Israel-based Taro Pharmaceuticals has sued its proposed buyer Sun Pharmaceutical Industries in an Israel court, for allegedly thwarting attempts to sell off Taro's subsidiary with drug-making facilities in Ireland to a group of investors. In a letter to Taro shareholders, the firm's Chairman Barrie Levitt said on June 15 that it had commenced litigation in Israel to stop Sun from engaging in "practices that we deem detrimental to our ability to maximize the value of the Irish operations in a sale". THE LAWSUIT

CPM general secretary Prakash Karat, who said that his party's efforts would be at disentangling India from the US and Israel, ruled out any concession to the government at the meeting of the nuclear deal on Wednesday. "We will not allow the government to wrap up the safeguards agreement with the IAEA,' he said.

>> A national debate on the energy reform project started in the Mexican Senate on May 13. The debate, which will run for 71 days, will not only involve legislators and political leaders, but also

There are several procedures to control mosquitoes by chemical, mechanical, genetical or biological means. Biological control of mosquito larvae by the application of natural animal products is one of the important techniques, which is cheap, easy-to-use and environment friendly. (Correspondence)

India could learn a thing or two from Israel when it comes to supplying municipal water to meet ever-rising demands. "Manufactured water' is probably the ideal solution, says Mo Provizor, director of the Israeli Water Authority. Speaking to The Indian Express on the sidelines of WATECH 2008, an international conference on industrial and urban water management technologies, he said Israel currently meets about 25 per cent of its water needs with recycled sewage water and desalinated seawater and brackish water; it has hopes of upping the number to 50 per cent by 2013.

Former US president Jimmy Carter has said Israel holds at least 150 nuclear weapons, the first time a US president has publicly acknowledged the Jewish state's atomic arsenal. Asked at a news conference at Wales' Hay literary festival yesterday how a future US president should deal with the Iranian nuclear threat, Carter put the risk in context by listing atomic weapons held globally.

Efforts are on worldwide to make desalination units more energy efficient and environment-friendly. Water has always been a volatile topic in Australia, the world's driest inhabited continent. Yet, protesters are complaining that a planned desalination facility outside Melbourne, Victoria, will generate too much freshwater. The $3-billion government-owned plant will produce more than 300,000 cubic meters of drinkable water a day when it opens in 2011, placing it among the world's biggest.

The head of an Israeli-backed electric car project estimated on Sunday that its partner, the Renault-Nissan alliance, would likely invest $500 million to $1 billion in the swappable-battery electric cars. "This is the cost for a three-year car programme," Shai Agassi, the founder and chief executive of California-based Project Better Place, said on the sidelines of a news conference to introduce the electric car prototype.

When Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary-general, was asked to ponder the future of the world before an audience of powerful businessmen and politicians, at a meeting in Switzerland earlier this year, he could have chosen any topic he liked. What he focused on was both a hoary old favourite, and a newly popular preoccupation, of debates on world affairs: the rising risk of wars over fresh water, as populations increase and the world gets drier.

What may become a sustainable solution to the world fishery crisis is being experimented by scientists in the US. Completely cultured indoor marine fish may become the answer to the estimates of the wipe out of edible marine fish from the seas by 2048. Scientists at the Biotechnology Institute of the University of Maryland, Centre for Marine Biotechnology, in the US, are creating what may be the next generation of seafood. It may be a step ahead of the ecologically damaging 'net pens' used to culture marine fish in countries like Israel.

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