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 …
SEVEN years ago Haribhai Patel of Alindri village in Gujarat's Junagadh district stopped using pesticides and chemical fertilisers in his fields because he noticed birds that ate pests killed by the chemicals, died in turn. He began experimenting with organic farming and after a lengthy process of trial and error, …
RESOURCEFUL villagers in Badi, about 40 km from Jodhpur, resorted to a traditional Indian water-harvesting technique to overcome extreme water shortage. They constructed a small embankment (khadin) to collect rainwater. Building a khadin begins with locating a natural depression. The depression acts like a basin into which rainwater channels run. …
WHEN THE farm animals of the Raika tribals, a sect of the Bishnois in Khejadli village, some 30 km from Jodhpur, are struck by certain diseases, they quarantine the infected animal but slice off slivers of flesh from its ear and insert them into the ears of the remaining herd. …
WRITTEN jointly by a sociologist and an anthropologist, the book raises hopes of providing an understanding of uneven development within cultural and historical paradigms. Unfortunately, the reader is left disappointed. The connections made in the book between culture and development are astounding. In Discovery of India, Jawaharlal Nehru attributes India's …
AT THE National Film Festival this year, the winner of the award for the best feature film on family welfare was a 150-minute, tear-jerker starring Aparna Sen. Directed by Prabhat Roy with gusto, the film has enough dramatic touches to guarantee box office popularity. Shwet Paatharer Thala tells the story …
NO ONE raises an eyebrow when children are required to memorise multiplication tables till 19. Then, why should anyone throw a fit if students are taught how to multiply 199 by 199 without resorting to multiplication tables, simply because the method used is Vedic mathematics? The resurgence of interest in …
JAGADGURU Swami Sri Bharathi Krishna Tirthaji Maharaj, the author of Vedic Mathematics, says he discovered 16 mathematical formulae, which once formed part of the parishishta (appendix) of the Atharva Veda. But the formulae are not to be found in any extant text of the Vedas. The foundations of Vedic mathematics, …
A FEW examples can demonstrate the reach of Krishna Tirtha's work, which contain several patterns of calculations to be used according to the nature of the problem needing to be solved: To multiply 785 by 362 using the conventional method, you would first multiply by 2, then by 6 and …
TO ASSESS the teaching power of Krishna Tirtha's book, take an example from geometry. Schoolchildren are familiar with Pythagoras' theorem that states the square on the hypotenuse of a right-angled triangle is equal to the sum of the squares on the other two sides. This theorem is proved in standard …
Bhaskara II investigated solutions to the equation (100x + 90)/63 = y, where x and y have to be positive integers (whole numbers). One possible solution is x = 1530 and y = 2430. In the ancient Indian tradition, examples were invariably used because there were no algebraic generalisations. But …
THE PRINCE of Wales wants it known far and wide that he was "not entirely dotty" when he switched to organic farming on his vast estates both around his country home 160 km west of London and in the Duchy of Cornwall. Prince Charles said that organic farming was a …
Practitioners of siddha -- a traditional system of medicine, which originated in Tamil Nadu and uses metals such as iron, zinc, copper, gold and silver in treatment -- assert their therapeutic knowledge could fruitfully tackle AIDS. But medical and paramedical voluntary workers involved in AIDS relief programmes funded by the …
SCIENTISTS working to develop new Ayurvedic drugs are concentrating on the treatment of memory disorders. Says Sukh Dev, professor of chemistry at the Indian Institute of Technology in Delhi, "Ayurveda prescribes several remedies for improving memory and intelligence. Our experiments are validating many of these claims." Sukh Dev and his …
INCREASING awareness about the dangerous side-effects of allopathic treatment and the development of drug resistance is turning many people back to older Indian medical systems such as ayurveda, siddha or unani, which claim to have little or no side-effects. Organisations such as the Lok Swasthya Parampara Samvardhan Samithy are propagating …
Dr Ram Kumar Kutty Lok Swasthya Parampara Samvardhan Samithy Post Box No 7102 Trichy Road, Ramanathapuram Coimbatore 641 045 Dr T N Manjunath Voluntary Health Association of India Tong Swasthya Bhawan 40, Qutab Institutional Area New Delhi 110 016 SAHAJ Holistic Health Centre Bibbewedi Pune 411 037 Dr Arvind Khare …
"WE ARE happy without government help for our agriculture. Our lands now yield thrice what they used to four years ago," says 36-year-old Jagdish Gujjar of Guwara Dewari, a village of 60 households in the green belt of the Sariska reserved forest in Rajasthan's semi-arid Alwar district. Agriculture in the …
IN A SHIFT from Japan's traditional eating habits, meat and dairy products have now overshot rice production as the Japanese take to a more westernised diet. The Japanese ministry of agriculture, forestry and fisheries recently reported that as compared to 25 years ago, the average Japanese now eats 40 per …
THE DEBATE on abortion between pro-choice and pro-life supporters is as old as antiquity, historian Angus McLaren says in his book, A History of Contraception. McLaren argues the issues raised by even the most recent breakthroughs in reproductive technologies are firmly rooted in the cultural traditions of the West. He …
THE FIRST all-India household survey of medical care shows some interesting results. The survey, which was conducted in 1990 in 21 states and Union territories and covered 18,000 households, found that in the perception of these households, males tended to fall ill more than females. As the study puts it, …
A STUDY has shown community institutions can be an effective way to regulate the use of natural resources. The indigenous knowledge, attitudes and practices of a people have great potential in promoting the management of resources around them. The study by Wendelin Mlenge, project manager for the HASHI project in …
