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 …
SO FAR it was the Orissa government, or rather its ebullient chief minister, Biju Patnaik, who has been fighting all the verbal battles in defence of the controversial Chilika Aquatic Farms Ltd (CAFL). Tata Steel, one of the two major owners of CAFL, chose to remain silent, even though the …
THE GRAND Mughal Akbar, whose 450th birth anniversary was marked this year, once remarked he would venerate the person who could grow two blades of grass where one grew previously. Was he not talking of Appropriate Technology, a term that has come into vogue more than four centuries later? It …
EVERY living thing was born at some time and must die, sooner or later. True, but the traditional assumption is that animals in the wild never live long enough to grow old. And, while old age is a "natural" cause of death for human beings, animals die earlier of "unnatural" …
THERE can be no sharper indictment of the government's attempts to protect the environment than this: After 20 years of spending money and effort, Project Tiger is in shambles. Experts say the fate of tigers in India may be worse than when this much-flaunted conservation bid was launched. Some even …
What can be done When Elements that sustain life -- air and water Turn to destroy...? -- Dasarathi, the acknowledged poet laureate of Andhra Pradesh. DASARATHI'S poem was inspired by the fury of the killer cyclone that crossed the Andhra coast at Chirala during the evening of November 19, 1977, …
BIOTECHNOLOGY means a lot of things to different people. The new and the traditional coexist and reinforce each other within biotechnology -- now an established and highly interdisciplinary applied field. However, it symbolises big money, in terms of new industries, agricultural practices, patents and research grants. For scientists and academics, …
An Act to provide for the regulation of production, supply and distribution of infant milk substitutes, feeding bottles and infant foods with a view to the protection and promotion of breastfeeding and ensuring the proper use of infant foods and for matters connected therewith or incidental thereto.
PRIMARY schools with a difference have sprung up in some villages around the elite Rishi Valley School (RVS) in Andhra Pradesh. These satellite schools, started by the Rural Extension Centre (REC) of the RVS, use instruction cards, puzzles and games instead of standard text books to make education interesting. The …
A FEW YEARS ago, L Narasimharaju abandoned his M.Tech studies at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) in Bangalore and moved to a village. His mission? To help pass on to the people a technology to make cheap and effective cement for rural areas. Narasimharaju based himself at Ungra village …
A YEAR ago, there was excitement and anticipation in Shaheed Nagar when it was announced that a weekly Hindi newspaper would be launched in the colony. Shaheed Nagar in Uttar Pradesh was once an illegal slum close to Delhi. Today, it is a regularised colony of 60,000 and has virtually …
CERTAIN wasps are inveterate nectar thieves. The wily insects sneak through the back door and loot nectar, damaging the flower and reducing chances of pollination and fruit formation (Current Science, Vol 26 No 10). Insects help in pollination by acting as carriers of pollen grains, picking them up from one …
THE LEGAL battle against Carbide came full circle when the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) reopened criminal proceedings in the district court of Bhopal on November 11. This was in accordance with the V P Singh government's assurance it would reopen the criminal case against Carbide, after accusations of a …
SANDALWOOD smuggling is raising quite a stink in Karnataka, where poacher-smuggler Veerappan has reportedly recruited three retired army personnel and a former BSF jawan to train other gang members in planting mines and staging ambushes. The four, whose identities are still secret, are supposed to have been paid Rs 4.5 …
EN ROUTE to the sun, the spacecraft Ulysses dropped in on planet Jupiter in February this year. Launched on October 6, 1990, by the space shuttle Discovery, Ulysses -- a joint venture of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the European Space Agency -- has sent home valuable information …
NESTLE seems to have perfected the fine art of profiting at another's expense. Its infant food substitutes have been a known cause of diarrhoea and death among year-old babies. Now, the company claims to have developed a carob-based baby food which, it says, helps remove diarrhoea-causing bacteria from the intestines. …
SHOULD a weed that provides income to villagers be eradicated? This is the dilemma forest officials in Jhansi district of Uttar Pradesh face. The lantana bush spreads like a weed and threatens the growth of trees by competing for soil nutrients. But a poor villager can earn up to Rs …
INDIA'S entire geography has been covered by aerial photography, but development agencies and town planners cannot use the data because of national security regulations. "Even archival maps are not easily available to researchers," complains Majid Husain, head of the geography department at the Jamia Millia Islamia in New Delhi. Participants …
Scientists at the University of California, Irvine, have made the world's smallest battery -- about the size of the common-cold virus (Science, Vol 257 No 5074). Chemist Reginald Penner and his co-workers stumbled on to it while trying to prove that silver and copper could be deposited as closely-spaced nanodots …
The Union ministry of environment and forests has once again extended for 30 days the deadline for enforcing the controversial draft notification under the Environment Protection Act (EPA), 1986. The amendment faces stiff opposition from the governments of Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh and Haryana and also industry associations such …
CALCUTTA maidan -- at 294-ha, the largest public ground in the teeming metropolis, is in danger of being developed as commercial property by the Indian army. The maidan belongs to the army's eastern command which has its headquarters in the adjoining Fort William estate. The move, prompted by the army's …
