Butterfly wings to the aid of glaucoma patients
INSPIRED by tiny structures on transparent butterfly wings, scientists have developed a light-manipulating surface for more effective and longer-lasting eye implants for glaucoma patients. Researchers
Frontline (Chennai)
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Judicial rap
"The Constitution guarantees the right to life and to personal liberty. The values which underlie Article 21 of the Constitution are seriously eroded by deaths on such a systemic scale, as the facts before the court in relation to the State of Maharashtra demonstrate... .
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Vines of debt
WHILE writing out the receipt for Pandurang Kadam's onion crop on April 19, the trader did not realise that it would be used as forensic evidence. The next day Pandurang returned to the Lasalgaon market and set himself on fire. The town watched in shock as Pandurang burned in the yard where a thousand farmers' hopes are extinguished every day. In his pocket, they recovered the receipt.
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Marathwada's turn
SIX months ago, 65-year-old Kashinath Ravan Kolge killed himself by drinking pesticide. His wife Venubai Kolge says mounting debt drove him to suicide. "He had taken a loan to dig a borewell. But we did not get any water. We had no money left. The crops were yielding very little. It was a hopeless situation."
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Private project, public fears
Efforts are on to get funding from public sector institutions. The Madhya Pradesh government has been backing the project though one of its own departments had filed criminal charges against the
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Coal calculations
At Ladrumbai in Meghalaya, the lure of coal money threatens social disruption and environmental devastation. On account of haphazard mining the town is sitting on a rabbit warren of crisscrossing
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Rising stakes
For several reasons, 2006 is a watershed in the history of India's nuclear power programme.
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Damming spree
Sandwiched between the towering Jade Dragon and Haba Snow Mountains in the northwestern part of China's Yunnan province, Tiger Leaping Gorge is one of the world's deepest river gorges. Here about 1,500 kilometres upstream from the Three Gorges Dam, the Jinsha river (as the Yangtze is known in its upper reaches) thunders its way through the 18-km-long gorge with, as yet, untamed power.
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Mining frenzy
The terrible consequences of uncontrolled iron ore mining in Bellary district prompt a demand for its curtailment. The boom, which has caused the disruption of roads, encroachment of forest land,
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The backlash
The Chhattisgarh government has suspended Salwa Judum, launched as a people's awareness campaign to oppose naxalites, in the wake of the killing of several of its activists in Dantewada district and the spurt in naxalite attacks on civilians. The movement had become controversial after the exodus of tribal people from villages because of extremist.
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Dubious record
The history of the Sardar Sarovar dam on the river Narmada is the history of successive governments finding surreptitious ways to drown reasonable debate in the face of incontrovertible facts. Today, evidence in the audit reports of the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) points to the economic insolvency that plagues the project.