At first appearance it looks like a sleek Apple store. Sales assistants in blue T-shirts with the company’s logo chat with customers. Signs advertising iPad 2 hang from the white walls. Outside, the famous logo sits next to the words Apple Store. But it is all fake. China, known for …
IT IS difficult to guage if one is suffering from vitamin B12 deficiency. The problem often remains undiagnosed for years because of inconspicuous symptoms like loss of appetite, fatigue, confusion and memory loss. The vitamin plays a crucial role in the functioning of brain and nervous system and for the …
South America’s media mogul Edir Macedo is also the region’s most powerful televangelist who presides over one of the world’s fastest-growing and controversial churches, Universal Church of the Kingdom of God. Despite controlling a media empire that includes a TV network, two newspapers and 26 radio stations in Brazil, he …
Many believe Canada’s tar sands industry to be the world’s most environmentally destructive energy industry. But not Aleykhan Velshi, a 27-year-old neocon political communications professional, who launched a website aimed at extolling the virtues of Canada’s “ethical oil”. The term has been coined by conservative political activist Ezra Levant. Click …
Oxford University is asking for help in deciphering ancient Greek texts written on fragments of papyrus found in Egypt. Hundreds of thousands of images have gone on display on a website which encourages armchair archaeologists to help catalogue and translate them. Researchers hope the collective effort will give them a …
Iceland is set be the first nation to use social media for bringing constitutional change. On July 29, the Iceland Constitutional Council, a group of 25 citizens, submitted to parliament the world’s first crowdsourced constitution. Parliament is expected to ratify the draft without any changes. The council prepared the draft …
Launched in 2010, the website is affiliated to the Foundation for Research on Rare Diseases and Disorders, a Chennai non-profit. It provides information on over 400 rare diseases. It also provides basic reviews of the diseases as provided by volunteers, patients and their family members, and health experts. The site …
The Planning Commission of India has set up a working group to look into the drug regulatory mechanism in the country. One of the tasks the panel has been entrusted is to devise a strategy to weed out irrational drugs from the market. Most of these drugs are fixed dose …
ABOUT 30,000 farmers in Maharashtra are feeling cheated. The soybean seeds they had purchased from the state seed corporation, Mahabeej, failed to germinate this season. Over 40,000 hectares (ha) of farms in seven districts have been affected. Mahabeej has 45 per cent share in the soy seed business in the …
THE Supreme Court has temporarily stayed an order of the Madras High Court, asking resort owners near Mudumalai Tiger Reserve in Tamil Nadu to vacate the land. In April, the high court had given resort owners three months to hand over the land with them to the state to pave …
THE Maharashtra government is all set to reduce the area of the only sanctuary for the rare Great Indian Bustard after the Supreme Court allowed its denotification on July 22. The sanctuary in Solapur district will be reduced from its present size of 8,496 sq km to 1,222 sq km. …
AFTER imposing a ban on endosulfan, the Supreme Court is now examining the possibility of allowing export of the pesticide. On August 5, the court-appointed joint committee was given a three-week deadline to submit an interim report on the possibility of exporting and disposing of the endosulfan stocks with the …
Khan Market in boulevard Delhi is said to be the most expensive real estate in India, maybe even in the world. But in this richest shopping destination, buyers do not want to pay for parking their vehicles. The shopkeepers’ association has taken the local city council to court, saying it …
One of your more quoted statements is that the Bagmati is dirty because there is too much money flowing in it. Bagmati is nature. She needs to be honoured and feared like nature. Feared like a teacher. She does not like money. Hindus believe when they die, they will be …
New paddy varieties have been developed by the Bathalagoda Rice Research and Development Institute (BRRDI) to meet the fast changing climatic conditions of the country. This was revealed by BRRDI Director Nimal Dissanayake. He said the BRRDI had developed a 2½-month variety of rice which could yield five tons per …
“Kemathi accho” translates to “ how are you” in Odiya, said one of the local volunteers to me as our train made its way from Raipur in Chhattisgarh to Odisha through dried up riverbeds and parched lands. A summer survey to study the ground realities of the Public Distribution System …
It has been six years since the July 26 deluge, but the fear of flood during monsoons still lingers among Mumbaikars. Especially among the residents of Mumbai’s western suburbs who have been facing severe waterlogging for the past six years. The city municipal corporation claims to be well prepared this …
A bill that promises direct benefit to people from the minerals underneath their land is ready to be tabled in Parliament this monsoon session. The Group of Ministers gave it a nod on July 7 after minor changes in the contentious profit-sharing provision, which requires mining companies to shell out …
The Goa government’s reluctance to scrap a controversial shipyard project has left the 200-odd families of Chicalim village distraught. In 2005, Bharti Shipyard Limited proposed to construct a Rs 250-crore shipyard on about 0.8 hectare of mudflats in the ecologically fragile Chicalim Bay in Mormugao taluka. The Goa Coastal Zone …
The courtyard of Retnamma’s house resembles a battlefield. There are dead giant snails strewn around, slime oozing from their brown conch-shaped shells. “These are the ones I killed last night with salt,” says the 60-year-old resident of Konni village in the foothills of the Western Ghats in Kerala. “I was …
