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NOIDA/DELHI

14

THE HINDU

SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY


SNAPSHOTS
Premature birth alters
brain connections

Compact light source improves CT scans

Premature birth can alter the


connectivity between key areas of
the brain, says a new study. Why
such birth is linked to a greater
risk of neurodevelopmental
problems can now be understood.

Dietary supplements
good for coral health

REUTERS

A new study has found that the


critically endangered Staghorn
coral may benefit from
supplemental nutrition to mitigate
the adverse impacts of global
climate change.

Better cancer therapy


with moderate exercise

THAKUR AJAYPAL SINGH

Regular moderate exercise, such


as a brisk walk or a jog, can help
cancer patients counteract some
side effects of treatment low
blood count, fatigue, cachexia and
lost muscle mass.

Brain separates our


ability to talk and write

SAMPATH KUMAR G.P.

Writing and speaking are


independent systems supported
by different parts of the brain.
One who cannot write a
grammatically correct sentence
may say it clearly, scientists say.

Wind-borne pollen
might also seed clouds

Why greater risk of teeth grinding

The recently developed Compact Light Source a


New research shows that anxiety felt in social
commercial X-ray source enables more revealing CT circumstances elevates the risk of teeth grinding
scans than todays routine scans.
causing tooth wear, fractures, and jaw pain.

TB treatment programme may


be generating more MDR cases

Forget passwords,
its question time

The RNTCP currently treats patients without knowing their resistance profile: JMM

R. PRASAD

ASHOKE CHAKRABARTY

THURSDAY, MAY 7, 2015

Due to faltering on both


counts, the JMM reports that
the implementation of the
NSP for 2012-2017 is not on
track projected increases in
case detection by the RNTCP
have not occurred, vital procurements are delayed and
many planned activities have
not been implemented.
Worse, about two-thirds of
the recommendations made
by the Joint Monitoring Mission 2012 have not been fully
implemented. For the most
part, the Central TB Division
has completed the policy
work requested. Work is held
up for lack of timely decisions, especially at central
level, it states.

he Joint Monitoring
Mission 2015 has
come down heavily
on the Revised National Tuberculosis Control
Programme (RNTCP) and the
Ministry of Health and Family Welfare for their inability
to handle the MDR-TB crisis
in the country. The report released last month reects on
the ndings, conclusions, and
recommendations made by it
in 2012.
Despite its inability to diagnose drug-resistant TB, the
national programmes heavy
dependence on the centuryold, insensitive smear microscopy as a primary diagnostic tool has been strongly
criticised. Besides the lack of
sensitivity, the microscopy is
ill-equipped to diagnose
drug-resistant TB. This is
particularly worrying as the
number of drug-resistant
cases is steadily increasing.
The Standards for Tuberculosis Care in India (STCI)
a document drawn up by
the Central TB Division in
consultation with the WHO
and national TB institutes
advocates drug sensitivity
testing for all presumed
MDR-TB cases. However,
this may not become a reality
in the near future. Progress
is threatened by slow uptake
of the new molecular test the
JMM says. Procurement of
these tests is unaccountably
delayed.
The RNTCP currently
treats patients without knowing their resistance prole,

Recommendations

DAILY DOSING: The report emphasises the need for RNTCP to speed up
implementation of the transition to daily dosing. PHOTO: R. RAGU
states the Joint Monitoring
Mission report. This along
with its current regimen of
thrice weekly drugs even to
those with prior resistance
has been associated with
failure and amplication of
resistance to rifampicin drug.
It is therefore likely, under
programme conditions, to be
generating more MDR cases,
it says.
While private doctors treat
patients with daily dosing,
the RNTCP follows a thrice
weekly strategy. The report
has emphasised the need to
accelerate implementation
of the transition to daily dosing.
According to the report,
turning to universal drug

susceptibility testing and


switching to a daily regimen
with adherence support can
go a long way in addressing
the problem of unwittingly
exacerbating TB drug resistance in the country.
According to Dr. Soumya
Swaminathan, Director of the
Chennai-based National Institute for Research in Tuberculosis, the RNTCP is
planning to start daily dosing
using xed dose combination
in 5-6 States and then expand
it to the rest of the country.
RNTCP is currently procuring drugs to make this shift,
she said.
Another failing of the TB
programme pertains to the
mandatory TB notication by

