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 …
A dry winter followed by the highest temperatures recorded in February in the north Indian plains in the past six decades led to fears in state agricultural departments that rabi crop yields would be cut drastically. Wheat, gram, pea, barley and mustard - the traditional winter crops grown in Punjab, …
UNION minister of state for science and technology P R Kumaramangalam remains unperturbed about Washington's reported intention to ban permanently the transfer of technology to the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). The US, which had earlier imposed sanctions when India and Russia announced collaboration on rocket propulsion technology, rumbled even …
SUPPLYING running water to about 19 lakh households in Delhi is fast becoming an impossible task. Various administrative and political bodies concerned with water supply management are in desperate search of means to meet the growing demand. The Union ministry of urban development has proposed that an autonomous body be …
EVEN AS international pressure mounts on India to improve the lot of its child labourers, the Delhi High Court has ruled against children forming trade unions to protect themselves against exploitation. In February, the court dismissed a petition by the Bal Mazdoor Union (BMU), a union of working children in …
AFTER the English cricket team lost the first Test match against. India in Calcutta last month, it resorted to "smogscreens" to defend its performance. The ball was figuratively set rolling by Ted Dexter, chairman of the English cricket selection committee, who reportedly blamed the defeat on ecological problems in the …
THE PESTICIDES India Limited (PIL) factory in the Khempura area of Udaipur is the focus of a pollution controversy that some believe is now assuming political overtones. After local residents complained of the factory's indiscriminate disposal of toxic wastes and discharge of malodorous pollutants, the district collector asked the Rajasthan …
MONSOON modeller A D Vernekar and his colleagues at the University of Maryland have worked out how the snow cover in Europe and Asia, especially in the Tibetan plateau, affects the Indian monsoon. Using what he calls a COLA (Centre for Ocean-Land-Atmosphere Interactions) global circulation model, Vernekar simulated the global …
INCREASING awareness about the dangerous side-effects of allopathic treatment and the development of drug resistance is turning many people back to older Indian medical systems such as ayurveda, siddha or unani, which claim to have little or no side-effects. Organisations such as the Lok Swasthya Parampara Samvardhan Samithy are propagating …
THE SUPREME Court is set to cover new ground in medical litigation when it considers an appeal by doctors contesting their inclusion within the purview of the Consumer Protection Act (COPRA), 1986. Doctors of the Cosmopolitan Hospital in Thiruvananthapuram were charged with medical negligence in September 1989, when G P …
SCIENTISTS at the Central Soil and Salinity Research Institute (CSSRI) in Karnal, Haryana, have developed a subsurface drainage system that effectively reduces soil salinity in waterlogged regions, restores the water table and puts such land back under the plough within three years. CSSRI director N T Singh says the new …
SOCIAL insects such as ants, bees, wasps and termites fascinate us. Few, however, believe we have direct lessons to learn from social insects. Much like our fascination for a tribal society, it's more a question of wanitng to know how they do things. Our curiosity about social insects relates to …
THE CYCLONE that struck southern India in October-November 1992 caused unusually extensive damage in Kanniyakumari district. The area was lashed daily by winds of 80 km per hour and 10-15 cm of rain. There were landslides, and major roads, railway tracks, bridges and houses in the district were washed away. …
ISRAEL'S citrus industry, part of its drive to "make the desert bloom", is a spectacular success story with export earnings in the US $150-250 million range, depending on the quality and quantity of the crop. But, increasingly, critics complain the citrus industry is exporting in effect the country's most precious …
THE GROWTH of the Self Employed Women's Association (SEWA) is an inspiring story of an unique organisation combining within its ambit labour unions, workers' cooperatives, and a bank. Its members are women working in the "informal" sector, such as ragpickers, vendors and hawkers, bidi rollers and quiltmakers. Kalima Rose is …
SALINE and degraded soils, inadequate water, poor quality seeds and the lack of means to own land -- these are the main problems that Indian peasant women face. And this conclusion was arrived at not by agrarian economists or bureaucrats, but by peasant women from the villages of north India. …
WESTERN urbanisation began with the Industrial Revolution and was accompanied by both economic and social development. But in India and most other developing countries, urbanisation does not reflect development. India's urban population increased from 10.84 per cent in 1901 to 25.72 per cent in 1991, but the majority of Indians …
OVER THE years, the world at large has come to realise that the results of science must cease to remain the private property of a privileged few. This is all the more significant today, when the results of science have touched the very problem of existence. The need for public …
THE FILM City Life is about everything that the title suggests. But it is so extraordinarily multifaceted and so exuberantly diverse, it defies all description. Twelve film-makers with highly individualised styles have each made a short film on a city the film-maker's choice. Their common theme is urban society. What …
TIGER prawn collectors face an enemy called the kamot, a small species of shark that infests the saline waters of the Sundarbans. Kamots have sharp teeth and they can slice off a limb. In 1992, the health department of Bangabella recorded 87 kamot attacks, most of them fatal. One of …
CRUDE oil is the single largest commodity traded in ships. Accidents involving tankers usually attract media attention, but when the largest-ever spill occurred in July 1979, when Atlantic Express and the Aegean Captain collided in the Caribbean spilling 270,000 tonnes of crude, the event passed virtually unnoticed in the Western …
