The National Biodiversity Authority has released a new set of rules to manage sharing of benefits generated through the use of biological resources. The Biological Diversity (Access to biological Resources and Knowledge Associated thereto and Fair and Equitable Sharing of Benefits) Regulation 2025 was approved by the Central government and …
Four years ago, Pilu Oberoi, a 38-year-old schoolteacher in New Delhi, was diagnosed with breast cancer. She underwent surgery and radiation therapy and also approached the Tibetan Medical and Astro Institute in Delhi, which gave her selected herbs to relieve her of the horrendous side-effects of radiation. "I would recommend …
RESEARCHERS from all over the world will gather at Lucknow from November 17 to 21 this year for the Fourth International Congress of Ethnobiology, organised by the Society of Ethnobiologists. They will debate on indigenous knowledge and the utilisation of plants and animals to societal use. For the vast majority …
"Women who were deemed witches and killed in medieval Europe were actually healers and midwives," says Janet Chawla, a researcher who has examined rituals performed by traditional Indian midwives. "Women were debarred from the study of medicine and a rising male medical profession, in collusion with the Church, participated in …
DAIS, those traditional Indian midwives both respected and feared as carriers of natal wisdom, deliver 67 per cent of the babies born in the country. They apply traditional skills derived from the ancient science of Ayurveda. The dai treats childbirth as a natural -- as against a scientifically-mediated -- process …
The growing problems in providing adequate drinking water to urban populations is a consequence of the lack of long-term planning and inefficient management of urban water usage.
What are you trying to achieve through the FRLHT database? We are trying to focus on the relevance of the knowledge and resource base of the Indian medical heritage. We can strengthen the resource base of the traditional knowledge system by using the FRLHT database. A lot of people talk …
FLOODS have ravaged India from times immemorial and people have controlled and turned them into beneficial processes. But today they are seen as catastrophic events that are to be forcefully contained by dams and embankments. This perception has its roots in India's colonial past, according to recent evidence from Orissa. …
FIVE YEARS ago, the social forestry department in Ratnagiri district of Maharashtra cleared several trees from a forest near Nandivse village to plant acacia trees. It did not know that the 4-ha patch was a sacred grove surrounding the temple of a powerful local deity, Kal Bhairon. The villagers, too, …
INDIA'S long history of excellence in science and technology is well known. There are several examples of Indian products -- not just textiles and spices -- that other civilisations admired for a long time. In AD 662, Syrian astronomer-monk Severus Sebokht wrote of the knowledge of the Hindus, "...of their …
THE HAMMER did not come down while the iron was still hot. Consequently, the traditional method of iron making in India has faded away. Though attempts have been made to resurrect this tradition in different parts of the country, only very few -- if any -- have seen the red …
DR COMPUTER As scholars expounded on the significance of traditional sciences, a computer in the pandal outside prescribed lifestyles to the more practical-minded. The diagnostic system was a software called Prakruthi, devised by the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC). Based on the principles of Ayurveda, the system fires …
When you wrote your book, scholars used to study aspects like caste or land relations. What made you select science and technology? I wasn"t interested in science and technology at all. I was interested in my society -- in all its aspects. The question was: What happened to us 200 …
With the help of the Indian Institute of Technology in Bombay, a premier scientific research organisation, the Patriotic and People-Oriented Science and Technology Foundation (PPST), a science-based NGO, brought together 1,200 people from all over India to discuss the country"s heritage in science and technology and what, if any, relevance …
OUT OF the total 303.42 million ha of land that make up India, 136.18 million ha were categorised in 1987-88 as net sown area and of this, only 43.05 ha receives irrigation. The sources of irrigation, according to official records, are canals, tubewells, tanks, wells and other sources, a classification …
HUNDREDS of small voluntary organisations across the country have dedicated themselves to simplifying the mysteries of science for amateurs and giving them hands-on experience in the subject. NCSTC-Network, a voluntary organisation set up in 1991, has linked 50 such people's science organisations and some government bodies, including the computer section …
NCSTC-Network C/o National Council for Science and Technology Communication and Technology Bhawan New Mehrauli Road New Delhi 110 016 Andhra Pradesh Akademy of Sciences V C Lodge Road Osmania University Campus Hyderabad 500 007 Tamil Nadu Science Forum No 7 (II Floor), Luz Church Road Mylapore Madras 600 014 Science …
THIS SLIM monograph explains Mahajan's preference for the term "human sciences" rather than "social sciences". Within the framework of social sciences, there are different disciplines, each analysing a particular dimension of the collective human enterprise. Human science stresses the similarities among different categories of human action and hence provides the …
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) …
In Andhra Pradesh dip their hands in fresh milk while transplanting seedlings.They know - but until now, not why - that this traditional practice prevents the spread of tobacco mosaic virus. Researchers at the Centre for Cellular and Mollecular Biology in Hydrabad say their studies indicate that an enzyme in …
AMRITBHAI Agrawat, a blacksmith from Pikhor village in Gujarat, stared fascinatedly at a barber shaving a customer. Intrigued by the barber's twin-blade razor, Agrawat's agile mind started a process that ended months later in his fashioning a new tool for harvesting groundnuts. An inveterate inventor, with a tally of more …
