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 …
THE FEAR of losing markets has finally made Indian carpet exporters fall in line with a move to regulate child labour, which is prevalent extensively in carpet-making and some other industries. After a prolonged period of disagreement, the All India Carpet Manufacturers' Association dropped its insistence on "self-certification" and there …
A 61-YEAR-old Chinese architect, Cao Shizhong, who specialises in setting tilting structures straight, dreams of restoring the Leaning Tower of Pisa to its original tilt, a feat that would make him a millionaire. The Leaning Tower of Pisa could never attain its planned 13-storey eminence for when the tower had …
BORNEO'S dense, virgin rainforests are interspersed with large, naked patches where trees have been plucked out by loggers. Meandering rivers such as the Baram that run through the forests have turned red with silt washed down from the now-barren hillsides. The government and the timber companies, however, blame tribal shifting …
The proposed amendments to the Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act of 1986 seek to: • Regulate or prohibit child labour in all employment sectors. • Empower executive magistrates to prosecute in cases of Child Labour Act violations to avoid delayed judgements. • Make violations of the Act a cognisable …
ECONOMIC historians writing on India have usually focussed on two crucial sectors -- agriculture and industry -- and left out of their purview forestry, which provides crucial inputs to both these and is of some importance in its own right. History of Forestry in India, edited by Ajay Rawat who …
THE 73RD Constitution Amendment, yet to be ratified by the requisite number of state governments, holds within it the potential for a passive revolution in the Indian countryside. For not only does it constitutionalise a third level of governance in the country, namely the panchayats, it also reserves one-third of …
THIS IS the centenary year of Physical Review, one of the leading journals on physics. The journal has grown from its humble beginnings in New York in 1893, to become an institution in its own right. And though in the first few decades of its existence it was primarily a …
IN JANUARY 1935, the monthly meeting of the Royal Astronomical Society in London was unusually acrimonious. A young researcher from India, Subrahmanyam Chandrasekhar, had presented a paper in which he proposed a revolutionary theory regarding the fate of certain kinds of stars. The pre-eminent astrophysicist of the time, Arthur Eddington, …
A NEW approach to agricultural planning, drawn up by the Planning Commission at the instigation of Prime Minister P V Narasimha Rao, has run into a near-fatal snag: State governments are jittery about putting their money into something that still hasn't been proved tried and true. Rao had urged the …
THE DRIVE against liquor in Kaithal district in Haryana reached its most ludicrous in March this year when the Kamoda village panchayat resolved to reopen the village's liquor vend in the village. Says panchayat member Baju Ram, "The decision was taken because liquor was still easily available and there was …
• Plan priorities ACRP assumes that once land and water resources are developed, the desired levels of yield and productivity will be achieved. Soil conservation and reclamation, irrigation and other land development schemes have been listed as priorities. The proposed ACRP plans have sought major increases and redeployment of funds …
SHAH JAHAN'S dream in marble is at greater risk from pollution today than two decades ago, when protest over damage to the Taj Mahal was at its peak. But even after 20 years, experts are still at odds on how serious is the threat to what is arguably the world's …
CHADUVU Velugu (Light of Knowledge), an adult literacy primer in Andhra Pradesh, contains a lesson entitled Adavallu Ekamaithe (If Women Unite). The lesson depicts the benefits of literacy and tells the story of how the Dubagunta women won their battle against alcoholism. Adavallu Ekamaithe tells how the men of Dubagunta …
INDIAN science is being made to go commercial. With funding cuts and a new technology policy that aims at enabling India to fulfill its role in the "global economic environment", the ministry of science and technology has been working to turn the various scientific institutions in the country away from …
IN MANIPUR, drinking is more than being merely dangerous to one's health. It can be utterly embarrassing because a man caught drinking there is likely to be stripped, have his face blackened, be paraded seated on a donkey and then handed over to the police for prosecution. Nupi Lan, the …
MAKING slums livable is not an easy task, especially when governments have little money to spend on them. But that is precisely what engineer Himanshu Parikh is trying to achieve in Indore. Parikh's task is to design the infrastructure for the Indore Habitat Improvement Project, which is aimed at upgrading …
While the Uttar Pradesh carpet industry is under increasing pressure to ban child labour, young children in Pali in Rajasthan continue to work in appalling conditions in the 1,000-odd dye and print industries. Children screen-print sarees, bedsheets and bed covers. Factory owner Sunil Chaubra admits, "We prefer to hire children …
HOW DID birds learn to fly? For over a decade now, this question has been at the centre of a debate about whether Archaeopteryx, the world's oldest bird-like creature -- found nearly 150 million years ago -- was a bird or a dinosaur. While ornithologists believe Archaeopteryx was a bird …
Why is the Central Groundwater Board unable to monitor sub-soil water pollution? The reason is certainly not original: India's groundwater inspection authority, with a 5,300-strong staff, claims it needs about 40 more people before it can undertake a study of the 17 critically polluted industrial estates. The ministry of environment …
COMPUTER manufacturers are propping up the all-too-familiar "sagging" image of the keyboard operator at last. A new class of designer keyboards now promises deliverance from slouches, painful wrists and embarrassingly fidgety fingers. The latest in the line is the innovative Maltron keyboard invented by Lilian Malt and Stephen Hobday of …
