Rise in medical education fees on the cards
Prompted by a financial crunch, the ministry of health is considering raising fees in medical colleges to recover costs
France stops supply of uranium
Officials say the stoppage of enriched uranium for the Tarapur reactor will not affect India's peaceful nuclear programme
Inflation fears hold back monsoon forecast
The Indian meteorological department has not made its usually accurate early monsoon forecast this year, reportedly at the behest of the finance …
Some farmers laud Dunkel Draft
A section of India's farmers emphatically supported the Dunkel Draft, saying it contains just what they have been demanding for years.
Heart patients suffer massive price hikes
Doctors and manufacturers seem unperturbed by the ever-increasing price of Acetrome, a drug for heart valve transplant patients.
Farmers against even modest power rate hike
State ministers are giving the agriculture sector a breather by ignoring the Prime Minister's call to stop subsidising power supply and agreeing …
Move to nationalise NGOs
The Planning Commission's efforts to network voluntary agencies has received a lot of flak from the non-government sector.
Gene storage bank gets major facelift
Worried by the steady erosion of India's wealth of genetic diversity, a major expansion project will quadruple storage capacity in the national …
Streamlining forest protection law
States are complaining that project clearance delays are turning out to be the worst fallout of the Forest Conservation Act, which has otherwise …
Bill must ensure power to the people
The political debate on the Panchayati Raj and Nagarpalika bills does not address the issue of giving power to the people so they can take …
USA confronts Third World on nuclear front
The Reed panel recommends specific nuclear weapons against the developing nations, even as the US retains its hold on their retaliatory rights
Mere volume will not sell research papers abroad
Despite a prolific output, Indian science researchers are rarely cited in foreign journals. The reasons: poor quality work on subjects far …
Revoked!
The cancellation of a US firm's rights on a method to genetically engineer cotton has brought weaknesses in India's patent system into focus
A reprieve for tribals
The Gujarat government has been ordered not to close the sluice gates of the Sardar Sarovar dam until all rehabilitation and resettlement plans …
Coalition lor a cause
US activists demand a say in the government's modus operandi in using funds for breast cancer research
Return of the drug
Anti- and pro-lobbies lock their horns over the renewed use of the much maligned drug thalidomide
Baptised by fire
Wildlife saviour Richard Leakey, hailed as messiah by some, and hated as hell's messenger by others, is now in the thick of Kenyan politics
Noble judgement
Environmentalists exchange victory signs as three Atmospheric scientists and an anti-nuclear activist are awarded Nobel prize
Agra agitation falls flat
The impasse at Agra reflect poorly on the goverkment's efforts to relocate industries and save the Taj
Bamboo musings
Although termed "forest weed" or "the poor man's timber" bamboo's potential may satisfy modernity's growing needs
The blacking out of Enron
How serious was the Maharashtra chief minister when he mentioned environment as a reason for scrapping the gas-based Enron project?
Polemics over a pest
A controversy rages over whether the Surat plague bacillus was a secret hardsell by a Kazakh chemical firm
Oil spoil
The planned scuttling of the superannuated Brent Spark oil rig sparks off an international protest
No climate for change
Despite Third World pressures, the Northern countries refused self-restraint in the Berlin Climate Change summit
The great and bloody organs bazaar
The recent regulatory organ transplant Act, supposed to be a fist in the kidneys of the huge illegal bodyparts trade, has turned out to be a …