provides employment to people. Most importantly, cooking and eating give us pleasure. …
Malaysia is gaining support to fight industrialised countries who are pressing for a ban on logging in the tropical rainforests. Its partners in the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) have supported its stand and agreed to dissuade other countries from following Austria's lead and imposing mandatory labelling on tropical …
The latest rage in the West is products like music, ink and cards based on DNA's atomic structure. A French biotechnology company has developed Le Biopen, a special writing instrument that uses ink containing short strands of DNA, whose exact sequence is konwn only to the company. The pen can …
IT IS A daring and formidable task to synthesise the insights of social and physical anthropology, physiology, epidemiology, micro-economics and macro-economics. This has been attempted with considerable success in this book by focussing primarily on survival strategies of rural households in "developing" countries in the face of both chronic and …
A 35-YEAR-OLD man, the first person in the world to receive a baboon's liver, died after two months of the transplant. Though he was found to be HIV-infected, he had reportedly not developed AIDS. Surgeons at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Centre plan to continue experimental transplants as rejection of …
HUNGARY'S last ditch efforts to halt the Slovakian hydro-electric project failed with Slovakia continuing to divert the waters of the Danube, Europe's largest river, into an environmentally controversial barrage along their common border. While the two heads of state agreed on setting up a joint commission to head off confrontation …
THE VILLAGERS of Pali, 30 km from Delhi in Faridabad, are up ip arms over a move to set up 300 stone- crushing units on panchayat land that was once theirs and have gone to court to get a stay. The Faridabad Complex Administration (FCA), acting on a Supreme Court …
INDIANS still do not have the culture of seeking patents. Over the last 15 years, foreigners have obtained two to three times more patents in India every year than Indians. In 1989-90, Indians held less than one-fifth of all patents in force in India. Of the 1,040 Indian applications filed …
THREE thousand people are feared dead in flash floods caused by heavy rains in northeastern Afghanistan in the first week of September. A nine metre-high tidal wave brought torrents of mud and boulders down three river valleys in the Hindu Kush mountains sweeping away hundreds of houses. Thousands of hectares …
THE US National Institute of Health (NIH) has halted grant to a conference on 'Links between genetic disposition and criminal behaviour', following complaints that the conference might be a covert attack on African- Americans, who constitute 46 per cent of prisoners in USA. The conference on genetic factors in crime, …
THE UNITED States Agency for International Development (USAID) stopped assistance for irrigation development projects in India with effect from September 15. Sources attribute this measure to the gradual shifting of US attention to areas such as health and population control and agriculture -- specifically food processing. Some observers feel irrigation …
CIVIC authorities in Kanpur never seem to find the time or the resources to solve the problems of the 3,000 residents of Rajapurva, a slum in the heart of the city. This must be so, otherwise how can one explain why a slum settlement that's older than the nation was …
A COUNTRY'S economic strength influences its health level, which, in turn, is correlated with its average income level. When the economy grows, the people's health should also improve. The gross domestic product (GDP) of the industrialised West grew five-fold between 1960 and 1980. Meanwhile, male life expectancy increased by 2.7 …
CHINA came of commercial space age with the launch of the Australian telecommunications satellite, Optus B1. This was their second attempt at launching the satellite. The first, in March, failed as a short circuit cut off fuel flow to the rocket engines. China has for years been trying to break …
BETWEEN the radical and the official view of socio-economic developments, there is a middle ground of development ideology that does not readily find a voice on television. Catalysts for Change is one such series, made by the Centre for the Development of Instructional Technology (CENDIT). It was intended for Doordarshan, …
THOUGH India now spends more than Rs 4,000 crore annually in research and development -- 87 per cent of which comes from government and public sector industries and the rest from the private sector -- as a percentage of the country's GNP, the R&D; expenditure has been dropping steadily since …
THE STAKES are high in the rifampicin (a new anti-TB drug) sweepstakes. Lupin Laboratories presently dominates the market, which, according to the ministry of chemicals, did a business of Rs 236 crore during 1992-93. To break the monopoly, which enables Lupin to charge as much as 15 per cent more …
BRAZIL is getting too smart for the European Community. It has imposed import duties on EC milk products saying the enormous European subsidy to farmers makes its home products uncompetitive. The EC has petitioned the subsidies committee of the international General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) to resolve the …
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 …
SWEDISH pharmaceutical firm Astra has developed a drug -- Losec -- that inhibits acid secretions in the stomach wall and heals ulcers. It has been found that as many as 80 per cent of all ulcer patients will suffer a relapse unless they are given some form of preventive therapy. …
THE JAPANESE who are among the heaviest smokers in the industrialised world -- 36 per cent of the over-18 population smoke -- are being lured away from tobacco by a programme that sets the yen as bait. Several companies now pay bonuses ranging from 7,000 yen (Rs 28,000) to 40,000 …
