There is no land to cultivate medicinal plants, neither are there any legal provisions, nor market access. At present, the risks involved are too high for small scale farmers to opt for cultivation of medicinal plants and herbs

The government s vanaspati van scheme is good news, but for it to succeed small scale farmers and local communities have to be brought in its fold

At a time when traditional Indian systems of medicine are critically affected by the non availability of herbs, the country is losing its medicinal wealth to well organised smuggling networks. Government policies with a blind eye for domestic trade have m

Sundarbans in the Indian state of West Bengal is the estuarine phase of the Ganga as well as of the Brahmaputra river systems. This littoral forest is the only ecological habitat of the tiger of its kind not only in India but also in the world, except in Bangladesh.

Pulmonary responses of children chronically exposed to ambient air pollution in Calcutta have been investigated. A total number of 153 children from Calcutta and 116 from rural West Bengal in the age group of 6-17 yr were included in this study. Respiratory symptom complex, sputum cytology and micronucleus (MN) count of buccal epithelial cells were evaluated.

Nine districts in West Bengal, India, and 42 districts in Bangladesh have arsenic levels in groundwater above the World Health Organization maximum permissible limit of 50

In some areas of Bangladesh and West Bengal, concentrations of As in groundwater exceed guide concentrations, set internationally and nationally at 10 to 50 ?g l?1 and may reach levels in the mg l?1 range. The As derives from reductive dissolution of Fe oxyhydroxide and release of its sorbed As.