Public vs profit

The public sector giant did the right thing for the wrong reason

For government's eyes only...

The Indian official machinery has excelled for 50 years in keeping secrets. But with the right to information campaign gaining momentum, people …

Let a hundred channels bloom

With digitisation, the number of channels will increase at least 3-fold

Aiming for zero

The main points of the statement of the Population Summit of the World's Scientific Academies:

For breeders alone

Breeder's have a monopoly in seed transactions under the proposed plant variety legislation

Livelihood Crisis

Polythene culture in Puri is driving the palm leaf packets out of use

Sans science

A CAG report reveals the rot in India's scientific institutions

Looking the other way

Under GATT it is illegal for farmers to sell seeds, but this can be ignored if the transactions are small, says the GATT chief

A matter of interpretation

Will the Plant Varieties Bill and the proposed Biodiversity Bill really help the farmers and the poor?

Hope on the horizon

As the Supreme Court cracks down on Agra's iron foundries, the begrimed Taj Mahal may finally breathe easy

Uncertain Future

The people of Uttaranchal are resisting the government's attempt to wrest control of the van panchayat forests they have nurtured for decades

Facing onslaught!

While new diseases emerge every year in the forests of India, there is little scientific research to deal with them

Earth matters

Many contentious issues come to the fore as preparations for the World Summit on Sustainable Development get underway

Body language

How does record wicket-taker Kapil Dev maintain a blistering physical pace at an age when cricketers usually hang up their bats?

Breaking the ice

Discovery of ice on the Moon might make colonising it and using it as a low-cost outer- space missions launching centre a less difficult target

Witness to genesis

Cosmologists spy on galaxies being born, and conclude that these massive stellar assemblages might have formed earlier than believed

Will it, won't it

Indian meteorologists say the Pacific current El Nio would not disrupt monsoons in India. Foreign experts disagree

Will the gift of GAB be wasted?

Worried about the state of the world's largest underground source of freshwater, Australia gears up to save the Great Artesian Basin from …

Omnipresent Poison

The maximum residue limits for the pesticide endosulfan in soilwater and vegetables from Padre have been breached several times over. But human …

Foisting failure

Haryana's Sukhomajri village exemplifies how government intervention can ruin a successful community-based programme

Lilliputians

Scientists claim to have discovered the smallest life forms. But are they alive?

Swarm warning

Officials claim the locust problem is under control, but unless millions of hoppers -- young locusts -- stalking the deserts are exterminated …

Hypothetical cure

Unlike allopathic medicines, Ayurvedic products are not clinically tested before they are introduced in the market. This raises doubts about …

Cool reception to ambitious programme

Though the government boasts its improved chulha project has exceeded targets, officials admit the programme has been a failure because of lack …

Beyond beginning

A recent finding boosts Darwin's wisdom about the origin of species and questions what is known as 'biology's Big Bang'