The Indian traditional medicine (TM) has a rich heritage of science healing humans and animals. While so much attention is being paid to regulation of biomedicine (BM) practice and research, the same is desirable for TM too. The existing guidelines and regulations related to natural products/herbal formulations should be implemented to integrate BM and TM in a meaningful way for patient-centric treatment, as this would add to the Government’s endeavour to improve public health.
Man-made forest fires in the traditionally populated zone (about 800–2000 m altitude) are common in much of the Central Himalaya, and are a major topic of environmental debate. This study based on an analysis of data of the State Forest Department at Uttarakhand on incidence of forest fires shows that these are high-frequency, low-severity surface fires of small size, largely determined by the moisture conditions of the pre-monsoon season (from March to mid-June), and the traditional practices of biomass collection by local people.
River health assessment (RHA) protocols are the tools used globally that emphasize upon factors which contribute for ecological fitness of the river such as catchment health, floodplain health, channel health, flow health, quality health and biotic health indicators. Human intervention by constructions of dams, excess water abstraction, channel diversion and several other factors contribute to the depletion of diverse flora and fauna of a river.
Soil series representing different physiographic units were studied to know the impact of temporal change in land use and cropping system on some soil properties in the northwestern parts of the Indo-Gangetic Plain. The dynamics in land use and cropping system for the period 1983–84, 1996–97 and 2007–2008 and change in soil properties for the period 1983 and 2008 were studied. In Singhpur soil series developed on Shiwalik hills, the soil organic carbon (SOC) content decreased from 0.69% in 1983 to 0.40% in 2008 on account of increased deforestation and soil erosion.
The South Indian city of Chennai experienced three phases of heavy rainfall that resulted in devastating flood during November and early December of 2015. We find that propagating convective systems from the west Pacific Ocean intensified further over the warm Indian Ocean before moving north towards Indian land region.
Long-term measurements (from August 2009 to December 2014) of aerosol black carbon mass concentration (MBC) and spectral aerosol optical depth (AOD) were carried out from a high-altitude location, Hanle in western trans-Himalaya as part of the Regional Aerosol Warming Experiment.
We present the measurements of cloud-base height variations over Aryabhatta Research Institute of Observational Science, Nainital (79.45E, 29.37N, 1958 m amsl) obtained from Vaisala Ceilometer, during the nearly year-long Ganges Valley Aerosol Experiment (GVAX). The cloud-base measurements are analysed in conjunction with collocated measurements of rainfall, to study the possible contributions from different cloud types to the observed monsoonal rainfall during June to September 2011.
A large number of diseases have been grouped together as ‘rare diseases’, because we do not know much about them. There is no consensus on the definition of a rare disease. This is because, obtaining reliable statistical estimates of the frequency of occurrence of a rare event, such as prevalence of a rare disease, requires an inordinately large sample size, collection of which costs prohibitively large amount of money. (Editorial)
This article provides a retrospective view of noise policies and ordinances in India. It also proposes revisions in them for noise abatement and control based on the available knowledge on noise policies and regulations followed around the world. The work focuses on the inclusion of noise limits for construction activities, household appliances apart from the revision in ambient noise standards and National Building Codes for protection against noise pollution.
Soil pollution in Guwahati city, Assam, India has become a major concern since the last few decades. To study the impact of automobile and industrial emission, distribution patterns of 16 different polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and eight heavy metals were investigated in the soil samples collected from 15 different sites. Higher concentration of total PAHs and heavy metals was found in the industrial areas compared to the high traffic areas.
