The editor of The Lancet, Richard Horton, has said naming a superbug after New Delhi was an “error”, and has apologised. Some Europeans returning from South Asia had been found infected with a bacteria carrying a drug-resistant gene last year, which had been named New Delhi metallo-beta-lactamase, or NDM-1, as the first patient had flown from Delhi to Sweden with the infection. While acknowledging this was a mistake, Horton said, “the science...

The rapid growth of global markets has not seen the parallel development of social and economic institutions to ensure balanced, inclusive and sustainable growth. Although we may not have yet reached “the end of history,” globalisation has brought us closer to “the end of geography” as we have known it. The compression of time and space triggered by the Third Industrial Revolution —roughly, since 1980 — has changed our interactions with...

Eminent scientist M S Swaminathan has said the new National Food Security Act should include a provision for distribution of millets through the public distribution system. This measure will be implemented keeping in mind the possible reductions in yield of rice and wheat due to climate change. Speaking at a climate change symposium during the 98th Indian Science Congress 2011 held at SRM University on Wednesday, Swaminathan elaborated on the...

The Indian government should drop sedition cases against rights activists Binayak Sen, Arundhati Roy, and others, the Human Rights Watch said Thursday. The international body has also urged the Indian parliament to repeal the colonial-era sedition law, as it has been used by the authorities to 'silence peaceful political dissent'. The authorities have pursued sedition charges against peaceful activists, despite a Supreme Court ruling that prosecution under the sedition law requires incitement...

There has been a gross simplification of the issues involved in the exposures in the Radia tapes on the lack of integrity among mediapersons. In order to understand how exactly journalists really function it is necessary to understand the overall context in which they operate and clarify some of the persistent myths about what the profession is all about. Four myths in particular need to be dissected: That it enjoins...