Order of the National Green Tribunal (Eastern Zone Bench, Kolkata) in the matter of Haripriya Patel Vs State of Odisha & Others dated 24/03/2025. The matter related to the dumping yard at Baliapanda which is situated 50-100 meter away from Puri sea beach and a few km away from Puri …
Several strains of influenza or flu have been named after Guangdong province, where the first sars cases surfaced. This dubious distinction stems from the agricultural practices prevalent in the region. Rice fields support ducks and chickens, which feed on pig waste. The waste of one becomes the food of the …
Between March 25 and 27, 2003, two different groups of researchers in the cdc and Hong Kong University announced that a previously unrecognised coronavirus could have caused the sars epidemic. This family of viruses is the second leading cause of colds in children and premature infants but has never been …
sars is a stark reminder that there is no universal safeguard against infectious diseases. The syndrome has actually exposed the lack of preparedness with regard to infectious diseases
A recent study commissioned by the Confederation of Indian Industry (cii) has recommended a greater private role in India's healthcare sector. Its salience is that better services can be provided only if private players invest in the segment. There is, however, a catch: the document centres around the lucrative tertiary …
Amongst the 21 countries which are affected by a high amount of arsenic in drinking water, Bangladesh and India (mainly West Bengal) are the worst affected. In Bangladesh, the arsenic level is more than 50 microgrammes per litre in 50 out of its 64 districts with a population of 104.9 …
Millions of dollars invested to test water in those parts of Bangladesh susceptible to arsenic contamination may actually have gone down the drain. More importantly, the plight of the people has worsened. These startling facts were brought to light by a recent research. With the study raising doubts about the …
Amarpreet can no longer play football, his favourite sport. In fact, he can hardly move. In 1997, the 14-year-old from Patiala in Punjab was diagnosed with Wilson's Disease
Many new pest varieties are sneaking into India. To prevent this, a quarantine bill draft is under consideration of the Union ministry for agriculture. Even though the quarantine stations have checked the entry of some diseases, many pests are believed to have made their way into the country due to …
a simple, cost-effective and easy test for detecting the presence of aflatoxins in foodstuff has been recently developed by Andhra Pradesh-based International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT). Aflatoxins are chemicals produced by the fungus Aspergillus that commonly grows on food material. Even small doses of the toxins …
Trade a new thermometer for an old one. This is the message that a bill approved by the US senate seeks to give. While it bans mercury thermometers, it has provided US $20 million for the exchange programme. There is one gramme of mercury in a traditional fever-measuring device. However, …
Fingerprint-identification equipments may not always give the right results. These equipments can be duped by a piece of gelatin, according to a study undertaken by a Japanese mathematician. Tsutomu Matsumoto of Yokohama National University says that his findings could undermine the extravagant claims being made for biometry, which uses inherent …
At the height of the dropsy scare, Lucknow-based Industrial Toxicology Research Centre (itrc) came up with a unique device to check for adulteration in mustard oil. Called the colour-detection strip (cd strip), it was promptly placed in the market at a nominal 50 paise with expectations of a deluge of …
in a valiant attempt to reduce inequalities in healthcare between rich and poor nations, the World Health Organisation (who) has suggested a strategy to help developing countries benefit from new discoveries in genetic research. The suggestions were made in a recently released who report called Genomics and World Health. The …
all foods produced through the use of biotechnology should be subjected to safety assessments before they are sold. An agreement to this effect was signed recently in Yokohama, Japan, among 226 participants of the United Nations' Codex inter-governmental task force on foods derived from biotechnology. It was also decided that …
small particles, similar in size to those found in air pollution, can enter the human bloodstream from the lungs, researchers recently discovered. The finding is very significant because, for decades, it was believed that the lung-blood barrier is impermeable for particles and it only allows the passage of gases or …
THE contagion appears to have been contained before it could assume epidemic proportions. But it has still claimed four lives. The recent outbreak of plague in the Rohru-Jubbal belt of Himachal Pradesh (HP) highlights how a surveillance mechanism is conspicuously absent in India. While the disease is said to have …
A simple blood test might be used successfully to predict the chances of a person contracting lung cancer. Researchers at Columbia University, New York, USA, used blood samples that had been collected 13 years ago and found that people whose white blood cells were damaged were at a higher risk …
The Supreme Court of India has criticised the state governments and the union territories for their negligence in effectively implementing the Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques (regulation and Prevention of Misuse) Act to prevent female foeticide through prenatal sex selection. "There has been total slackness on the part of the administration in …
Radioisotopes are used for a variety of diagnostic tests in medicine. Now D Murnick of Rutgers University, USA, and colleagues have pioneered the use of stable isotopes
