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 …
MEDICAL education is suddenly making news. A spate of student agitations in Tamil Nadu; an ordinance banning capitation fee in the state; a petition against private colleges in Andhra Pradesh; and, two ordinances by the Centre making it mandatory for new medical colleges to get prior approval from the government, …
SCIENTISTS at the School of Marine Sciences in Cochin have discovered that shells of some molluscs, such as two-shelled clams, which store trace metals in their shells and tissues, are good biological indicators of water pollution levels. Detailed investigations on accumulation of trace metals in the clam Villorita cyprinoides, found …
THE RICH out of greed and the poor out of need have damaged the fragile ecology of the Himalayan region so extensively the eight districts in the Kumaon and Garhwal region are gripped by a water shortage and law and order is gravely endangered, with village pitted against village and …
STEWART Cole and his team of scientists at the Pasteur Institute in Paris have discovered that the absence of a single large gene is responsible for making certain strains of tuberculosis bacteria resistant to isoniazid, the principal drug used to treat the disease. (Nature, Vol 358, No 6387) On reinserting …
A NON-GOVERNMENTAL report on the state of India's health has expressed concern that environment impact assessments of development programmes almost always ignore their effect on people's health. "What is important is that infrastructural projects that are sanctioned -- even after impact assessment -- might even be increasing morbidity (illness) or …
PIGS MAY may now rule the heart's of men. Dr David White, an immunologist and lecturer in clinical surgery at Cambridge University in UK, has discovered a way of transferring human genes to pigs, to breed hearts on demand. A breakthrough has come in isolating and engineering the gene responsible …
River Capacity Existing class Desired class Possible source of pollution Sabarmati i) Ahmedabad city to Sabarmati Ashram ii) Sabarmati Ashram to Vautha E E B D Domestic and industrial waste from Ahmedabad Sutlej i) Downstream Ludhiana to Harike ii) Downstream of Nangal Partly D Partly E E C C Industrial …
THE MINISTRY of Environment and Forests has asked the Planning Commission to earmark Rs 250 crore during the eighth five-year plan as the centre's share in the proposed national river action plan (NRAP) -- a programme to clean up polluted stretches of 19 rivers -- in which states will bear …
Researchers at the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-arid Tropics (ISRISAT) in Hyderabad find Indian farmers obtain lower groundnut yields than African farmers, due to pest damage. Indian farmers spray their crops at least seven times in a season, making it impossible for the prey species to recolonise the …
THE NATIONAL Bureau of Plant Genetic Resources (NBPGR), a giant "freezer" in New Delhi to store plant genes, is implementing a Rs 64.8-crore expansion project that will increase its storage capacity four-fold -- from 154,964 varieties at present to 600,000 varieties. The expansion, with partial assistance of about Rs 40 …
OXFORD researchers have found children are more likely to inherit asthma and hay fever from mothers than fathers. The gene responsible, found on chromosome 11, is only active when inherited from the mother. An international team of scientists, led by Bill Cook and Julian Hopkins, speculates that maternal inheritance of …
Lichens as pollution monitors Pollution Zone I Pollution Zone II Pollution Zone II Pollution Zone II Lecidea granifera Parmelia Caperata Beacidia convexula Lecidea granifera Parmelia Caperata Pyrenula nitida Graphis scripta Lecidea granifera Parmelia Caperata Pyrenula nitida Graphis scripta Lecanactis premnea Arthania antillarum Catilaria indica Lecidea granifera Parmelia Caperata Pyrenula nitida …
THE GANGA'S alarming pollution level has inspired both government and non-governmental involvement in clean-up work. While the Union government has created an exhaustive structure to cleanse the river, some non-governmental organisations (NGOs) have also been active, though on a smaller scale, in arousing popular consciousness and analysing official clean-up measures. …
Central Ganga Authority Ministry of Environment and Forests Paryavaran Bhavan CGO Complex Lodhi Road New Delhi 110 003 V Rajamani Chairman, Steering Committee Ministry of Environment and Forests New Delhi 110 003 Vinay Shankar Director, Ganga Project Directorate Ministry of Environment and Forests New Delhi 110 003 INTACH 71 Lodhi …
In an ambitious Italian-US experiment, the crew of space shuttle Atlantis tried to release an Italian-made satellite tethered by a 20-km copper cord into orbit -- and failed, when the release mechanism jammed repeatedly. The scientists had hoped to learn about new ways to power spacecraft and how to use, …
RELIGIOUS and social practices are responsible for a tradition of prejudice in India against human dissection, which has resulted in surgery being generally ignored in indigenous medical systems such as ayurveda and unam. Poonam Bala sets 1836 in her book, Imperialism and Medicine in Bengal, published by Sage, New Delhi, …
THE GENERAL reaction to the Forest Conservation Act (FCA) in the UP hill region of Uttarakhand is, "Hum paryavaran shabd se hi tang aa gaye hai." (We are fed up of the word environment.) The cry "Paryavaran murdabad" (Down with environment) first rang across the Uttarakhand hills in 1989, setting …
Seed companies are beating a path to the office of a professor at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi, entranced by the commercial prospects of his discovery of a single gene that could greatly improve the quality of proteins in plants. In a major breakthrough, Asis Datta, professor of molecular …
THE TITLE promises a holistic analysis of the multi-faceted issue of child labour, but the book loses credibility because it concentrates on child labour's link with fertility. The studies relate largely to rural India and the subcontinent. Fertility-based explanations of child labour miss the crux of the problem: poverty of …
IN MANY ways, the Ganga Action Programme is a very ambitious scheme. It aims to clean up one of the world"s longest rivers -- using sophisticated and expensive technologies. But the project does not sufficiently recognise that the Ganga flows through one of the poorest and most densely populated regions …
