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. …
a mystery disease afflicted Siliguri in West Bengal in February, 2001 and claimed 39 lives. The disease, with symptoms such as high fever, respiratory problems and paralysis, caught the city's medical and civic system unaware. As the panic spread, shops and schools were closed. "The situation got worse when doctors …
How severe is the problem of malnutrition among children in India? Malnutrition is a serious and very common problem. About 50 to 60 per cent of the children, who are below the age of five, suffer from malnutrition. On an average, these children suffer from moderate to severe malnutrition. How …
In all 35 people have died and now the authorities in Siliguri say it is due to a mutated form of measles. When 10 staffers died in a local hospital it was supposed to be encephalitis or a new form of malaria. In short the authorities have sent samples for …
Asian countries seem to compete with each other to spew out waste. Rising populations, increasing urbanisation and better incomes mean the volume of waste generated is bound to go up in the future. How much of the municipal solid waste is organic and what other substances present depends, to a …
in houses where biomass is used as cooking fuel, the adult members of the family face the risk of tuberculosis. The prevalence of active tuberculosis is 3.6 times higher among adults in households using biomass fuels than among adults in other households shows a recent study. The term
amid the controversy over the relocation of polluting industries, a private bill introduced in the Delhi Assembly on November 23, 2000, which aimed at protecting the city residents from environmental hazards, was rejected. The Environmental Related Diseases (Prevention and Control) Bill, 2000, was introduced by former Delhi health minister Harsh …
to highlight the health hazards posed by environmental and occupational exposure to pollutants, the Lucknow- based Industrial Toxicology Research Centre ( itrc ) recently organised a five-day
The United Nations Development Programme ( UNDP ) will finance a biomass fuel efficiency project in Bhutan. The project is aimed to solve the environmental and health problems faced by the people of Tsirangdzongkhag. Bhutan will be given US $29,400 by the UNDP . The project will tackle problems such …
it is time to take out sun creams, ultraviolet protective sunglasses, wide brimmed hats and clothing with long sleeves because the largest ever ozone hole over Antarctica has just been detected by the us National Aeronautics and Space Administration ( nasa) . The ozone hole over the Antarctic is the …
your morning cup of Darjeeling tea could be lemon or honey flavoured. It could also be pesticide flavoured. That is because the tea estates in Darjeeling continue to use large amounts of pesticides to increase production. In turn, they perpetuate potential health hazards for the estate workers and the consumers, …
MUMBAI Death for Hire Diesel taxis are raising hell. Their drivers are lodged in a pitched battle with the civil society If you live in the business capital of India, it is not difficult to see the byproducts of the industrial boom. A constantly rising number of vehicles has sent …
Bangalore is a relatively green city. There are no big industrial units in the immediate vicinity. As with most other metros of India, vehicular emissions are the most important cause of air pollution. According to B Shivalingaiah, chairperson of the Karnataka Pollution Control Board (kpcb), there are about 1.4 million …
Hyderabad is at crossroads. A city rooted in history, it is raring to attain the title of being India's information technology capital. From being a congested old city with very high population density, it wants to become an industrial monolith with a surging economy. If only things were this simple. …
a tripartite agreement has been drawn between the Delhi government, the ministry of environment and forests and ghk International to conduct a study on Delhi's urban environment and infrastructure under a project called Delhi 2021. Fund for the project
In a study conducted for the Centre for Science and Environment, Swedish consultants Peter Ahlvik and Ake Brandberg at Ecotraffic have found that after taking into account all the toxic components in emissions the cancer potency level of diesel cars is double that of petrol cars in India. If only …
During the last two decades, many scientific studies have documented the link between air pollution and human health. Pollutants such as pm 10 and (particles less than 10 and 2.5 microns in size), nitrogen oxides ( no x ), sulphates, ozone, and acid aerosols have been found to be associated …
Cancer potency of diesel exhaust is more than double than that of petrol cars in India. In other words, one diesel car is equivalent to two petrol cars if all gases emitted by the vehicles are taken into consideration. However, if only particulate emission is considered, the carcinogenic effect of …
