IMAGINE THE lowly brinjal you have always known turning into a sci-fi gizmo — with an uncharted potency for good and evil. Imagine a food turned into a pesticide — and you will have a measure of the essential uncertainty around Bt brinjal. When Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh announced his indefinite moratorium on Bt brinjal on February 9, he halted a juggernaut that could have swept India to a point...

With often preventable, non-communicable diseases such as heart attacks, strokes, diabetes, cancer and chronic respiratory illness accounting for 60 per cent of all global deaths, experts from around the world gathered at a United Nations forum today to draw up plans to reverse the trend. Solutions exist to prevent premature deaths from such diseases by cutting tobacco use, unhealthy diets, physical inactivity and the harmful use of alcohol, yet the...

Says conditions cited by the Centre are not applicable to the State  State fears it will affect flexibility of schemes Contends that workers do not need intermediaries THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The State government is understood to have expressed to the Centre its reservations about the move to rope in non-governmental organisations (NGOs) for implementing the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) in the State. Official sources told The Hindu here that the State...

Though people oppose refinery expansion, officials record their statements as favourable for project  The official record of the public hearing on the Vedanta Aluminium’s plan to expand its refinery in the foothills of Orissa’s Niyamgiri Hills seems to contradict itself. While the people said “no” to the project, the officials recording their statements concluded with a “yes”. The public hearing, held on April 25, 2009, contributed to the decision of several...

When the government passed the Right to Information (RTI) Act in 2005, it should have added a statutory warning: exercising this right may be extremely injurious to health. Shashidhar Mishra of Begusarai, who was murdered by unknown assailants last Sunday, is the second RTI activist to be killed in a month for perhaps knowing too much. Attacks on RTI activists have emerged as a disturbing trend of late, especially in...