Online Farming

* Agropedia, an open source encyclopaedia for agriculture, has been launched by the government (http://agropedia.iitk.ac.in)
* It disseminates information to farmers and enables sharing of knowledge amongst them
* The site is a follow-up to a-Aqua, an online agriculture Q&A forum

Rising sea levels are forcing people in low-lying areas to flee their homes
This new category of refugees is being called climate migrants
They are yet to gain any international legal recognition
However, resettlement of residents of islands such as the Maldives to safer locations is being discussed

GM herbs knock on the doors of Ayurveda.

IF you are concerned about losing the battle against pollution, there's all the more reason to worry. The Central Pollution Control Board (cpcb), the national apex body, can hardly be called a regulator for tackling environmental degradation. In fact, it is "near-defunct". This extraordinary conclusion comes

How would you react if you were told that your child had contracted a lifelong ailment because of the side-effects of a vaccine that is part of the government's immunisation programme? And what if it's discovered that the vaccine didn't even offer protection in the first place against the disease it was meant to provide immunity from?

Doctors will soon get a template for treatment ...

You may call it a prescription of sorts for doctors. The Union ministry of health and family welfare has begun drafting a set of standard treatment guidelines (STG) at the national level in an attempt to bring uniformity in medical care across the country.

IMPROBABLE though it may sound, an exotic fungus has triggered a gold rush of sorts in Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh. Considered a performance enhancer, Yarchagumba is a much-sought-after ingredient in traditional medicine in China. But some trade observers suspect that the Beijing Olympics has pushed prices to a never-before high this year.

How green is my country? Indians are asking the question but not doing enough. ... Debarshi Dasgupta

As India unthinkingly denudes its own forest base, it's almost as if it clears the ground for a bout between 'doers' and 'sceptics'. A third of the country covered with trees by 2012 sounds like a comforting prospect. But the government lacks the resources to meet this stated goal.

Even as actor Salman Khan's brief stint at the t Jodhpur jail hogged the headlines, scientists at the Hyderabad-based Laboratory for the Conservation of Endangered Species (LacoNEs) held a quite celebration. Their experiment in artificially inseminating a black buck had proved to be a success. Blacky, as the fawn was named, was born on August 23 to one of the three inseminated bucks.

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