-The Hindu Business Line   Hubli: Radiation and chemical-induced Mutation and subsequent use in recombination breeding at Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) has resulted in the release of 39 improved crop varieties in oilseeds and pulses in India, said Dr Ratan Kumar Sinha, Director, BARC, Mumbai. Delivering the 25th Annual Convocation address of the University of Agricultural Sciences, Dharwad, Karnataka, Dr Sinha said nuclear techniques in agriculture is particularly helpful in creating new...

Discovery of a deadly form of TB in a Mumbai hospital  underscores mismanagement In December last, when doctors at Hinduja Hospital in Mumbai raised the alarm over a deadly form of tuberculosis, the Union health ministry was quick to refute the claim. In its press release on January 17, the ministry said the term “totally drug resistant TB” is “misleading”; it is neither recognised by the national programme for TB control...

India seems to have arrived at the threshold of polio eradication, but should it lower its guard? ON January 13, India achieved what had only two years ago seemed impossible in the immediate term. The country, which, given the epidemiological data in the new millennium, had come to be regarded by health experts around the world as one that would be the last to achieve freedom from polio (poliomyelitis), recorded no...

-The Telegraph   Hospitals should inform patients regarding the radiation exposure they have undergone during CT scans and other such tests rather than keep them in the dark, health experts have said. Pointing out that radioactive elements emitted from radiation transmit highly-charged particles that can damage genetic blueprint of cells, they said such exposure causes major health problems, including cancer. “At times the cell can no longer function or repair itself and dies...

Mamata Banerjee has reintroduced an administrative structure to bring land and land reforms officials under the district administration’s “direct supervision” in a move aimed at injecting accountability and reining in staff close to the Left that had scrapped the system. The Jyoti Basu government had abolished the British-era structure in 1989, bringing in decentralisation but allowing Alimuddin Street to pack the department with chosen officials who would bypass the district administration...