Science and technology hold the key to developing low-input, high-output agriculture. The challenge is to use new technologies creatively and to make evidence-based decisions on the deployment of new technologies. Crop breeding is carried out to meet two broad objectives: one, to increase yields of a crop per se and, two, to protect the yield potential by developing crops resistant to diseases, pests and environmental extremes.  Both yield-enhancement and yield-stabilisation are...

-The United Nations More than a decade after it was classified as ‘probably carcinogenic to humans,’ the UN Health agency today classified diesel engine exhaust as ‘carcinogenic to humans.’   The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), which is part of the World Health Organization (WHO), announced the re-classification today, after a week-long meeting of international experts, and based its decision on sufficient evidence that exposure is associated with an increased risk...

-The Hindu Aamir Khan's “Satyamev Jayate” has drawn sharp criticism from Indian Medical Association   Taking forward the debate on commercialisation of Health, initiated by actor Aamir Khan in his television show “Satyamev Jayate” that drew sharp criticism from the Indian Medical Association (IMA), Health activists have said distortions in medical practices, induced by unregulated commercialisation, have become systemic problems. In an open letter to the IMA, which has sought an apology from Mr....

-The Economic Times   Pushed to the wall by an overly cautious drug regulator and an alarmist Indian government, clinical trial companies are looking at South East Asian countries to expand their business and escape the red tape of Indian authorities.  Clinical research companies (CROs), that were aspiring to become billion- dollar companies by 2010, had to rework their plans after a Parliamentary Standing Committee report questioned the allegedly unfair and unethical trials...

-The United Nations On the occasion of World Day Against Child Labour, two United Nations independent human rights experts today highlighted that of the 215 million children working throughout the world, more than half are subjected to the worst forms of child labour, including sexual and labour exploitation. “One of the most abhorrent forms of child slavery is found in mining and quarrying, where children start work from the age of three,”...