the private practitioners. In


spite of mandatory notication, TB patients [treated by
private doctors] are not notied to the RNTCP, the report says. It wants the
Ministry to develop e-Nikshay, an advanced version to the
existing Nikshay system for
notifying TB patients.
The national strategic plan
(NSP) for TB control for
2012-17 developed by the
Union Ministry of Health &
Family Welfare had raised
the bar for tackling the rapidly growing TB epidemic in
the country. The main goals
of the strategic plan are to
provide universal access to
early diagnosis and treatment
and improve case detection.

With the cost of treating a


person with TB going up to 39
per cent of the households
annual expenditure, the report has recommended that
the Ministry of Health minimises the out-of-pocket expenditure by families by
supporting the cost of TB
testing and [providing] free
drugs. It also wants the government to eliminate taxation on TB diagnostics and
drugs considering TB as a
public health emergency.
In order to ensure that patients receive the standards
for TB care for India, the
JMM has recommended that
the government establishes a
state-of-art TB surveillance
system for capturing all TB
cases, public and privatelytreated. This is essential for
the country to capture and
respond to local and focal
epidemics.

SHUBASHREE DESIKAN
emembering passwords
across various utilities is
a challenge that many face.
There are security breaches
that happen in password-driven systems of entry as well.
Now, a system developed by a
collaboration of researchers
provides a welcome relief.
Based on the users social
activity through the day,
questions are asked to which
only the user and the system
know the answers and these
form the substitute for password-driven access to the
utilities. The study, supported by Complex Network Research Group, IIT Kharagpur,
has also tested this on 70 users and found a good rate of
success. While storing and remembering different passwords for all the applications
one uses can turn out to be
difficult, using the same password across utilities can simplify the task but would end
up endangering security.
To get around this problem
researchers from IIT Kharagpur, University of Texas, Austin, and University of Illinois,
Urbana-Champaign, have developed an end-to-end system, ActivPass, which will
determine whether the user
is granted entry or not based
on the answers posed by the
system. For instance a smart
phone may ask its user,
From whom did you receive
an SMS this morning?
The users can set the number of questions they need to
be asked. Questions from infrequent activities, being
more memorable than the
routine ones, were used for
this purpose.
The same system can be attached to a PC also, by either

Answers to the questions


are known only to the
user and the system.
PHOTO:AFP

linking it to a social media


account or, alternatively,
making the browser capture
several activities that the user
does everyday.
A majority of the users did
not mind the device storing
information about their activities as they felt that social
media such as Facebook and
Twitter and even Gmail do
that anyway.
The greatest challenge
was running and testing it
and rening it on real people
understanding what features people tend to remember. People can remember
very well if a little hint is given and this hint must not
make it obvious for others to
guess, says Dr Niloy Ganguly
of IIT, Kharagpur, an author
of the paper on this study
which was published in the
conference ACM SIG Computer-Human Interface, this
year. The system achieved a
success rate of 95 per cent in
authenticating genuine users
and compromised in 5.5 per
cent of the cases by authenticating imposters. So, while
it is not yet ready to be used
commercially, it has proved
that it is worth developing
further.

Leprosy: antiquated Indian laws


breed stigma, discrimination

Migratory spotting throws up


an Adelie surprise

o less dreaded and stigmatised than HIV/AIDS,


leprosy, sadly, has been off
the priority list of the successive governments for a long
time. Worse, the rights of
those affected by leprosy and
their families, in India and
elsewhere, continue to be violated even now.
There are several antiquated, discriminatory provisions
in the Indian laws violating
the rights of leprosy affected
persons. For instance, in the
Hindu Marriage Act, 1955
(Section 13 (v)), if one party
has been suffering from a virulent and incurable form of
leprosy, it becomes one of the
grounds for divorce. Similarly, in the Hindu Adoption and
Maintenance Act, 1956, (Section 18 (2) (c)), if a person is
suffering from a virulent form
of leprosy, his wife is entitled
to live separately from her
husband without forfeiting
her claim to maintenance.
Many States bar leprosy-affected individuals from contesting elections. Odisha has
removed
the
provision,
though.
There are similar provisions in other personal laws
which need amendment to
prevent discrimination, Justice
K.G.
Balakrishnan,
Chairperson of the National

