"The world needs a new work culture, not just jobs"
Austrian-born Frithjof Bergmann, a professor of philosophy at the University of Michigan, USA, founded the Center for New Work in 1984 to help …
What makes us so?
This is no longer a question for philosophers. Evolutionary biologists also dwell upon it. Manuel Massot from Laboratoire Ecologie & Evolution,…
Catch me a colossus
Catching Veerappan, who amuses himself upsetting the government cart, is like trying to cage a titan. The State is in no position to meet his …
Reconstructing atmospheric history
Old paintings can provide information about the composition of the atmosphere of bygone ages. When a volcano erupted in Indonesia in 1815, …
Ways to budge Karzai
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Simulating real-life networks
India is a leader in IT. But how do researchers here apply the science to improve people’s lives? Malay Bhattacharyya, assistant professor …
`Top scientists misuse power, funds'
It seems like a lost cause but Kasturi Lal Chopra battles on. As president of the Society for Scientific Values (SSV), he leads the charge to …
`Diseases have become a way of life in Gaza'
Born and raised in a refugee camp in Gaza, Izzeldin Abuelaish is a Palestinian doctor who has worked for reconciliation between Israel and …
‘There is not enough milk’
Amrita Patel was part of the White Revolution that made India self-sufficient in milk. She joined Kaira District Cooperative Milk Producers’…
`Growing food is like printing your own money'
Ron Finley grows food and for this he has been branded as a guerilla gardener, a renegede, an ecolutionist. It all began four years ago, when Ron,…
Monsoon of death
Every monsoon, Baba Raghav Das Medical College of Gorakhpur, Uttar Pradesh, witnesses hundreds of children dying of viral encephalitis or Acute …
What's the fuss about Bt brinjal?
Mohammad Rafiqul Islam Mondal, director-general of Bangladesh Agricultural Research Institute (BARI), is among the handful of people who have …
'Ministries play the blame game'
Jagdish Bahadur, an expert on glaciers and former joint advisor, department of science and technology, and Syed Iqbal Hasnain, who heads the …
Agriculture is egocentric
Norman Uphoff, professor emeritus of government and international agriculture at Cornell University, US, likes to say that the system of rice …
G Nammalvar, messiah of organic revolution
G Nammalvar was one of a kind, a messiah of farmers who was revered as a saint-teacher by his followers. He was an agriculture scientist, a …
`We've strong evidence that eating sugar contributes to heart disease'
Kimber Stanhope, nutritional biologist at the University of California, Davis, US, is studying the health effects of fructose, a component of …
Will the boom last?
Fifteen years after it rose and went limp, the biotech sector, globally, as well as in India has seen a bull run of sorts. In January this year, …
Land subsidence is serious
India depends heavily on groundwater. But overextraction can cause the land to sink. A recent study found that signs of land subsidence are …
Organic goes online
India’s organic food exports have found a new strength—online traceability. Web-based TraceNet can trace an organic product right …
'They asked me to withdraw my court case'
P PARDHA SARADHI is tenacious. This mild-mannered professor at the Department of Environmental Studies at the University of Delhi (DU) has …
Linkage between science and public policy has weakened
M S Swaminathan, popularly known as the father of India’s Green Revolution, has been associated with national agricultural research system (…
`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 …
“Aboriginal people in Australia still do not have right over their land”
Poet and writer ALI COBBY ECKERMANN was in India recently to launch her memoir, Too Afraid To Cry. The book is an account of her growing up as a …
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 …
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 …