Bitter bounty: Why karela leaves can be a good harvest off your kitchen garden

Bitter gourd leaves not only have medicinal and nutritive properties, they can be added to tasty recipes as well 

New database finds 960 new ‘druggable’ components in Indian medicinal plants

The database was created by the Institute of Mathematical Sciences (IMSc), Chennai, to facilitate drug discovery

A flower which can treat skin cancer and prevent greying of hair

Used for worship and hair colouring, modern entrepreneurs have found new uses for the hibiscus flower

Mountains of Sanjeevani

The Uttarakhand government's initiative to spend Rs 25 crore on an elusive mythical herb should trigger a wider quest to identify, document and …

Turmoil in the park

Book>> Democratizing Nature: Politics, Conservation, and Development in India by Ashwini Chhatre and Vasant Saberwal OUP 2006

Desert blooms

Halophytes - plants growing on saline soil - could be India's Answer to the problems of salt desert and wasteland reclamation, besides Being …

Implement the Biological Diversity Act in its true spirit

It is high time the Centre and states did so. It would save India from a number of avoidable problems

Sweet ’n’ sour

Moringa and tamarind are popularly known as the trees of life for Indians. Moringa is in fashion as the world eyes India to feed its frenzy for …

Satellite Maps Forests

Jhum farming destroys forest cover in northeast India

Mint relieves pain, acts as food preservative

Branding from origin

The French system of orgin labelling can be adopted for Indian medicine

लुप्त होती प्रजातियों को सहेजने में जुटा उत्तराखंड वन विभाग

हल्द्वानी, लालकुआं, पिथौरागढ़, रानीखेत, नैनीताल, गोपेश्वर, देहरादून और उत्तरकाशी के रिसर्च रेंज में वनस्पतियों की 1145 प्रजातियां सहेजी हैं

The Kani learning

How benefit-sharing between a research institute and the Kani tribe went awry

The secret garden

Want to know about a lost variety of rice or a cure to asthma? Answers lie in the notebooks of schoolchildren and women of the Sundarbans and …

Science and Technology - Briefs

40 फीसदी पौधों पर मंडरा रहा है विलुप्त होने का खतरा

दुनिया भर में करीब 140,000 पौधों की प्रजातियों पर विलुप्त होने का खतरा मंडरा रहा है, जिसमें से 723 प्रजातियां दवाओं के निर्माण में ...

Paan loses flavour

Iconic paan no more appeals to farmers, traders and common people. They say the contagious spread of chewing tobacco, especially gutkha, is fast …

INDIA

Making money through herbs in Himachal

Medicinal plants can improve the fortunes of state's rural poor

How Adivasis of one Jharkhand village are trying to preserve ethnomedicine

With ‘civilisation’ and ‘modernity’ having made inroads into India’s tribal areas, its heritage of traditional …

आहार संस्कृति: पहाड़ों का अनोखा उपहार है चुलु

खुबानी के पेड़ में फल गर्मी के मौसम में लगते हैं, जिसे सुखाकर पूरे साल व्यंजन बनाने में इस्तेमाल किया जाता है

Highs and lows

The government's vanaspati van scheme is good news, but for it to succeed small-scale farmers and local communities have to be brought in its fold

Grow more

There is no land to cultivate medicinal plants, neither are there any legal provisions, nor market access. At present, the risks involved are …

Predicting the future

A severe shortage of medicinal plants and herbs threatens ISM. Cultivation may be the only way out. But currently medicinal plants that are …

A Himalayan Tragedy

People who have no idea about forests step in to further trade, while the indigenous herb gatherers get exploited further