India's rural innovators have proved that ordinary people are indeed capable of extraordinary inventions. Despite many constraints -- lack of education and severe cash crunch -- most of them have succeeded in using technology cost-effectively to build ingenious products. A washing-cum-exercise machine, hand operated water lifting device, portable smokeless stove, automatic food making machine, solar mosquito killer, shock proof converter, a floating toilet soap are few of the products on display...

Agitations show people don't want blind development Launches research centre on marine bio-diversity Minister of State for Environment and Forests Jairam Ramesh on Wednesday criticised the country's “blind development plans” at the cost of ecological balance. “I am not against development but it should not be at the cost of our environment. We are presently following development plans blindly which can only lead to damage of the environment with ultimate impact on the...

Radiation from mobile phones and towers poses serious health risks, including loss of memory, lack of concentration, disturbance in the digestive system and sleep disturbances, according to an inter-ministerial committee formed by the ministry of communications and information technology to study the hazards posed by mobile phones. The committee has also attributed the disappearance of butterflies, bees, insects and sparrows vanishing from big cities to mobile phone-related radiation. The eight-member committee, which...

NGOs To No Go’s     * NGOs have mushroomed; so have instances of misappropriation of funds     * Not disclosing expenditure and receipts; nor revealing who funds them     * Not setting up NGO for the task it was funded for     * Flocking to 'hot' topics, inviting accusations of singing to industrialists’ tunes     * For every NGO supporting a cause, another springs up against that cause *** NGO numbers     * 3.3 million Number of NGOs...

Twice every year, between 1981 and 2000, a helicopter would whirr around the hills of the Western Ghats in Kasargod, a district in north Kerala bordering Karnataka, spraying endosulfan over the cashew plantations on the upper reaches. Children would rush out to take a look at the helicopter and the white spray would settle like mist on their heads and on leaves and shimmer in the sunlight. But that’s also...