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 …
SOME 1,000 dinosaur eggs found in China have become a bone of contention between scientists and commercial collectors (Science, Vol 261, No 5122). Scientists covet these beautiful and undamaged eggs because they could provide an insight into the Cretaceous period (140-65 million years ago) when dinosaurs roamed the earth. But …
Inhabitants of the Sariska Tiger Reserve (STR) in Rajasthan are to be moved once again. The STR authorities have decided to relocate 20 villages inside the sanctuary to sites outside it because, they contend, the villagers are taking a heavy toll of the reserve forest, which is made up chiefly …
TURMERIC -- the age-old panacea for headaches, pimples and fractured limbs -- could also keep cancer away, say scientists at the Hyderabad-based National Institute of Nutrition. Kamala Krishnaswamy and her colleagues have recently reported that curcumin, the active ingredient of turmeric (Curcuma longa), which is known to have an anti-cancer …
The sixth general meeting of the Indian Council of Indigenous and Tribal Peoples, which began in Delhi on November 15, sounded a strong warning in its inaugural session on the persisting trend of displacement of indigenous people in India. "The argument that this (displacement) is necessary for development has been …
GERMAN scientists say an understanding of car crashes could help childbirth specialists tell if a woman needs a Caesarean section (International Business Week, No 3327-657). The team of researchers at the Deutschland-based Electronic Data Systems, struck by the similarity of forces that come into play in a car crash and …
SCIENTISTS the world over are agog at the discovery of flavonoids in tea by Michael Hertog of the National Institute of Public Health and Environmental Protection, at Bilthoven in the Netherlands. Hertog's discovery supports the belief held by most Chinese that tea is good for health. The East abounds with …
During the release of a commemorative volume on 35 Years of Indo-US Collaboration in Science and Technology, Union minister for science and technology P R Kumaramangalam sprang a surprise. In the presence of US assistant secretary for oceans and scientific affairs Elinor Constable, he criticised the US for "denying high-technology …
DON'T scoff the next time you have a severe cold and your grandmother gives you an onion to eat at bedtime, because by morning, you will find the cold has disappeared. Onions contain not only flavonoids, but many other ingredients yet to be isolated by scientists. Onions are used for …
THE UNION transport ministry maintains it is committed to restricting vehicular pollution. However, a notification on automobile emission levels issued by the government in the first week of November, dilutes standards both in overall terms and in almost every vehicle category. For instance, the limit for carbon monoxide emissions by …
SCIENTISTS at the Hyderabad-based National Institute of Nutrition (NIN) say a healthy diet rich in spinach and other leafy green vegetables offers protection against cancer of the mouth. Their studies also show that certain vitamins and minerals taken regularly can retard the development of malignant oral cancers. The team of …
ON NOVEMBER 7, residents of Vivekanandapally in Calcutta staved off yet another attempt by a group of real estate developers, which has been trying to fill up a shallow 0.134 hectare lake in the area for more than a decade. The developers, lured by the prospect of selling the filled …
IT'S TIME you took your neglected stamp collection seriously, for mail may soon become electronic. The familiar sound of the postman's bicycle bell will be replaced by the beep of the computer and the crackle of telephone lines as electronic mail, or E-mail, transforms communications. Already about 15 million people …
WHAT SETS the BBC apart from other TV networks is the kind of subjects it chooses for its documentaries and the quality research it puts into bringing alive subjects that are considered unexciting by most commercial networks. Two very different kinds of series on computers -- Computing for the Terrified …
THERE'S an unanticipated hurdle to the Indian government's Transplantation of Human Organs Bill (THOB), 1992, which allows collection of organs for transplant from bodies of accident victims and "brain-dead" individuals with the permission of their next-of-kin. The government seems not to have realised that, in a backward country like India, …
You have been sharply critical of census methods in different parts of the world, in particular India. Why are you unhappy with the Indian census? Starting from 1881, we have had a census every 10 years, except during the war in 1941, when we had a restricted census. Frankly, I …
NOW THAT developing countries such as India have agreed to respect the Montreal Protocol and phase out the use of ozone-depleting substances, the North is beginning to bare its fangs -- or, more correctly, its dollars. For long, Western diplomats and negotiators have argued that the Montreal Protocol is an …
Person 1: These international meetings get tiring, don't they? Person 2: Well, more tiresome than tiring. Person 1: Anyway, I think it's good that we are finally beginning to recognise environmental problems at the international level. My name is Donna Dogood. I used to work with the US Environmental Protection …
ANYBODY reading the national media would have thought that environmental issues had precious little to do with the current round of elections in the states of Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Delhi. But the stories that our reporters have brought back show that nothing could be farther …
THE AKKADIAN empire flourished on the banks of Euphrates in Iraq, from 2300 BC to 2200 BC. Though the reason for its sudden collapse has long puzzled archaeologists, Harvey Weiss and his colleagues at Yale University in USA now say it literally dried up and withered away. The archaeologists base …
