-The Times of India CHENNAI: When Professor Russel Walker Strong set out to perform the world's first partial liver transplant from a live donor in Brisbane in 1989, the Australian media went berserk. "I was accused of using babies as guinea pigs. Headlines identified me as the surgeon who was running amok," said Prof Strong. More than two decades later, he stood before an audience in Tamil Nadu, a state, that...

-The Hindu Chennai: Health Minister C. Vijayabaskar said the State stood first in the country with respect to harvest of organs. With seven years’ of experience in organ and transplant programme, the State is now looking to better its achievement by actively involving more government hospitals. At present only a handful of government hospitals across the State perform transplant surgeries, whereas the contribution by private hospitals has been significant. Releasing the annual report...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: Biochemist Thuppil Venkatesh says he is not surprised by claims of food safety regulators in Uttar Pradesh and Delhi that they have detected lead, a potential toxin to humans, in Maggi noodles. For over a decade, Venkatesh, professor emeritus at St John's Medical College, Bangalore, has been trying to warn the country about what he says are dangerous levels of lead in the environment that may slip into...

-India Today "The butterflies will show you the way to the farm." Farmer Sunil Gupta is not talking of mythical butterflies that will appear to guide me to the organic farm I am trying to locate amidst swathes of farmland, some lush with the standing paddy, some damaged in parts from last week's strong winds, others dotted with vegetable patches or freshly ploughed for the next crop. Can one tell an organic...

-DNA 38 districts under Green Revolution II affected by slow poison Indian government's ambitious project Green Revolution-II (GR-II) to promote growing rice in the Eastern states of India is bringing arsenic to your plates. As many as 38 districts spreading across six states out of the seven states where the scheme is being implemented are reported to be affected by arsenic. These states are Bihar, West Bengal, Assam, Eastern Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand...