These three areas in and around Delhi give tell-tale accounts of the state of affairs pan-India

Three areas narrate three different stories. Palanpur village, in Uttar Pradesh’s Moradabad district, has been a subject for researchers …

Research is not magic solutions take a long time

S K SINHA, former director of the Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI), is currently a National Professor at the Water Technology …

The great experimenter

For ages, Indian farmers have practised ecofriendly farming by using local resources to improve soil fertility and control pests and diseases. …

A plant breeder comes into his own

Awards are finally coming to K Vinod Prabhu, 54, a plant breeder, for his work on building resistance in wheat, mustard and rice through the …

'The world's entire gene-pool is open for manipulation'

INDRA VASIL was one of the first scientists to successfully manipulate wheat plants using genetic engineering techniques. Before he came in, …

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 (…

'Privatisation can be a major threat to medical research'

Robin Fox, 54, the editor since 1989 of the premier international medical journal, Lancet, was in New Delhi recently for the Lancet Grand Round …

Combining chips and drives

In today's information world, bits of data are processed by semiconductor chips, but stored in magnetic disc drives. Limitations of this …

Science under siege

Agricultural science has ossified in India. Despite a vast network of public research institutions and agriculture universities across the country,…

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 …

The double-edged sword

Picture this: A doctor draws out cells from a foetus to diagnose if it will develop into a normal child. A simple and quick test of the sample …

Who is watching GM crops?

As India gets ready to unleash a vast number of genetically modified (GM) food crops, politicians have joined activists in opposing engineered …

How to inspire India's youth to take up farming?

Arguably, reviving India's agriculture is the country's most important agenda. But who will carry forward this primary livelihood activity? There …

Ebola vaccine developed to fight bioterrorism

An experimental vaccine against the lethal Ebola virus has been administered to humans for the first time in November 2003. If the trial proves …

Manipulating Research

Private funding has given a new meaning to scientific research today. With rising corporate research budgets, academic institutions are leaning …

'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 …

Documenting the Northeast's tribal laws

Land is central to the tribal identity in the region too easily abbreviated 'northeast'. Jeuti baruah knows this too well. As director of the Law …

Desperately seeking experts

The environmental situation in India is grave -- our natural resources are getting depleted at an alarming rate and there is an acute paucity of …

Saving rice

Rice is at the heart of a fierce strategy debate as the country prepares to launch the second Green Revolution in the eastern states. …

GEAC has power only to withdraw permission

Arjula R Reddy, a plant geneticist, was appointed co-chairperson of the Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee (GEAC) in 2009. At present, he …

Zeroing in on persistent pollutants

Paints and refrigerants have chemicals like polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB) and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons which are difficult to remove …

Science cannot be a minion to wealth

A journalist without the pretensions of a scientist -- that's how JOHN MADDOX, editor of Nature for 15 years, would like to see himself. On his …

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 …

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 …