Desert healer
BY: Ruhi Kandhari
BY: Ruhi Kandhari
By: Bharat Lal Seth Securing water for people does not have to be at the cost of biodiversity
By: Bharat Lal Seth Use of groundwater accounts for 0.8 mm sea level rise Groundwater is becoming important to sustain agriculture, industry and drinking water. But as we exploit aquifers, more water becomes part of the hydrological cycle. A recent study shows evaporation and precipitation of groundwater is responsible for a fourth of the annual sea level rise of 3.1 mm.
Oxygen therapy for oil spill Oil spill, like the one off Mumbai coast in August, leaves crude oil on shores for years. Scientists have devised a way to expedite biodegradation of oil.
By: Hemantha Withanage Sri Lanka is flirting with nuclear power Sri Lanka is becoming a power hungry nation. Several coal power plants with a total generation capacity of 3,200 MW are on the anvil. The country’s new energy minister, Champika Ranawaka, wants a nuclear power plant by 2025. That’s a sure sign of change To be fair Ranawaka is not the first proponent of nuclear power.
By: Richard Mahapatra, Kumar Sambhav Shrivastava, Sumana Narayanan, Aparna Pallavi Two tribal villages in Gadchiroli district of Maharashtra—Mendha Lekha and Marda— savoured victory when they won community rights over their forest resources in August last year. The rights conferred under the Forest Rights Act of 2006 include the right to collect and sell minor forest produce (MFP). These include tendu leaves used in beedis, and bamboo that have high commercial value and were under the forest department’s control. Winning the right to manage these resources meant economic liberation to the two villages.
By: Sunita Narain The world can shape the debate on climate link in two ways. One, it can argue endlessly about the scientific veracity of the link between human-induced climate change and the floods in Pakistan. Two, the world can agree that even if a single event—like the Pakistan floods that drowned a fifth of the country— cannot be ascribed to climate change, there is no doubt that a link exists between such events and climate change. The Pakistan meteorological department’s data shows the country received 200 to 700 per cent more rainfall than average. Rains came in cloudbursts in ecologically fragile mountainous areas and led to natural dam bursts and floods downstream. Rains were incessant leading to more floods and greater devastation.
By: Dahr Jamail Erika, who is a photographer, and myself, headed out in a boat from Fourchon, US state Louisi ana’s southernmost port. We had four co-travellers: Jonathan Henderson, Randy, Craig and guide. It was August 16, the day several of Louisiana’s fisheries were reopened for catching shrimp.
By: Smriti Sharma Origin of aerosols dictates cloud shape How cloudy is it outside? The answers may depend on the level of atmospheric pollution in one’s region. Cloud-forming microscopic particles, called aerosols, absorb and reflect solar radiation. These particles have the ability to modify cloud formation and encourage or suppress precipitation. They can be released from manmade sources like vehicles, industry, agriculture, and natural sources like sea salt, volcanic dust, sulphates from biogenic gases.
By: Tiasa Adhya Ashwagandha occupies a prominent position in traditional health systems like Ayurveda. In India the medicinal plant is cultivated on 4,000 hectares, mainly in Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat. But when it comes to being the most effective, a group of researchers claims, it is the wild variety.
Oxygen therapy for oil spill
Insects too believe in self-medication. Monarch butterflies can cure themselves and their offspring using medicinal plants. Researchers found that certain species of milkweed, which the larvae feed on, can reduce the threat of a deadly parasite. They also found that parasite-infected female monarch butterflies prefer to lay eggs on plants that will protect their offspring from illness. This behaviour in butterflies is trans-generational. The study is one of the best evidence to date of insects using medication.
By: Tashi Morup Leh farmers face losses as flood debris rendered land uncultivable Two months after a cloudburst and floods destroyed their crops and land, hundreds of farmers in Leh are struggling to make a living. Farmlands in the district of Ladakh are covered with thick layers of dried mud and boulders. This has led many Ladakhi family suffer as their source of livelihood has shattered. It has taken Leh several decades back.
By: Savvy Soumya Misra
By: Sunita Narain The high corridors of the nation are abuzz with talk about how much food should be given to the country’s poor as a right. Then they worry who should get this right to food. All who are poor, the very poor or the poor but not so very poor? This haggle over the below poverty line (BPL) and above poverty line (APL) seems to miss two crucial points. One, that the government does not know how to enumerate its people in terms of poverty. Two, there is no fixed and absolute line dividing the poor and not-poor.
By: Kaushik Das Gupta Ten years ago Bangladesh’s rivers were deeper and hilsa plentiful. But silting, dams and pollution pushed the fisher into deep ocean and resulted in shifting of their homebase. The Bangladesh fish wholesaler’s loss became Gujarat’s gain as increasingly hilsa from the Tapti and the Narmada feed the Kolkata market.