MANGROVES are known to be reservoirs of carbon. While it is known that widespread degradation of the mangroves by 30-50 per cent over the past half century due to coastal development, aquaculture expansion and over-harvesting may be responsible for an increase in carbon in the atmosphere, nobody has been able …
BAN ON the drug diclofenac, administered on domestic animals, has had a positive impact on the vulture population. It had not been quantified till recently. The rate of decline has slowed down—from 40 per cent to 18 per cent. The number of oriental white-backed vulture (Gyps bengalensis) had dropped drastically …
THERE have been many indicators that global warming could be hurting the world food production, lowering yields and increasing prices. Turns out the warming of the planet over the past three decades has already led to a measurable reduction in crop production of wheat and maize. Researchers from Stanford University …
Loss of forests leads to droughts. Research has shown that destruction of rain forests in Nigeria, Ghana, and Côte d’Ivoire may have caused two decades of droughts in Africa. Rain forests are being destroyed at an annual rate of 31 million hectares, an area larger than Poland. Deforestation also contributes …
Disclosure is now at the heart of the misappropriation debate—and the centrepiece of vexed international efforts to hammer out a treaty to protect the last major resources of developing nations. Talks in the Geneva-based World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) last month on protecting genetic resources, traditional knowledge and traditional cultural …
In December 2009, just before the disastrous climate conference at Copenhagen, environment minister Jairam Ramesh announced a voluntary and unilateral emissions reduction target for the country. He committed a 20-25 per cent reduction in the emissions intensity of the country’s GDP by 2020 below the 2005 levels. A month later, …
Entomopathogenic bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) and its toxins have been extensively used for pest control in agriculture and forestry and in public health programmes since the 1930s. At the core of such application are protein crystals that get synthesised when Bt cells develop spores. The proteins called Cry (from Crystal) …
George and Aruldas, fishermen from near Kanyakumari, were hauling up a catch on a beach in southern Tamil Nadu. It was a warm evening and they were the only fishers on these secluded sands. The catch was special and I was privileged, as an outsider, to be invited to watch …
Three out of every five surgeries in three private hospitals in a Rajasthan town over the past six months were hysterectomies. After an RTI application revealed the scandal—the hysterectomies were unnecessary and conducted for money—the story took a dramatic downturn on the ethical scale: doctors of the three hospitals went …
This magisterial history of the Mediterranean is a healthy corrective to romantic accounts which regard the sea as friendly grounds for trade in merchandise and ideas. While taking the reader from the age of the Phoenicians and Trojans to the advent of modern tourism, The Great Sea, A Human History …
India’s labouring poor, historical studies edited by Rana P Behal & Marcel van der Linden, Cambridge University Press, Rs 695 In recent years, apart from the study of the industrial workforce, labour history has been enriched by the scholarly attention to mobile labour, lives of artisans and peasant migrants to …
It is a legal victory with ramifications beyond small English town South Tyneside, where the local government claims Twitter released information about the tweeter who allegedly made libellous statements. The South Tyneside Council petitioned a court in California, US, to identify the user of the site after three councillors and …
American Egyptologist Sarah Parcak’s methods might seem placid compared to Indiana Jones’. But they are far effective. The tinsel character had to battle snakes and Nazis to find the lost ancient Egyptian city of Tanis, while the University of Alabama Egyptologist pored over satellite images to uncover not just Tanis …
In the last week of May, passersby at Dublin’s busy Merrion road were struck at the sight of a hoarding bearing a message from one Jobless Paddy: “Save me from emigration.” The message struck an instant chord among the Irish, tens of thousands of whom are forced to migrate in …
The journal Science has asked the authors of a 2009 research paper, which linked chronic fatigue syndrome to a virus, to withdraw their findings. It has also published an editorial saying the validity of the study was “seriously in question”. In 2009, a study at the Whittemore Peterson Institute was …
From the Australian bush to Alaska’s Arctic wilderness, indigenous peoples’ stories and perspectives take centre stage at the Message Sticks Film Festival. The festival opened at the Sydney Opera House on May 13 and will tour across Australia till August 24. A decade ago it was difficult to get an …
American defence strategists have plans to categorise cyber attacks as acts of war, the Pentagon says. “A response to a cyber-incident or attack on the US would not necessarily be a cyber-response. All appropriate options would be on the table,” Pentagon spokesperson Dave Lapan told BBC. A US president could …
IN 2007, a group of foodies in the US decided to set themselves a challenge of eating only locally grown food. They kept a log of their performance. This website is a record of their successes and tribulations. Buying locally grown food is stuff for wonderful stories. One writer notes, …
Ten months after Rajasthan signed its extraordinary memorandums of understanding (MoUs) with seven biotech seed companies, the state government finds itself caught in a cleft stick. Owing to a series of protests by farmers’ organisations, the government has thought it prudent not to execute the MoUs. At the same time, …
ALARMED by the changing climatic patterns, the Centre is likely to include either cold wave or frost in the disaster relief fund. At present, compensation under the National Disaster Response Fund and State Disaster Response Fund can be given to victims of natural calamities like cyclone, drought, earthquake, tsunami and …