DISFIGURING: Leprosy is caused by Mycobacterium


laprae and can be highly debilitating. PHOTO: AP
Human Rights Commission
(NHRC), said recently.
Leprosy is caused by Mycobacterium laprae and can be
highly debilitating. Timely diagnosis and treatment of leprosy before nerve damage
occurs is the most effective
way of preventing disability.
Despite the fact that leprosy
is easily curable, the stigma
and discrimination faced by
the people affected by leprosy
continues to be a serious
problem.
In 2010, the United Nations General Assembly
unanimously adopted a Resolution on Elimination of discrimination against persons
affected by leprosy and their
family members. It called up-

on governments to abolish
discriminatory
legislation
and remove discriminatory
language from official publications; provide quality
health care to persons affected by leprosy; and promote
their social inclusion.
Shunned by the society and
often living in isolated colonies, the NHRC has now appealed to corporates to adopt
colonies of persons affected
by leprosy.
In addition to rehabilitation of the affected persons
and their families, the NHRC
has recommended that the
Ministry for Empowerment
of Persons with Disabilities
should revisit the guidelines
issued on the subject of Dis-

ability Certicate in 2001.


Particularly, to give a special
consideration to the category
of leprosy cured persons even
if they do not full the minimum disability of 40 per cent.
Also, exploring the possibility
of creating a sub-quota of reservations in jobs for leprosy
affected persons, in aggregate
5 per cent reservation, in the
pending Bill for Persons with
Disabilities.
Barring Chhattisgarh and
Odisha, as many as 33 States
and Union Territories have
almost attained the elimination level of less than one case
of leprosy per 10,000 population but the fact that new
cases of leprosy are continuing to occur despite various
preventive measures is a
cause for concern for the government. During the year
2013-14, a total of 1.27 lakh
new cases were detected.
However, the Centre is
committed to achieving the
elimination target by 2017, as
set out in the 12th Five Year
Plan, a senior official of the
Ministry of Health and Family Welfare said. The Ministry
now wants all States to appoint District Leprosy Officers along with District
Leprosy Consultants.
AARTI DHAR

K.S. SUDHI
xplorations in the Southern Ocean (SO) have
yielded a pleasant surprise to
marine scientists.
A young marine scientist
from the Centre for Marine
Living Resources and Ecology
(CMLRE), Kochi, has sighted
Adelie penguins (Pygoscelis
adeliae) nearly 500 km away
from Les Kerguelen Island in
the Southern Ocean, on their
its migratory route.
Anoop Balan, the scientist
who studied the marine
mammals of the Southern
Ocean, spotted juveniles and
adult swimming and feeding
during the expedition.
International experts have
communicated that there are
very few pelagic records of
the birds in this region, this
far north. Observations were
made on board Ocean Research Vessel Sagar Nidhi, he
said.
The Adelie penguin is one
of the most easily identiable
penguin species with its blueblack back and white chest
and belly. It is the smallest
penguin found in the Southern Ocean. During winter, the
birds migrate north only to
return in summer months,
Dr. Balan said.
The CMLRE had earlier
surveyed the ice-free areas of

UNUSUAL: There are very few pelagic records of the


birds nearly 500 km away from Les Kerguelen
Island. PHOTO: AFP
the Indian Ocean sector of
the Ocean during the austral
summer of 2004. Researchers
had then identied Antarctic
minke whales (Balaenoptera
bonaerensis), n whales (B.
physalus), sei whales (B. borealis) and blue whales (B.
musculus).
The CMLRE, affiliated to
the Ministry of Earth Sciences, planned the expedition
to obtain information on cetacean species diversity
which will help determine the
distribution, migration patterns and habitat preferences
of cetaceans in the Southern
Ocean.
Adelies are a highly migratory species. After breeding,
they do not return to their
colonies until the next spring.
They feed on krill and sh.
Little is known about the
non-breeding distribution of

