-Down to Earth The pesticides in question continue to be used in India, but are already banned, restricted or withdrawn in other countries Several experts underscored the ill effects of using chemicals excessively in agriculture and stressed on ecologically sound alternatives while backing a recent government draft order to prohibit a bunch of pesticides. Civil society members, citing risks, threats and damage from 27 pesticides, came out in support of a May 14,...

-Livemint.com Unprecedented resources have been marshaled across the world in the race for a covid-19 vaccine, with the US and Germany pumping in most funds The Indian government’s recent letter trying to speed up clinical trials for a vaccine candidate, which it is developing in collaboration with a Hyderabad-based pharmaceutical company, betrayed its desperation to develop the world’s first covid-19 vaccine. But in a historically unparalleled global race for a vaccine, India...

-NDTV The chairman of the committee, Adhir Chowdhary, who is also the leader of the Congress party in the Lok Sabha, appealed to members to think of the nation and act with their conscience and find a consensus on the important subject. New Delhi: The Public Accounts Committee or PAC, one of the most important parliamentary panels which scrutinises key reports by the auditor general and has taken up issues like the...

-World Health Organisation Newsroom India is among the countries most dramatically affected by snakebite and accounts for almost half the total number of annual deaths in the world. Authors of the article entitled ‘Trends in snakebite mortality in India from 2000 to 2019 in a nationally representative mortality study’ analysed 2,833 snakebite deaths from 611,483 verbal autopsies from an earlier study and conducted a systematic literature review from 2000-2019 covering 87,590...

-Livemint.com * The pandemic-induced global pause resulted in several visible environmental gains. Will they last? * A controversy is brewing over the government’s efforts to push through radical changes to the country’s environmental laws, which seek to further dilute environmental protections NAGPUR: Teeming wildlife; cities breathing fresh air; and clearer rivers. Those were all small signs of hope amid a dire, once-in-a-century pandemic. Nature was supposedly healing. At one point in April, an...