`Many doctors are simply businessmen'
Samiran Nundy, chairperson of the department of surgical gastroenterology and organ transplantation at Sir Ganga Ram Hospital and editor-in-chief …
Lethal link
An expert on toxicology and a campaigner deeply concerned with the health impact of chemical pesticides, Romeo F Quijano was at the forefront …
In search of the missing
In the undivided Koraput district of Orissa, there exist 190 villages that have slowly been pushed off the map of India. Hurled by fast-track …
Forest conservation is too complex an issue to be resolved by executive fiat
The condition of India's forest and her forest dwellers is extremely grave. A fresh round of police attacks on tribal people -- four dead in Dewas,…
GM crop benefits are all in future
Nearly 40 years ago, Marc Van Montagu of Ghent University in Belgium, along with fellow researcher Jeff Schell, discovered that Agrobacterium …
Sponge iron’s dirty growth
In the years to come, India's expanding steel production will be largely driven by sponge iron. But its manufacturing process, based on coal, is …
The chemistry of living death
THE world's biggest industrial disaster has been rendered today its most trivial. Criminal corporate culpability and governmental concern for its …
Enter -The green rating project
Indian industry is huge. But most environmentalists believe it has done little to reduce pollution, which will only rise as the economy grows. …
Bt-by-Bt assessment
On November 10, 2002, people wearing 'Bollgard' caps visited cotton farmer R Narsimha Reddy at his home in Aleru, a village in Nalgonda, Andhra …
Just dump it
Acids of arsenic. Organo-mercury compounds. Batteries. Bristles of boars or hogs. More potent stuff: asbestos; slag dross; ash and residues of …
The inside story
Bad health is good business. The pharmaceutical industry knows that. But now bad health is turning out to be good business for the food industry …
Cancun clinches deal—for polluters
Cancun has restored the sanctity of multilateral negotiations under the UN climate convention. People had lost faith in it by the end of the …
Everyone is stealing germplasm
When agronomist Ralladoddi Hampaiah was advisor to the Russian government, he discovered how easy it was to take genetic resources out of India. …
Pollution of Hinduisim
Simply put it is an amazing gap between theory and practice. Yet it is one of the main reasons why India's environment is as degraded as it is …
Pesticide residues in bottled water
Packaged drinking water or natural mineral water is everywhere. It is now available in pouches, cups, bottles and bulky transparent jars. It is …
Foss time in India
Microsoft is the most familiar term in the proprietary software industry. The company's penetration in people's minds is so deep that it is often …
Iran-India gas pipeline laid low by geopolitics
Mani Shankar Aiyar is known for the many controversies sparked by his provocative comments and controversial ideas. As Minister for Petroleum and …
Impotent plan?
In August 2005, the Indian Parliament passed the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (nrega). The latest avatar of state-financed employment …
The goat gamble
It has been a slow and steady shift over decades. Forced by declining returns from farming in ecologically fragile areas, small farmers have been …
Whose budget is it, Mr Jaitley?
Being the first full year budget of the National Democratic Alliance government, there was expectation that the finance minister's announcements …
The minimum radioactive dose for treating thyroid cancer
The approach to treating thyroid cancer has changed over time. One method is using radioactive iodine to kill left over cells after surgically …
Taking stock of biodiversity
The Convention on Biological Diversity, 20 years on, is still struggling to stem the precipitous decline in biodiversity. After missing the 2010 …
Eyeing the coastlines
Further dilution of the rules safeguarding the Indian coastal ecosystem has just been proposed. Under the guise of providing land to poor …
Power the people
For the country where only 15 per cent of its population have access to electricity, Nepal has come a long way. It took 84 years to achieve power …
Solving poverty
Gurdev S Khush is the principal plant breeder in the Plant breeding, genetics and biochemistry division of the International Rice Research …