this species. Records on the


migration of Adelies, commonly sighted in the Antarctic coast, into the Southern
Ocean almost 5 degree North
are signicant, said M. Sudhakar, director CMLRE, who
led the rst Indian expedition
to SO in 2004.
The Southern Ocean accounts for about 10 per cent
of the worlds oceans and supports more than 50 per cent
of the worlds marine mammal biomass, including six
species of pinnipeds, eight
species of baleen whales, and
at least seven species of odontocete whales.
The seas around Antarctica
are home to a rich and diverse
group of species that have
evolved some unique ways of
coping with the cold and
hence represent a unique polar marine ecosystem.

CH VIJAYA BHASKAR

Pollen help seed future trees and


plants. A new study shows that
the grains might also seed clouds.
These wind-carried capsules of
genetic material might have an
effect on the planet's climate.

Pollution exposure
boosts allergy risk

R. RAVINDRAN

Exposure to air pollution in the


first year of life increases risk of
developing allergies. A study
showed that the sensitivity to
allergens was linked to exposure
to air pollution during infancy.
CM
YK

Pollution: particulate matter in India higher than WHO limit


I

n 2010, air pollution killed


nearly 600,000 people in
India, according to the World
Health Organisation (WHO).
The situation has not
changed in the last ve years.
A recent study shows that a
signicant population of Indian subcontinent breathes
air with much higher particulate matter that is lesser
than 2.5 micrometre (PM2.5)
in size than the limit set by
the WHO. Outdoor air pollution as a whole, especially the
particulate matter, has been
declared as class-1 cancercausing agent (carcinogen) in
2013 by the International
Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), which is part of
the WHO. Besides, it causes
other respiratory and heart
diseases.
The PM2.5 is particularly

dangerous and can cause adverse health effects owing to


its greater penetrability into
the human respiratory system and eventual accumulation in human organs and
blood. Rural women, children
and elderly population are
more prone to diseases
caused by air pollution. Rural
women, in particular, face a
greater risk from indoor pollution locally made mud
stoves fuelled by solid biofuel
emit a far greater amount of
ner particulate matter.
Air quality of any area depends on local emissions,
long-range transport, local
and regional weather patterns, and to some extent the
topography of the region. Due
to increased buoyancy and efcient ventilation in summer,
pollution plumes rise effort-

lessly to the free atmosphere.


This leads to a reduced level
of surface level PM2.5 concentration in our breathing
zone. The problem gets aggravated during winter. Adverse
conditions during winter help
trapping of pollution leading
to elevated level of surface
PM concentration.
Compared with peninsular
India and coastal regions, the
situation is far worse in the
Gangetic Basin, especially
during winter months. The
Himalayas act as a barrier to
dissipation of pollution
plumes emanating from the
cities located in the Basin. As
a result, cities in the Basin are
more prone to sustained bad
air quality.
Evidence is emerging that
shows a strong positive relationship between increased

pollution levels and occurrence of dense fog episodes.


This clearly demands far
more stringent emission
norms in the cities located in
GB if we have to achieve air
quality to prescribed National Index. Although water is
acknowledged as a precious
resource, the air that we
breathe is still not given a
similar importance. It is time
that an Air Resource Board be
created, to begin with in a
specic affected region of the
country, which is equipped
with larger and well-trained
staff, technologists and legal
aids, and has advanced monitoring stations stationary
and mobile under it.
The state of California was
infamous for its worst air
quality in the U.S. in early
1950s due to large emissions

and valley-like topography


that allows trapping of pollution. However, with sciencebased policies, appropriate
technologies and strict regulations, residents of California enjoy better air quality
today despite a steady growth
in transportation sector and
continued industrialisation.
The State made effective
use of diesel particulate lter
(DPF) that does not allow
emission of PM2.5 into environment in vehicular exhaust
system. Reneries were augmented to produce low-sulphur fuel, a necessity for DRF
installation. Recent epidemiological studies show reduced
mortality and hospital admittance due to air pollution.
The level of soot (therefore
PM2.5) in California has reduced drastically over the last

