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. …
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 …
DON'T scoff the next time you have a severe cold and your grandmother gives you an onion to eat at bedtime, because by morning, you will find the cold has disappeared. Onions contain not only flavonoids, but many other ingredients yet to be isolated by scientists. Onions are used for …
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 …
Elders of the Navajo tribe still recount the legend of how the Bear, a great medicine being (What on earth does this mean?), instructed them to use a forest root for treating parasites, stomach problems and infections. There is now growing scientific evidence that this and other legends are based …
CALCULATED in monetary terms, the benefits of plants used against cancer is estimated to be $1,100 billion. The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development puts the value of a human life at $12.4 million and plant-based cancer drugs save 90,000 lives a year in rich countries. A US Environmental Protection …
WITH PREDICTIONS by World Health Organisation officials that 40 million people will be infected by HIV by 2000 and six million of them will go on to contract AIDS and die, a cure for the disease holds out promise for vast profits -- and the Australians, at least, are determined …
From the dizzy heights of the Rajiv Gandhi days to your apparent sanyas, when everyone else but Sam Pitroda is talking of telecom, your life has been nothing short of a thriller. Today, do you feel politically isolated? I think I have done my work. As a leader, I have …
DESPITE India's centuries-old tradition of Ayurvedic medicine, the country is missing out entirely on the Western world's multi-billion-dollar drive for plant-derived drugs and "natural" cures. According to the New England Journal of Medicine, a survey in the US indicated a total market of some $13.7 billion (about Rs 42,500 crore) …
Anybody wanting information about Indian medicinal plants will soon be able to get it at the push of a button. Work on a multidisciplinary, computerised databank, Inmedplan (Indian Medicinal Plants National Network of Distribution of Databases), has started and is due to go on-line by the end of the year. …
FEW OF the Fulani pastoralists in Nigeria have been inside a school and fewer still can read, but they have a very rich knowledge of the value of plants, especially browsable plants which can provide cattle food during the dry season. Researchers at the International Livestock Centre for Africa (ILCA) …
THE MEDICINAL and pesticidal properties of neem are beginning to excite interest the world over. In India, medical treatises going back thousands of years indicate that the tree is a rich source of medicinal compounds. The Neem Mission in Pune, set up by the promoter of neem, C M Ketkar, …
C M Ketkar Neem Mission 471 Shanwar Peth Pune 411 030 The Editor Neem Newsletter Division of Agricultural Chemicals Indian Agricultural Research Institute New Delhi 110 012 T S Subramaniam Conference Secretariat World Neem Conference Agricultural Research Centre International Business ITC (Seventh floor) Amrutha Topaz Somajiguda Hyderabad 500 482 Defence …
THE CREDIT for spreading the message of the wondrous properties of the neem goes to Chandrashekhar Mahadeo Ketkar, whose interest in the tree was piqued when he visited the quality control laboratory in Pune of the All India Non-edible Oil Industry Association to get some soil samples analysed. Association secretary …
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 …
SOMEWHERE in the Ayodhya hills of Bengal's Purulia district, a scorpion stung the wits out of me. My adivasi companion, Sukhchand, still in his teens, rubbed a poultice made up of some leaves on the bite and it brought instant relief. I had occasion to remember Sukhchand decades later when …
