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Cover Story

Organic is all the rage. Organic food, cosmetics, clothes and even organic medicines. But mostly it is food. There are speciality stores that sell only such items, while supermarket chains are stocking more of these products which are sold at a premium and come with certification that it is grown without chemical inputs and synthetic additives. But as Middle India discovers the virtues of naturally grown food, thanks to increasing awareness about the dangers of high pesticide use in conventional farming, it raises fundamental questions about Indian agriculture and the path it needs to take, especially in view of climate change concerns. Latha Jishnu and Jyotika Sood go to the roots of the organic phenomenon to understand the changes taking place in farmers’ fields and the policies that are driving organic agriculture, or holding it back

Editor's page

Weather dice is loaded

During my weekly conversation with my sister I told her about the unusual searing heat this June, the problems of power cuts and how we are coping in India. She, in turn, told me that in Washington DC, where she lives, there was a terrible storm that damaged her roof and uprooted trees in her garden. They were fortunate that they still had electricity, because most houses in the city were in the dark.

News

Higgs hypothesis gathers mass

Scientists say the discovered particle is consistent with the sought-after Higgs boson

Ban toxic imports: court

Supreme Court wants hazardous waste rules aligned with Basel Convention

Punjab slips for sand mine, again

Ropar authorities plan mining in 776 hectares when only 30 hectares is allowed

Heat behind rise in mystery fever?

Yet to identify a pathogen, Bihar officials say fever cases rising because of high temperature

Interview

‘Manipulate market, lower drug prices’

In times of rising costs of healthcare compounded by shortage of funds, UNITAID, a UN organisation, was set up in 2006 to improve access to life-saving drugs in developing count...

Patently Absurd

The Avon lady lifts our biodiversity

Loopholes in the Biological Diversity Act being used to export India’s genetic material

Science & Technology

Science and Technology - Briefs

On elephant’s trail

The animal’s movement can help ascertain seasonal boundaries

Lab on the lap

Indian scientists develop a low-cost, easy-to-use physics lab

Few steps away from disaster

Bird flu virus can be transmitted from humans to humans

White uprising

How fungi stopped coal formation

Desalination made easy

Graphite and copper can make brackish water potable

Web Check

Sci-Fi unleashed

Developers of this site describe themselves as sc-fi buffs. The site fills in a vaccum where most generic search engines direct one to just about any site that mentions science fiction.

Browsers can use a comprehensive set of search tools to find the latest in the genre.

The heads, including movies, TV shows, actors as well as sub-genres like horror and fantasy, direct one to more than 2,200 sites.

Special Report

Steeled up

Unable to bear pollution any longer, people in Kotdwar force Uttarakhand to commission an independent assessment of steel factories in the region

Guar mine

Farmers in Rajasthan make big bucks as shale gas rush boosts demand for little-known cluster bean

Tiger reserved

Tiger tourism booms without proper regulation; new guidelines attempt to contain damage

Impatient to sterilise

In a hurry to bring down fertility rate, health officials are blatantly flouting government’s guidelines

Baigas in exile

Once called lords of the jungle, the Chhattisgarh tribals are being evicted without adequate relief

Crosscurrent

Making slow headway

Hurdles in the way of a buffer zone in Arunachal tiger reserve

Media

Goodbye Minitel

On June 30, French telecom authorities switched off the groundbreaking Minitel service which had brought online banking, travel reservations and porn to millions of people a decade and a half before the world wide web.

Game of hide and seek

On June 28, The New York Times (NYT) started a Chinese-language website that generated so much interest in China that two of its microblog accounts drew thousands of followers.

Beautiful survivors

With a 79-year-old as the winner, it was an unlikely beauty contest. The pageant was for Holocaust survivors in which 14 women, aged 74 to 97, walked the red carpet and described their sufferings at the hands of the Nazis during World War II. Hava Hershkovitz, who had to flee her native Romania, was crowned the winner.

News Snippets

>> A US court has ordered Twitter to release old details about a user held during an Occupy Wall Street protest in New York. The micro-blogging firm contested the subpoena, saying the tweets were owned by users, not the company. But a judge said defendant Malcolm Harris’ privacy would not be violated if the material was handed over.

A hard rap on drugs

Irrational routes to science

A video clip using images of lipsticks, killer heels and a handsome male laboratory worker to encourage women to pursue science careers has been condemned as sexist and demeaning. Science: It’s a Girl Thing, produced by the European Commission (EC), has generic pictures of beakers and words like “hydrogen” with pictures of skinny models.

Can’t beat, join them

In March this year, when Vladmir Putin announced Russia’s new protest law, even the most optimist feared death of democracy. A resident of the Siberian city of Yekaterinburg has found a novel way to subvert the law: enlist the support of the authorities. Ostislav Zhuravlyov decided to inform his fellow, like-minded thinkers to join him on a tour of the city to enjoy the local surroundings. This was his way of getting the opposition together without being guilty of forming an opposition protest gathering.

Letters

Letters - July 31, 2012

Backdoor trade

The write-up, “Death on mounds of a bumper crop” (July 1-15, 2012), is a realistic analysis of farmers’ woes in the Bundelkhand region of Uttar Pradesh. I have quit my corporate life to start farming. When I reached Tikamgarh in Madhya Pradesh in May, I saw many people making temporary shelters on their tractors or heaps of wheat and waiting outside procurement centres.

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