three decades, as a recent


study reveals.
India has begun taking
steps in the right direction.
The National Air Quality index, introduced recently, has
created greater awareness of
air pollution amongst the
people. Recently, plying of
diesel vehicles older than 10
years has also been prohibited.
But the situation demands
more action in order to restore good air quality and
clear visibility. The economic
gain due to avoidable loss of
human life is too huge to be
ignored. Technical intervention through efficient cooking stoves can signicantly
improve the lives of rural
women. Improved power situation, especially in cold
days, together with better

handling of municipal waste


and trash, can also help in
achieving better air quality in
the cities. Securing clean air,
without compromising development, is achievable and
sustainable.
Environment
protection is a challenge that
has to be addressed more
comprehensively.
Central Pollution Control
Board can be divested into
various regional air boards
that will be responsible for
securing the environment in
a more proactive manner. If
mandatory, more laws need
to be enacted and strictly enforced to accomplish these
goals.
S.N. TRIPATHI
Professor, Centre for
Environmental Science
Engineering, IIT Kanpur
ND-ND

SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY / AGRICULTURE

NOIDA/DELHI

THE HINDU

THURSDAY, MAY 7, 2015

QUESTION CORNER
Milk cooker
Why does milk boiling in a milk cooker not overflow?
GEORGE PHILIP
Guntur, Andhra Pradesh
The major constituent of milk is water i.e. 85-87 per cent
and the rest is distributed among fat, protein, sugar and
salts. The boiling point of milk (100.17 degree Celsius),
therefore, is slightly higher than that of water (i.e. 100
degree Celsius). However before milk is brought to boiling
relatively less dense constituents like the fat and the proteins partially segregate and mostly oat up to form the
layer of cream. This is a covering layer and does not allow
water vapour to pass through it normally.
When milk is boiled in an ordinary vessel, the temperature of the liquid rises, even above the boiling point and a
large quantity of water vapour is generated below the
cream cover. This makes the cream layer bulge out.
Owing to its lower mechanical strength when the steam
pressure builds up on the lower side of the membrane
cream layer, it tears, releases some amount of the water
vapour and the bulge collapses. In the place of the rupture
soon the membrane gets repaired by fresh supply of the
tiny protein and fat particles, abundantly present in the
nearby medium.
Thus, the area of the top covering layer gradually increases and the surface appears bulged out, in order to
accumulate a large amount of the water vapour. Ant at
some point of time, the bulged out sheet of cream out grows
the available space in the vessel, resulting in the overow of
the milk.
On the other hand when milk is heated in a milk cooker
all these above processes do not occur. The milk cooker is a
double-walled vessel with the annular gap containing water, which boils at a lower temperature than the boiling
point of milk. As the boiling of water continues, the supplied heat is used in transformation of liquid water into
water vapour at 100 degree C and the temperature of the
water and the vessel remains constant at 100 degree Celsius.
The cream layer forms on the top of the mass of milk, like
the earlier case. However, the temperature being lower
than the boiling point of milk, it does not cause the vapour
bubbles to form and bulge out of the cream layer. Thus milk
does not overow.
DR. K. ANBARASU
Quality Control Wing
Tamil Nadu Milk Producers Federation Limited
Chennai

This weeks questions


Why are all the satellites and missiles launched from the
east coast?
A. Karthika, Chennai
Why do injuries take a long time to heal for a diabetic?
Janani, Chennai
What is the difference between GSM (global system for
mobile communication) and CDMA (code division
multiple access) mobile services? Are separate hardwares
required to provide these services?
Anuj Saini,New Delhi
Readers can send questions/answers on science and technology for the Question Corner
along with their names and address to the following email id:
questioncorner@thehindu.co.in or to The Editor, The Hindu (Science and Technology),
859-860, Anna Salai, Chennai 600 002.

