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 …
IT WAS on the day following Independence Day this year that Chuni Kotal, the first woman graduate from the Lodha Sabar community of West Bengal, who was working for a master's degree in anthropology, decided to take her own life. Apparently, she couldn't cope any longer with the jibes and …
WHEN I WAS a child, illnesses in traditional Indian families were not remembered as connected with germs, but with events and the suprarational. One heard that at a marriage, somebody's third son broke out with the measles and somebody's aunt sprained her ankle in her anxiety to catch a glimpse …
A MAJOR preoccupation of developing countries that have undergone the colonial experience is to avoid, at any cost, the substitution of political colonialism with economic colonialism. An important and influential theoretico-ideological position of the post-colonial era has been the "dependency theory" of social scientists Immanuel Wallerstein and Andre Gunder-Frank, that …
SCIENCE and environment are a real no-no for India's leading video newsmagazines, Newstrack and Eyewitness, which have a substantial following among this country's educated, English- speaking middle-class. Operating on the belief that such subjects, however newsy, are a turn-off for the viewer, neither newsmagazine has picked up even as enduring …
ONE OF the more innovative ideas that the Ganga Project Directorate (GPD) is pursuing is to revive the use of turtles to keep the river clean. Traditionally, turtles and crocodiles acted as scavengers consuming the corpses and other debris in the water, The once-plentiful soft-shelled turtle (Triunyx gangiticus) is on …
BEFORE the multi-crare GAP was off the blocks, Supreme Court advocate MC Mehta had approached the apex court to slop the appalling pollution of the Ganga by the municipalities and industries along its banks. Mehta first requested the Supreme Court on April 29, 1985, to direct can. carried industries to …
"LAST YEAR's jaundice epidemic in Kanpur highlights the fundamental problems that plague any attempt to clean the Gangs," says social activist Raghunath Singh, commenting on the official tally of 1,200 dead in the 1991 jaundice epidemic, although the actual number is held to be much higher. Kanpur municipal officials deny …
WATER QUALITY CRITERIA Water class Criteria A Drinking water without treatment: Faecal coliforms: 50 MPN / 100 ml (max); DO: 5 mg/1 (min); BOD: 2mg/l (max) B Bathing: Faecal coliforms: 500 MPN / 100 ml (max);DO: 5 mg /l (max) C Drinking water with treatment: Faecal coliforms: 5000 MPN / …
CIVIC authorities in Kanpur never seem to find the time or the resources to solve the problems of the 3,000 residents of Rajapurva, a slum in the heart of the city. This must be so, otherwise how can one explain why a slum settlement that's older than the nation was …
IT may have been this emotive encomium to the Ganga that motivated Nehru"s grandson, Rajiv Gandhi, to undertake India"s most ambitious environmental clean-up programme ever. Launching the Ganga Action Plan (GAP) in Varanasi on June 14, 1986, Gandhi, then prime minister, of India, stated confidently, "We shall see that the …
"PENGAL ondru serndal mudiyadhadhu," (If women unite, they can solve all problems), says 27-year-old Nagamani, an active member of Srirumallar Mahila Sangha (women's association) of Dhenkanikottai, a densely populated village near Hosur in Dharmapuri district of Tamil Nadu. Nagamani's sangha is one of five functioning in Dhenkanikottai, thanks to MYRADA, …
PHYSIOTHERAPY researchers in Australia have developed a device that can predict the probability of back pain in humans. Many devices can measure spinal muscle functions, such as strength and endurance, but the Australian device called the Pressure Biofeedback Unit (PBU), can calculate the supportive capacity of muscles that protect the …
IT WAS a routine job of replacing the defective safety valve of the spare ammonia feed pump at the 15-year-old urea plant of the National Fertilisers Limited (NFL) at Panipat. Around 11.00 am on August 26, eight employees climbed the steps to the open-air ramp, which had been declared a …
PANIC-STRICKEN by an illicit liquor that has taken a toll of at least 75 persons and a mysterious fever that may be Japanese encephalitis or simple food poisoning, Patna medical authorities have issued a series of directives that range from the irrelevant to the naive. Many days after the outbreak …
The silver ant -- Cataglyphis bombycina -- is the undertaker of the Sahara desert -- a role it has been forced to adopt because of its own body limitations and because of a small lurking, desert lizard that loves to gobble them alive. Rudiger Wehner of Zurich University began a …
INDIAN scientists find lichens can be used to monitor urban pollution levels. Lichens are disappearing within the core zone of the highly industrialised Haldia township in West Bengal, due to increasing air pollution. (Pollution Research, Vol 11, No 1). Sensitivity of lichens - essentially symbiotic associations of fungi and algae, …
INDIAN students already have classes beamed via an Indian satellite. Now they can talk back to their teachers via a new link. If a 10-day experiment of a satellite-based continuing education programme of the Institute of Electronics and Telecommunication (IET) and the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) takes off, a …
TRIALS conducted in Pali, Rajasthan, indicate, that the ramkathi babul (Acacia nilolica, variety cupressiformis), indigenous to Andhra Pradesh arid Maharashtra, is an appropriate agroforestry species in and areas, according to a report in Indian Farming. (Vol 4 1 No. 11) The tree rp-sprouts when cut provides nutritious fodder and tough …
JOINING the Russians and the French, the US senate overwhelmingly voted to suspend, and ultimately ban, the testing of nuclear weaponry. Two months back the House of Representatives also voted in favour of the ban. Yet, this concession to the new world order may fail if defense secretary Dick Cheney …
THE COUNTRY'S first-ever agitation on the right to defecate has come to a sorry end. Residents of a slum in Ashok Vihar, a north Delhi colony, find themselves sandwiched between a court verdict that requires some of them to shift to create space for toilets and local residents opposing their …
