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. …
"The tragedy of our century is that we did not carry the knowledge of neem with us when we began to chemicalise our agriculture with packages from abroad. For us, indigenous is never modern. There has been scientific work supporting indigenous practices, but modern industry has always been impressed with …
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Bhargava adds: "Unfortunately, neem is not the only case where we have lost out. We (at the CCMB) discovered a protein called seminal plasmin (published in Nature and widely publicised in the late 1970s around the world); a few years ago, we showed that it has anti-HIV properties. This work, …
THE 10-year period from 1985 to April 25, 1995 - accordingto relevant dat:bases - has been marked by a veritable delugeof us and European patents on neem-related products. Thedatabases also include information on patents which werefiled through the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PcT), a uN bodyfunctioning under the World Intellectual PropertyOrganization. …
TRIBALS and patent rights activists have something to cheer for. In the first instance of its kind, the Kani tribe dwelling in the Agastyar hills in southern Kerala, will get the rights over an anti-stress drug developed by the Tropical Botanic Garden and Research Institute (TBGRI). The tribe had helped …
Nepalese herbs with anti-cancer properties of which little was known earlier, has stirred a lot of interest in the medical circles in Kathmandu. The leaf of Land Sallo, a herb found in plenty in Nepal, consists of a vital anti-cancer AW agent - Taxis regin - which is now being …
EIGHTY per cent of the world's population depends on indigenous knowledge to meet their medicinal needs, and at least half rely on indigenous knowledge and crops for food supplies, according to a new study done by the United Nations Development Programme. The study concretises what has been generally voiced by …
A N Yellappa Reddy, secretary, department of ecology and environment, government of Karnataka, spoke to Down To Earth about the unique sacred and medicinal plant resorts that have come up in the state. The Dhanvantarivana - named after the legendary ancient Indian surgeon - is a 11.34 hectares (ha) resort …
THE mango tree is all set to become more famous for its therapeutic qualities than for its delicious fruits. It has been claimed by some Indian scientists that an extract from the bark of the mango tree suppresses cancerous growth, and that an isolate from mango leaves checks, the growth …
THE Onges, a minor tribal community comprising of about 100 members, residing in the Little Andamans - one of the 300-odd islands in the Andaman and Nicobar island group - may soon emerge as the messiah for the steadily swelling ranks of malaria victims in the country and the world. …
Harish Gaonkar, a Danish International" Development Agency march scientist, has recently come up with unportant observations on P famall diversity of butterfly-ecol Vilm haillia. His research shows that ps, is mat a single butterfly 'host W Mw plant on which it feeds) a Is am used for medicinal pur w …
WHEN Meghnaad, brother of King Ravana of Lanka, grievously injured Lakshman, brother of Lord Rama, Hanuman was sent to Gandhamardan Parvat to fetch the Mritasanjeevani Sudha, a life-saving herb. Unable to identify the herb from among the thousands that greened that locale, Hanuman brought the entire hill to the war …
Your institute has been trying to revive the traditional medicines in India. What have been the specific steps taken to popularise ethnomedicine? Have they been successful? Today, there's a revival of interest in traditional medicines and herbal therapy the world over. An overgrowing number of scientists are turning to nature, …
AT A time when a growing number of Western countries are focusing in on alternate medicine, India is neglecting its traditional cures. In the urban centres, where the manufacturers of allopathic drugs launch aggressive, no-holds-barred marketing campaigns, the off-take too is phenomenal, with many popping pills as a matter of …
The World Health Organisation (who) has reported a 3 per cent rise in the incidence of diabetes the world over. The total number of diabetic patients in India stands at 20 per cent, 2nd highest in the world. Diabetes mellitus and Diabetes insipidus are the 2 varieties of the malady, …
The smuggling of rare medicinal herbs out of Nepal is worrying environmentalists. Important herbs from the western region - including endangered ones like Panchaule, latamansi and Yarchagombu - are being carted to Nepalgunj, and then on to the rich North. Nepalese environmentalists are par '7 ticularly irked that the Pakhanbhed …
LAST year, when we were in Talaicauvery, the fountainhead of the Cauvery, we were regaled with the thrilling and rare spectacle of the slopes splendidly clothed in kurinjis in bloom. There are references to kurinji - the blue flower that gives the Nilgiris (blue mountains) its name and blossoms cyclically …
A CHINESE herb, Artemisia annua, say scientists, has yielded a wonder drug -- artemether -- which is 3 times more effective than quinine in treating malaria that is resistant to most drugs. They have also found that artemisinin, an oil extracted from the plant, has cut to about 1/5th the …
INDIAN traditional knowledge, as well as plants of the Amazon, continue to be "stolen" by scientists from other nations and used by pharmaceutical companies to develop new drugs. And, says Peter Rudolf Seidl, chairperson of the Brazilian Chemical Association, those who supply the know-how do not receive any of the …
SCIENTISTS the world over are agog at the discovery of flavonoids in tea by Michael Hertog of the National Institute of Public Health and Environmental Protection, at Bilthoven in the Netherlands. Hertog's discovery supports the belief held by most Chinese that tea is good for health. The East abounds with …
