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 …
Environmentalists in Goa are upbeat once again. Not only has the pro-Konkan railway Ravi Naik had to step down as chief minister, but his successor is none other than Wilfred D'Souza, who has been advocating realigning of the railway route. Just before the crucial meeting of the chief ministers of …
A NEW strain of cholera bacteria -- Vibrio cholerae non-01 -- that scientists say was earlier associated only with sporadic diarrhoea cases, has invaded India and Bangladesh. The killer microbe has already claimed more than 1,000 lives in the Indian subcontinent. West Bengal and Tamil Nadu are the worst-hit in …
Indian-made autorickshaws may be taken off roads in Kathmandu as a pollution-control measure. Vehicular exhaust fumes from automobiles get trapped in the bowl-shaped Kathmandu valley, which is surrounded by high hills. Air pollution has reached such high levels, the authorities have been forced to undertake a study to identify short- …
In a serious bid to counter charges of being the main vehicular polluter in the Capital, the Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC) has decided to junk buses that cannot meet pollution norms after repairs. Minister of state for surface transport Jagdish Tytler said in Parliament that Rs 10 crore had been …
CHEERS! But be warned, the champagne in your glass may actually be a genetically engineered brew. A team of French researchers at a research centre run by champagne manufacturers Moet-Hennessy-Louis Vuitton in Colombes, near Paris, has genetically engineered grapes and implanted their cells with genes that protect them against the …
So elated were Rajasthan's protectors of the wild with the just-concluded 1993 tiger census at the Ranthambore Tiger Reserve (RTR), they went to town with the results -- and painted themselves into a corner. The census shows RTR has 28 tigers, down by 17 from a 1991 high of 45. …
HONDURAN scientists have come up with an ecologically friendly banana and named it Goldfinger. They maintain their banana is hardier than the more common varieties and immune to black sigatoka, one of the two major fungal diseases that attack banana crops. "It (Goldfinger) could just be the saviour of our …
Undeterred by a police crackdown and the threat of submergence, protestors in Manibeli have refused to leave. Last year, the rising Narmada waters had come close to submerging the village. This time, Manibeli will be the first village in Maharashtra to be submerged by the monsoons now that the height …
EVEN AS the Ganga Project Directorate (GPD) begins work on cleaning up the Yamuna, environmentalists are questioning the decision of the ministry of environment and forests (MEF) to commit as much as Rs 357 crore towards the project. They point out that there has been no proper evaluation yet of …
FIVE-DAY-OLD Andrew Gobea became the first newborn to undergo gene therapy when surgeons at a Los Angeles hospital injected him recently with gene-altered cells obtained from his mother's placental blood to cure a usually fatal defect in his immune system. Andrew suffers from bubbly bay disease and lacks an enzyme …
Why is the government keen on corporate investment in wasteland development? The problem of wasteland development is so vast and complex, neither our department nor all the government departments put together can solve it, without the participation of the corporate sector and the people. The only source of fodder and …
CRITICS say commerce minister Pranab Mukherjee's recent statement, in which he rejected the Dunkel proposals to patent seeds, is merely reiteration of the obvious in an attempt to protect the government from the anti-Dunkel lobby. Dinesh Abrol of the Delhi Science Forum, who is also a member of the non-governmental …
DISDAINING short-term profits for long-term moral principles, jeans giant Levi Strauss is pulling out of China, even as other US corporations scramble to get in. The reason: Levi Strauss considers Beijing's human rights record far short of the standard it expects of its trading partners. Levi Strauss, however, will continue …
MORE THAN one-third of China's population suffers from iodine deficiency and two provinces, Xinjiang and Jiangxi, are the worst hit. Five million Chinese are said to be mentally retarded and children with less than normal IQ are reported to number 8-18 million and increasing by one million every year. Iodine …
ANY DAY NOW, we'll have the perfect potato -- not too waxy or floury, not mottled with bluish grey stains or with a scaly skin. When it does make its debut, it will be thanks to a little genetic engineering. Assures botanist Michael Wilkinson of the Scottish Crop Research Institute, …
AFTER the tragedy, comes the gold rush. In the three Agra localities where several people died after drinking contaminated municipal water, self-styled social workers have surfaced, looking for a slice of the compensation. These "leaders" have assumed the mantle of "champions of poisoned-water victims" and promise the bereaved families almost …
DID AKBAR, the great Moghul (1556-1605), relish dam aalu? Probably not, especially as one doesn't have firm evidence he did. The record kept by his minister, Abul Fazl, of crops grown in India in Akbar's time doesn't mention the potato (called aalu, in Hindi). India produces about 16 million tonnes …
BARELY four months after the Indian Coast Guard tackled an oil spill caused by a tanker collision near the Andaman and Nicobar islands (Down To Earth, February 28, 1993), it was called to combat another spill off the west coast this time. At 8 am on May 17, the main …
ALL PLANETS are believed to possess hot interiors that periodic volcanic activity helps to cool. But now American geophysicists have found Venus to be the odd one out (Science, Vol 259, No 5100). Quite unlike its namesake -- the goddess Venus who was known for her profligacy -- the planet, …
The ministry of environment and forests (MEF) has asked for an urgent clarification from its Nepalese counterpart on a Sino-Nepalese proposal to set up a natural reserve around the highest Himalayan peaks. China and Nepal have been working on the project for about 18 months and a US-based organisation, the …
