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 …
Fragile X syndrome: Mental retardation in men blamed on abnormal recurrence of a DNA sequence. Huntington's disease: Malfunction in muscle movement and coordination caused by the high recurrence of a DNA fragment. Myotonic dystrophy: Abnormal muscle contraction. It is thought only some cells of affected individuals carry the defective genes. …
After the Victoria Memorial, it is the turn of the Belur Math, headquarters of the Ramakrishna Mission, to be an environmentally endangered landmark near Calcutta. Air pollution is causing sandstone to peel off from the upper dome, parapets and cornices and discolouring the upper stories of the Math, which was …
ARE forests linked with the spread of malaria? Or, for that matter, do terrain, agricultural practices, water-bodies or ground-water have any bearing on the disease? Now, a computer-based analysis technology -- the Geographical Information System (GIS) -- may provide answers to these complex questions. The Malaria Research Centre (MRC) in …
Operators of X-ray machines and patients in India may be vulnerable to unnecessary radiation overexposure. This was revealed by A Gopalakrishnan, chairperson of the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB), at the 47th Congress of the Indian Radiological and Imaging Association in Kochi recently. According to an AERB study of 750 …
CAPITALISING on more than 100 years of expertise in plant product chemistry, Dabur, one of India's largest Ayurvedic formulation manufacturers, has now ventured into modern pharmaceutical research and product development. Dabur recently announced that it had perfected a method to extract taxol -- a potent drug used to treat ovarian …
Indian fisherfolk will soon be aided by an indigenously developed satellite that will direct them to fertile fishing spots. The Rs 70 crore Oceansat satellite, being designed by scientists of the Indian Space Research Organisation, will enhance the costly facilities currently provided by two US satellites. "Oceansat will not only …
The Karnataka Rajya Raitha Sangha (KRRS) -- a farmer's organisation -- has taken the lead in proposing an alternative to the Union government's draft bill on protection of plant varieties, which is based on the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) negotiations. In February, representatives of six groups, including …
IMAGINE a building swaying like a pendulum so that it doesn't crumble during an earthquake. Engineer Victor Zayas of Earthquake Protection Systems in San Francisco has designed just such a system (Science, Vol 262, No 5139). The new Friction Pendulum System (FPS) is quite unlike others, which dissipate tremor energy …
The plans of the International Airports Authority of India (IAAI) to use trained falcons to scare away birds that pose a risk to aircraft near airports has run into rough weather. IAAI's move, based on a similar experiment conducted successfully at Heathrow a couple of years ago, seems to be …
JUPITER will be the site of violent activity when fragments of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 hit the planet in the second or third week of July. The once-in-a-millenium event will offer astronomers a grand 6-day fireworks spectacle. The comet, now broken up into 21 large chunks, will bombard the planet and …
Anthrax has claimed three elephants in Jaldapara wildlife sanctuary in Jalpaiguri district of West Bengal, sparking fears that the infectious disease could wipe out animal life in the reserve. The disease, which threatens domestic herbivores and even humans, may have been contracted from infected cattle in nearby villages. The sanctuary …
The Delhi Fire Service wants legislation with "more teeth" to bring to book the owners of more than 100 high-rise buildings in the Capital for not installing basic fire safety measures. Noncompliance of minimum fire safety requirements in government-owned buildings has prevented the penalisation of the owners of private buildings. …
India's postal department is going high-tech. In March-April, it will launch pilot projects in Delhi, Madras, Bangalore, Lucknow and Patna to transmit money orders by satellite. Miniature earth stations called Very Small Aperture Terminals will be installed in post offices and linked to a business message network of the department …
JAPANESE environmentalists have objected to an Indian press report, which said Japanese non-governmental organisations had welcomed India's resettlement and rehabilitation (R&R;) package for oustees of the Sardar Sarovar Project. In fact, Yukio Tanaka, coordinator of the Narmada Action Committee of Japan, has denied this outright. The controversy erupted on February …
COOKING accounts for almost 50 per cent of the huge gulps of energy consumed in the domestic sector. To reduce the pressure on the fast-shrinking reserves of commercial fuels, the ministry for non-conventional energy sources (MNES) launched a subsidy scheme for solar cookers in 1982, making them available at a …
INDIAN agricultural scientists have virtually given up trying to contain the spread of an American pest that sneaked into India about two years ago. G C Tewari of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), who first studied the pest, now says, "We will have to live with the pest. …
Will the death of Gujarat chief minister Chimanbhai Patel affect the controversial Sardar Sarovar Project? Opponents of the dam feel that without Patel, who expired on February 17 following a cardiac arrest, the state government will be unable to attract the Rs 9,000 crore required for the project. J John, …
IN JANUARY, after a break of 22 years, the US once again turned its attention to the moon. This time, however, it was not NASA that launched a spacecraft, but the Ballistic Missile Defence Organization (BMDO), the successor to the Strategic Defence Initiative Organization. The spacecraft, christened Clementine, was originally …
IT'S NOW almost taken for granted that if a flood occurs in the plains, then a forest must have disappeared in the mountains. However, this notion, which indicts the land-use practices of the mountain people, is fast losing its punch for lack of evidence. Two recent studies sponsored by the …
THE TITLE reminds you of the Edwardian English poet, Walter De La Mare's The Listeners: "'Is there anybody there,' said the traveller?" While De La Mare's traveller rode through time seeking responses, Drake's creatures hover through space. Earth has possibly never been visited by an Unidentified Flying Object (UFO) that …
