Judgment of the Supreme Court in the matter of In Re: Zudpi Jungle Lands. A batch of applications involved a peculiar issue concerning the situation prevailing in the six districts of eastern Vidarbha region namely Nagpur, Wardha, Bhandara, Gondia, Chandrapur and Gadchiroli. The issue pertains to the status of the …
IT'S no use trying to corner global warming on any day of the week but Wednesdays, says Adrian Gordon of the Flinders Institute for Atmospheric and Marine Sciences in Adelaide, Australia. His admonition came after he studied satellite readings of daily global temperatures for 726 weeks, from January 1979 to …
The department of science and technology (DST) is seeking the cooperation of user agencies in north Indian states to generate information on glaciers and snow cover, to facilitate a better management of water resources. The Bhakra-Beas Management Board and the Himachal Pradesh State Electricity Board are expected to pool in …
THE results of the recent analysis of a skull excavated 10 years ago from cave deposits at the Jinniushan site in China reveal that it is the oldest specimen of Homo sapiens found in the country (Nature, Vol 368, No 6466). The skull, along with an almost complete skeleton, was …
Union minister of state for petroleum and natural gas Satish Sharma and the chief ministers of the southern states met in Bangalore on March 26 to establish a natural gas network for these states. Put together, the states are expected to have an aggregate demand of 40 million cubic metres …
DNA technology has taken yet another step forward in its quest to unravel life's mysteries. The longest contiguous DNA sequence ever decoded has recently been deciphered by scientists at the Genome Sequencing Centre in St Louis in the US and the recently founded Sanger Centre in Cambridge, UK (Nature, Vol …
The construction of a fishing jetty at Talchua near the Bhittar Kanika Sanctuary in Orissa has been stopped short by a Central directive. The decision was based on a report by a team appointed by the Union ministry of environment and forests (MEF), which recommended that the construction of the …
The proposal of the Holland-based company, Royal Van der Have, to set up a 100 per cent foreign-owned firm to conduct research in Indian seeds and develop new varieties has been rejected by India's Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) on grounds that the proposal was against the guidelines of the …
A NEW rapid dipstick method to detect the presence of the malarial parasite, Plasmodium falciparum, could prove a boon to diagnosticians. The test, which has a sensitivity as high as 95 to 100 per cent, has been successfully tried in Kenya and the US (The Lancet, Vol 343, No 8897). …
The Delhi High Court has ordered, in a ruling on March 18, the closure of the city's main abattoir at Idgah, where approximately 12,000 animals -- about 5 times its capacity -- are butchered every day in extremely inhuman and unhygienic conditions. The closure resulted in the shortage of meat …
A scientist at the B R Ambedkar Centre for Bio-medical Research in the University of Delhi claims to have discovered an effective cure for physiological neonatal jaundice, an affliction that is responsible for 70 per cent of the deaths among newborns suffering from jaundice. The breakthrough has been achieved by …
Drinking water in Delhi may soon be safer and more potable. For the first time in India, the Delhi Water Supply and Sewage Disposal Undertaking (DWSSDU) expects to introduce, in May, the ozonisation process at the Okhla water treatment plant. This project is being undertaken with French technology as part …
Can the high pollution levels in Delhi lead a person to commit suicide? A 40-year-old deputy secretary in the ministry of rural development, L Balachandra, had committed suicide at his Pragati Vihar residence in the Capital on March 29. Police suspect Balachandra was driven to this by the exposure to …
WITH 6,000 kms of coastline and innumerable rivers, lagoons, lakes, reservoirs and ponds, India's fisherfolk population is one of the largest in the world. Exceeding 7 million, one-third of this populace depends on marine fishing while the rest subsist on a variety of inland water bodies. Usually very poor, these …
WITH the May 31, 1994 deadline to conform to the 74th Constitution Amendment Act drawing near, state governments have very little progress to report. The Act, which originated from the concept of the Nagar Palika bill, aims at limiting the hegemony of state governments over local bodies and ending arbitrary …
States still "considering" legislation: Sikkim Uttar Pradesh States preparing legislation with assistance from the Times Research Foundation: Andhra Pradesh Karnataka Maharashtra States drafting bills: Arunachal Pradesh Tripura Orissa Punjab Rajasthan Tamil Nadu Haryana (Amendment Bill for the Haryana Municipal Act, 1973) Bihar Bills referred to committees: Andhra Pradesh (amendments to …
ONCE upon a time, the beautiful blackbuck (Antelope cervicapra) lorded over the Velavadar National Park in Gujarat. But in the early '80s, the blackbuck's territorial sovereignty was challenged by a formidable enemy -- the wolf (Canis lupus pallipes). Earlier, the wolves had been casual visitors to the park; the past …
FOR nearly 400 years, Nepal has been using an indigenous irrigation system fortified remarkably without the help of cement or girders. The farmers in the Gorkha, Palpa and Rupandehi districts have built over centuries a complex network of canals and weirs using only boulders, tree branches, soil and wood to …
IT IS only now that the unimaginable horrors of greenhouse gases and ozone-depleting chemicals are coming home to roost. Several recent studies indicate that changing climate and mutilation of the ozone layer have led to a wilder spread of infectious diseases, a lowering global cereal production and the aggravation of …
IN HIS now-classic Foundation science fiction series, Isaac Asimov introduced the "science" of "psychohistory" -- the mathematical modelling of social dynamics. The objective of "psychohistory" was to evolve a method of managing societal change in such a way that the probability of chaos, intrinsic to any dynamic system, is minimised. …
I AM happy that a large number of leading non-governmental organisations (NGOs) are meeting for a consultation with key development ministries. I had addressed a gathering of NGOs in December, 1991, where I had offered to withdraw the government from certain areas altogether, provided the NGOs take over the responsibility …
