The report presents a mixed picture. Over the past 25 years, there have been notable improvements in child well-being in the group of countries examined in this report: steady decline in child mortality, overall reduction in adolescent suicide and increase in school completion rates. But the last five years have …
Elementary education is tricky business. This experience would be smoother for both the children and their teachers if there were tools that helped children experience
Is scientific research in India on a downslide? The diminishing number of scientific papers published by Indian scientists seems to point that way. The Indian scientific community, getting ready for yet another edition of the Indian Science Congress
http://www.echoupal.com Harnessing technology for the Indian farmer. That is what this unique web-based initiative of ITC's International Business Division wishes to do. Combining a broad set of online resources and a network of around one thousand kiosks, the site claims to reach rural farmers in about 6,000 Indian villages. It …
To what extent has the Global Environment Facility (gef) succeeded in poverty alleviation through its biodiversity projects around the world? To begin with, we must understand that any poverty alleviation benefit is purely incidental to gef projects. The gef's focus remains biodiversity conservation as defined by the donor countries. Poor …
in a letter to all state chief ministers, Union minister for environment and forests T R Baalu questioned the appointments to pollution control boards (pcb) that were made without following the stipulated requirements in the acts. He directed that appropriate persons be appointed for the key positions and incumbents, not …
What is the traditional knowledge digital library (TKDL)? The tkdl essentially consists of information from 35,000 shlokas (verses) and formulations in 14 commonly available books on ayurveda, like Sarangadhara samhita and Bharat bhaisajya ratnakar. tkdl would have information on the medicines, the botanical and common names of the plants used, …
In 1994, P Pushpangadan, then director, Tropical Botanical Research Institute, Vellore, visited the botanical garden in Warsaw, Poland. A board indicating a
A woman in her mid-twenties, probably of European descent, is trying to explain something to a group of Bhil tribals in village Tejgadh, Chhota Udaipur block, about 90 kilometres east of Vadodara city, Gujarat. Huddled, in a makeshift building on a 10-acre plot, all those present pour over a couple …
It has all the elements of a slugfest among eminent personalities in the public sphere. It would have made great entertainment; only it has to do with education. Science education, actually, in village schools with poor facilities. In an August 8 order, Amita Sharma, secretary (elementary education) to the government …
In an attempt to bridge the digital divide, Bhutan's planning commission secretariat is establishing an information network in all its 20 administrative districts (dzongkhags). The project
some startling revelations were made in the recently concluded 14th international aids conference at Barcelona, Spain. The most alarming among them being that India and China are likely to be the next epicentres of aids. At present India has an estimated 3.97 million people suffering from the disease, while .85 …
In Madhya Pradesh, Mangal and Surshingh of Sarai village, go to the district administration at Dhar, several kilometres away, to lodge complaints against local services. Sometimes, it is about a non-functioning tube well, a crumbling primary school building, housing 60 students, or the veterinary doctor who had no place to …
The State Government today launched its ambitious Rs. 1,800 crore 'Education for All' movement with the Chief Minister, Jayalalithaa, declaring "no child would be left out of school education by 2010".
The protest against endosulfan in Kerala has become a symbol of struggle against pesticides in India. The pesticide industry is worried about endosulfan as much as it is of its other products. As Dave proudly puts it, "I do not defend just one molecule. I am the president for 200 …
Pesticides are regulated under the Insecticides Act of 1968 and Insecticides Rules of 1971. In May 2000, the Insecticide (Amendment) Bill 2000, was passed under the shadow of suicide deaths of farmers because of spurious pesticides. This amendment made the punishment for adulterated pesticides more stringent. But it did little …
No one who reads a newspaper, however cursorily, could miss the news that Stephen Jay Gould, Professor of Zoology at Harvard University, died of lung cancer on May 20, 2002. He had fought his way out of another cancer, a rare form of abdominal cancer, 20 years ago. His reaction …
In August 2001, the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) asked the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) to submit a report on the health hazards due to the spraying of endosulfan in cashew plantations in Kasaragod district within four months. ICMR in turn asked the National Institute of Occupational Health …
It was in February 2001 that Down To Earth broke the story. A link was established between the unusually high incidence of deformities and diseases in Padre
Despite taking the initiative to propagate rainwater harvesting (rwh) as a household concept, Chennai has surprisingly been losing its capacity to hold water over the years. This incongruity could be attributed to the message not percolating down convincingly enough to the city's domestic consumers (a survey suggests that though 48 …
The people of Pudukkottai, one of the most backward districts in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, are dependent on dry land farming mainly due to lack of indutrialisation and low rainfall. Quarries too are a secondary source of livlihood, which provides boulders and stones for construction of buildings. Extreme …
