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 …
Each launch vehicle progressively developed by India is capable of placing bigger payloads into higher orbits. The country's hope of carving a niche in the space-launch market rests on the GSLV
Moscow's abrupt cancellation of the $350-million cryogenic engine deal with India is self-interest, pure and simple. This was conceded by no less a person than Yuri Koptev, who headed the Russian space team in the "negotiations" in Washington. Cancelling the contract with India, Koptev told a recent parliamentary hearing in …
NOW THAT the Russians have finally backed out of the deal to supply India with cryogenic rocket-engine technology, Indian space scientists face their biggest technological challenge ever. With more countries wanting communication facilities, satellite launching promises to be big business in the highest of high-tech leagues. The US, afraid of …
WHY IS the Indian monsoon so capricious as to cause floods one year and pass on with scarcely any rain the next? Blame it on the increasing concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide, say US scientists who have constructed a global climate model that predicts an even more whimsical monsoon when …
INDIA'S commitment to phasing out ozone-depleting substances received a fillip when scientists at the Indian Institute of Chemical Technology in Hyderabad developed a process to manufacture HFC-134a, an ozone-friendly refrigerant. HFC-134a will be a substitute for CFC-12, which accounts for more than 50 per cent of the harmful CFCs being …
HOUSEHOLD electrical appliances may be convenient, but exposure to the electromagnetic fields (EMFs) they generate may not be safe. In fact, such EMFs and those generated by power transmission lines, radars and satellite equipment can even cause cancer, say scientists citing experimental results. But other scientists are not convinced and …
LESS THAN a week after Narmada Bachao Andolan leader Medha Patkar put off the much publicised jal-samarpan (death-by-drowning) protest against the Sardar Sarovar Project (SSP), she attended the first round of talks with a five-member committee established by the Union government to review the project. Prior to the meeting, there …
Judicial history was made in India when a Bangalore sessions judge accepted DNA fingerprinting as evidence to convict the accused in a murder case. This is the first time the results of this technique have been accepted as valid proof of crime in an Indian court. Since 1989, the Karnataka …
A PAKISTANI student has single-handedly started a plantation drive in Karachi. Imran Sultan has planted nearly 70 neem saplings in the past five months in the Karachi Administration Employees' Housing Society complex, and spending PRs 15,000 (Give Indian equivalent) on pits, earth, fertiliser and the wages of a part-time gardener, …
Two non-resident Indian scientists, Shibu Basuthakur and Supriya Roy, have proposed a project that will enable sick people in West Bengal to be examined by doctors in the US via satellite. The duo have presented a Rs 33-crore proposal to the West Bengal government to establish a healthcare network in …
Depredating raids by wild elephants into human settlements have often been reported from Assam. But on August 13, the elephants became victims of a totally unprecedented retaliatory strike: Angry villagers poisoned three adult elephants in the vicinity of the Boronodi wildlife sanctuary in the Bodo-dominated Darrang district. Five other elephants …
MALE HOMOSEXUALITY seems to run in the family and the trait is passed on by the mother, according to US researchers. Dean Hamer and his colleagues at the US National Cancer Institute interviewed 76 homosexuals and found 13.5 per cent of the brothers of these gay men were homosexual too. …
Even as the Uttar Pradesh government faces a barrage of criticism for its otherwise lacklustre performance, it has undertaken an impressive afforestation programme that state forest secretary Mohinder Singh says is aimed at reducing environmental pollution in urban settlements. During 1993-94, 400 million saplings will be planted in select towns …
SLOW AND steady wins the race, goes the moral of one of the most popular of Aesop's fables in which an arrogant hare loses a race to a persevering tortoise. But, two US brain researchers say if the race had taken place at twilight instead of during the day, as …
To boost the stagnant demand for solar heating devices, the Union ministry of nonconventional energy sources (MNES), along with the ministry for urban development, has chalked out a scheme to make the installation of solar and air heaters mandatory for all government buildings. This was announced in the beginning of …
SEVERAL foods people all over the country consume daily -- milk, butter and cereals, for example -- have been found to contain substances hazardous to health by a nationwide survey conducted by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR). The ICMR surveyors found that as much as 87 per cent …
DRUG ADDICTION is not a modern age phenomenon for it seems even the ancients knew the pleasures of junkyism, claim scientists (The Lancet, Vol 341, No 8843). Franz Parsche and his colleagues at the Institute for Anthropology and Human Genetics in Munich, Germany, examined hair and tissue samples taken from …
A PROSPEROUS belly often signals an impoverished heart. Nowhere is this connection more pronounced than in the characteristic potbellies of Indians, which make them more vulnerable to coronary artery disease (CAD) than any other ethnic group in the world, say researchers. Warns cardiologist K Srinath Reddy of the All India …
A GLOBAL system for sustainable management of the world's fish stocks, which are being rapidly depleted by heavily subsidised national fishing fleets, is essential to prevent their extinction, participants in a recent UN conference have urged. The session in New York, a follow-up to the Earth Summit in Rio de …
WHEN SWARMS of desert locusts from Africa invaded Rajasthan and parts of Gujarat in early July this yearfarmers helplessly re-lived the horror of seeing their crops destroyed. Says Prahlad Singh of Derdokabas village in Jodhpur districtAfter waiting for years, we finally had a good monsoon and the crops grew well. …
