The arrival of large quantities of wheat in the grain markets of the Punjab-Haryana region is a heart-warming sight, while poor storage is a matter of national shame. It was in April-May 1968, that the country witnessed the wonderful spectacle of large arrivals of wheat grain in the mandis of Punjab like Moga and Khanna. Wheat production in the country rose to nearly 17 million tonnes that year, from the previous...

Acting on a letter of Bihar State AIDS Control Society, police today conducted raids on at least three illegal blood banks in the state capital and arrested their eight representatives. The police also detained six blood donors for questioning and verifying facts. The donors, all rickshaw-pullers and makeshift stall owners, were in dire need of money. The agents of the blood banks allegedly lured them to “donate” blood for Rs 300...

The United Nations health agency today released its first ever list of the most vital medicines for saving the lives of mothers and children, and stressed the need to ensure their availability in developing countries. The list of the top 30 medicines includes oxytocin, a drug used to treat severe bleeding after childbirth, the leading cause of maternal death, as well as simple antibiotics to treat pneumonia, which kills an estimated...

The amounts of various radioactive releases into the environment are unknown, as are the winds and other factors that determine how radioactivity will disperse. The different radioactive materials reported at the nuclear accidents in Japan range from relatively benign to extremely worrisome. The central problem in assessing the degree of danger is that the amounts of various radioactive releases into the environment are now unknown, as are the winds and other...

Bhopal gas victims allege that they are being used as guinea pigs for unethical drug trials without being informed.An RTI has revealed that Bhopal Memorial Hospital has pocketed over Rs 1 crore by allowing pharma companies to conduct clinical trials on disaster victims.Shankar Lal was 33 when the Bhopal Union Carbide leak of 1984 happened. Lal and his pregnant wife Laxmi survived but not their child who died at birth....