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- Pawar's daughter on panel that will examine biotechnology Bill 1
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Sumita Dasgupta
Sumita Dasgupta
Articles by the Author
1995-6-15
When the Ebola virus broke on April 10 this year, the scientific world went into a tizzy? It's uncontrollable, it's the big daddy of horror movies, and it's incurable. Authors look at the little killer from a safe distance
1995-9-15
US's Democrats and Republicans break common bread over the fairness, or otherwise, of the Regulatory Reform Bill that could make industry accountable for the phenomenal fouling of America
2004-5-15
The growth of a women's group that moved from being a savings unit to a social voice
2002-11-15
As the Cauvery river dispute between Karnataka and Tamil Nadu gets reduced to a politico-legal wrangle, focal issues remain unaddressed
1998-11-15
A usual story: a transnational company develops a profitable product based on the resources and knoledge preserved by an indigenous community from the South. However, very little is done to compensate the community. Author analyses a few instances where transnationals did try to share benefits with the communities
1998-9-30
For the first time in India, the draft of the Plant Varieties Protection (PVP) Act is being finalised by the ministry of agriculture. India, as a member of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), is obliged to enact this law to protect the interests of innovators of new crop varieties and the plant breeders. A debate has been raging in the last four years on who should be the prime beneficiaries of the law-farmers, commercial breeders or public sector scientists. Union agriculture minister SOM PAL tells SUMITA DASGUPTA why he thinks the law should favour scientists
1998-7-31
Suresh Prabhu is by no means breaking new ground. He is merely mouthing the same promise made time and again, but never fulfilled, by his predecessors
1997-9-15
The Biovillage project provides rural folk the finance and technical knowhow to cultivate for the market while conserving water and soil
1997-7-31
The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) has failed to curb illegal trade in Indian wildlife and wildlife products. But India's stand at CITES, at variance with its position in other environmental fora, was repugnant and hollow
1996-7-31
The issue of genetic resources today has apparently introduced "a new dimension to national security". Though some scientists are making desperate attempts to develop protection models, the government and the official scientific establishment prefers to sleep, or gripe that the West is pillaging our country
1996-7-15
An American company appropriates the name 'basmati' as its own, and the contentious issue of patents and protection comes to the fore once again
1996-6-30
The recently concluded FAO meeting on the control over plant genetic
resources, their conservation and sustainable use has left the North
and the South bracing up for a major battle in the days to come
1996-3-31
The mad scramble for patenting
the magic malaria antidote is
seemingly resulting in dishonesty
and plagiarism, while Onges, the
actual knowledge providers, wait
and watch, helplessly
1996-1-15
The discovery of a generation-old plant extract used by Onges in
The Andarnans has patent-hungry profiteers jostling their way down
There The question is, whether the custodians of the secret stand to gain
anything at all
1995-12-15
Ken Saro-Wiwa died because he had dared to assert the Ogonis'claims to their
In Nigeria, the giant wheels of progress have been leaving a
veritable wasteland behi
them in the course of their ingress into the home turf of the
Ogonis - denuding fores
devastating farmlands and ravaging wetlands. The Ogonis' defiant
protest against this has only earned them state-sponsored repression
1995-9-15
A recent study gives disturbing revelations about the impact that everyday-use chemicals may have on the human sperm count and even induce sex change
1995-9-15
US's Democrats and Republicans break common bread over the fairness, or otherwise, of the Regulatory Reform Bill that could make industry accountable for the phenomenal fouling of America
1995-8-15
It's no more going to be science for science's sake in China anymore as the nation plans for megabuck
1995-7-31
Indo-Bangladesh water talks seem to have taken a positive turn while critics still consider the issue a washed out case
1995-7-31
France obstinately plans to ahead with nuclear testings in the South Pacific just after the NPT conference held by the Big 5
1995-6-30
A debate on Earth's last virgin territory heats up as multinationals continue to stampede towards the Antarctic
1995-6-15
When the Ebola virus broke on April 10 this year, the scientific world went into a tizzy? It's uncontrollable, it's the big daddy of horror movies, and it's incurable. Authors look at the little killer from a safe distance
1995-5-31
Environmentalists and Democrats in America gear up to tackle the
Republican "onslaught" on landmark protection laws
1995-4-30
A recent encyclical from the Pope bolsters resurgent anti-abortionist "pro-life" groups in the US
1995-4-15
A lot of sound and fury signifying nothing: that was the Social Development battlefield at Copenhagen
1995-3-15
The forthcoming World Summit for Social Development has already polarised North-South social imperatives
1995-2-28
Global resentment brews as Japan plans to ferry a new consignment of radioactive waste across maritime boundaries, flattening the latest perceptions and innovations of safety
1994-12-15
An extraordinary session of the US Congress meets in December to approve the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade amidst fears that its new incarnation will undermine US sovereignty.
1994-11-15
Developing nations insist that industrialised countries are reneging on their part of the deal in cleaning up the atmosphere
1994-10-31
An elated India is elected chairpersons of the International Atomic Energy
Agency's board of governors and the organisation's member nations
agree to strengthen security around nuclear plants
1994-8-31
Indian manufacturers of CFCs are no longer fatalistic about winding up, but they are banding together to overcome ploys that will gag attempts to recoup their investments
1994-7-31
Reacting to a perennial water crisis with a series of dams that will ravage the rainforests, the Thai government bashes on regardless and displeases its neighbours
1994-6-15
The International Conference on Population and Development is doing more than just providing lip service to the cause of women
1994-5-31
Reluctantly funding developing countries for research on CFC substitutes is another exercise in enriching multinationals who created much of the ozone hole
The UN environment report states that Ganga would disappear by 2030.There would be no need to train engineers or even Ganga...
A report published in the Journal of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology suggests that babies of...
Yes, the happening and looming threat of the loss of Bio-cultural diversity stares us in the face. This is particularly true...