There are a large number of indigenous rice varieties in India, which are still grown by the tribal people and small farmers of the remote areas where the modern agricultural practices, sufficient foods as well as healthcare systems are a dream. Nature has provided them some alternative ways. They have different indigenous rice varieties with its nutritional and medicinal values. The paper presents nutritional and medicinal values of some of the rice varieties identified from the distant areas of Assam, Bihar, Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand.

A patent on a process for making storage - stable edible food materials from kernels of gorgon nuts or fox nut (Euryale ferox) has tremendous impact on biodiversity resulting in triggered mass culture and commercialization of this aquatic macrophyte. Besides ecological impact, it has social and economic impacts too. This paper studied the impact of the patent on biodiversity at micro level. The study reveals that mass culture of these plants in water bodies instead of fishes has created an interlinked ecological, social and economic imbalance.

FATS Jim Mann, professor of human nutrition and medicine at the University of Otago in New Zealand, has reviewed several studies which claim that when people cut down on sugars and replace it with

The almost two decade civil conflict in Sri Lanka has radically altered the economic and social conditions of the people in the north, with profound impacts on the environment, biological diversity and natural resources. Habitat destruction and the accompanying loss of wildlife are among the most common and far-reaching impacts of armed conflicts on the environment.

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