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 …
Enter the "smart" window: an insulated, multi-pane, electrically-controlled glazing that can be used to control the amount of light coming through and rejecting excess heat, thereby obviating the need for air-conditioning. Though most components of such a window are still laboratory prototypes, a few semi-intelligent glazings have already hit the …
BHEL HAS an array of sophisticated laboratories and elaborate test facilities at all its plants as well as a separate corporate R&D; unit in Hyderabad. Some of the laboratories, such as the ultra high voltage (UHV) laboratory and the centre for electric transportation (CET) are the only such facilities in …
How do you evaluate the existing R&D; capabilities of BHEL in terms of the challenges it will have to face in the emerging environment of economic competition? Our R&D; set-up is adequate both in terms of facilities as well as institutional planning. Since 1975, we have made special efforts to …
DREAMS are often the crucibles of new ideas. Remember Kekule dreaming up the ringed benzene structure. Margie Profet, too, had one such dream in 1988. She dreamt that menstrual bleeding was a broom that swept away sperm-borne offending microbes from the uterus. Now she has made her dream public, contesting …
A unique database on mangroves -- the Mangrove Ecosystem Information Service (MEIS) -- developed by the Centre for Research in Sustainable Agriculture and Rural Development (CRSARD) in Madras, will be operational by December. Work on MEIS is being headed by eminent scientist M S Swaminathan. CRSARD will also set up …
The environment ministers of Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Burma and India are likely to meet soon to work out a clean-up programme for the Himalaya. The idea for the 'Save Himalaya' meet was mooted by Edmund Hillary, the first person to conquer Mount Everest, and M S Kohli, chairperson …
THOUGHT the dodo was a lumbering, fat bird? You might be mistaken, says Andrew Kitchner, curator at the Royal Museum of Scotland, who has discovered that early illustrations of the dodo, which became extinct in the 17th century, reveal a distinctly thin bird, while later drawings showed the more familiar …
Different estimates of the extent of the country's wastelands area has forced the ministry of rural development to call for a remapping of such areas. The ministry's wasteland development department has asked the National Remote Sensing Agency (NRSA) in Hyderabad to prepare a detailed map of the wastelands by the …
Tissue from the gut transplanted into the brain could help repair nerve and brain disorders, and halt the slow degeneration seen in Parkinson's and Alzheimer's diseases, says Geoffrey Burnstock of the University College of London (New Scientist, Vol 139, No 1890). Burnstock's work focusses on the 100 million nerve cells …
DINOSAURS in Stephen Spielberg's Jurassic Park may look authentic, but the sounds they make would not have been uttered by their long-dead ancestors. The best they could do was sound like a foghorn, says Matsumi Suzuki, director of Tokyo's Institute of Sound, who combined the sciences of palaeontology and acoustic …
Non-governmental organisations (NGOs) that do not help in the government's family planning programmes may get debarred from receiving government funds. Since the beginning of October, the government has made it mandatory for NGOs that draw government funds to promote family planning. The decision came in the wake of an unequivocal …
US PRESIDENT Bill Clinton announced on September 29, a sweeping liberalisation of export controls on computers and other high-technology products. This indicates a change in attitude from 1989, when the US had banned exports of supercomputers to India fearing they would be used for space or atomic research (Down To …
LIFE WOULD not be possible without the light and heat received from the sun. For all the energy that we consume on earth -- whether in the form of biomass or oil -- the ultimate source is the radiation from this fairly ordinary star in the Milky Way galaxy. The …
The VERY Special Arts (VSA) programme uses art to help children with various disabilities, especially those who are mentally handicapped. Art is used for education, emotional, social and economic rehabilitation and as a vocation. Says VSA's Moyna Singh, "The idea is to use art as a tool of rehabilitation." Hypersensitive …
have had a tremendous impact on the global business environment. Indian companies, too, are sprucing up plants and operations to get this accreditation, which is essential if their goods and services are to gain access to the vast European market of more than 350 million consumers. Twenty-five per cent of …
Spastics Society of Northern India Hauz Khas New Delhi 110 016 Ph: 66 9107, 65 6331 Very Special Arts Balbir Saxena Marg E-18, Defence Colony New Delhi 110 028 Ph: 685 4170, 647 2968 S S Jayalakshmi VSA coordinator, Southern region Vidya Vikasani School 66, D Muttutpalayam Road Tudiyalur Coimbatore …
IN 1982, the department of science and technology initiated a programme to develop battery powered road vehicles. It commissioned BHEL to supply 10 such vehicles between October 1982 and June 1984. The first 18-seater van developed by BHEL incorporated indigenous and imported parts. In 1989, the Delhi energy development agency …
WHEN CITIZENS of Arcata, on Humboldt Bay in northern California, were faced with the need to treat the industrial waste water and sewage that had been pouring into the bay for decades, they decided against building a $30 million chemical treatment plant and chose instead to spend $5 million on …
OUT OF the total 303.42 million ha of land that make up India, 136.18 million ha were categorised in 1987-88 as net sown area and of this, only 43.05 ha receives irrigation. The sources of irrigation, according to official records, are canals, tubewells, tanks, wells and other sources, a classification …
AS PART of the national environment action plan (NEAP), the Union ministry of environment and forests (MEF) is preparing numerous projects, financial assistance for which it will seek from the World Bank (WB). The NEAP was developed at the insistence of WB, which exercises considerable influence over developing countries because …