CM
YK

FARMERS NOTEBOOK

A new concept called ecological


engineering to reduce pests
Efforts are on to make the region a pesticide-free zone
M.J. PRABU

rode district alone


has 32,000 hectares under paddy
cultivation.
The
district runs across the
Cauvery and Bhavani river
basin.
Due to unfavourable climatic conditions pest infestation such as rice stem
borer, leaf folder, ear head
bug, gall midge, rice thrips
all common in paddy cultivation create havoc every
season leading to nearly 30
per cent yield loss.
Many farmers mostly rely
on chemical pesticides (insecticide and fungicide) for
managing both pests and infestations. If they are advocates of organic farming
then they use bio pesticides
to keep the menace under
control.

Biodiversity
Presently a new technology called Ecological engineering
for
pest
management has been introduced by National Institute
of Plant Health Management (NIPHM), Hyderabad
to aid farmers maintain the
biodiversity and keep pests
under control while at the
same time maintaining the
paddy eco-system.
Since in southern Tamil
Nadu, it is season for paddy
cultivation efforts are currently in progress to popularise this concept for
promoting bio-intensive integrated pest management
method.
The technology trial was
adopted in Singiripalayam
village and Mr. Karthikeyan,
a paddy farmer who adopted
this technology in his eld,
says:
Due to excessive pesticide use farmers like me often
encountered

Forage crops which are still


popular among dairy farmers
STAFF REPORTER

mong the forage varieties


/hybrids released by the
Tamil Nadu Agriculture University, Coimbatore varieties
like Cumbu Napier hybrid CO
(CN) 4, Guinea grass CO (GG)
3, Multicut fodder sorghum
CO (FS) 29 and Lucerne CO 1
are still popular among the
farmers of Tamil Nadu and
neighbouring states.
These varieties have heralded a new era in fodder research and development at
the National level. The varieties are a boon for dairy farmers of Tamil Nadu, Kerala,
Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka
and Maharashtra.

Cumbu napier hybrid

COLLECTIVE INVOLMENT: Farmers visiting the field to


- PHOTO:SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT
environmental problems.
The soil health also got deteriorated. I nd the new technology encouraging, since
there is a 45 to 50 per cent
reduction in pest population.
I have also observed natural predators on pests like
damsel y, praying mantises
and spider population have
increased in my eld.
The specialist team conducted an analysis to study
the pest defender ratio for
plant health and found that
the natural enemies are able
to maintain the pest population which are infesting the
paddy crop.

Natural predators
In normal situation we
use to go for chemical spray,
sometimes even three to
four sprays to control pests
and diseases. By adopting
this technique no chemical
spray is required. Natural
enemies which prey on the
pests are allowed to ourish
in the elds. By adopting this
method I could save nearly
Rs.5,000 for a hectare towards the cost of purchase of
chemical pesticides during
one cropping season, says

The stem of Cumbu Napier


Hybrid grass CO (CN) 4 is ultra soft, less brous with sugary juice, making it more
palatable. A white powdery
see things personally.
coating on the stem is visible.
A three days eld training The tillers are numerous and
was organized for the farmer grow faster. It has large leavclub members, to get rst es, softer and less persistent
hand information on this ap- hairs on leaf blades and
proach and an exposure visit sheaths and leaf edges are not
was organized by National In- very sharp.
The leaf-stem ratio is highstitute of Plant Health Maner.
As the palatability is very
agement
(NIPHM),
high, milch animals such as
Hyderabad for a week.
In both the villages, farm- cattle, sheep and goats relish
ers are collectively involved the fodder with least rejecin the production of bio-in- tion. The variety registered a
puts, predators and parasites yield of 382 tonnes per hecfor managing the pest pop- tare a year which is 32.9 per
cent increased yield over the
ulation.
CO 3 variety. A total quantity

Mr.Haridas another farmer.


The trial has been implemented for different crops
such as blackgram, cowpea,
green gram, mustard, sesame,
marigold, tulsi, castor and
sunower
and
found
effective.
The Kendra initiated a capacity building programme
for farmers in the district and
on farm training was given on
production of bio-control
agents and bio-pesticides to
ensure the timely availability
of bio-inputs at the farmer
Pesticide free
level.
The community approach
Community approach
on this ecological engineering
A collective approach by is expected to bring the rethe farming community on gion as pesticide free zone
adoption of this technology and enhance the soil microwill not only suppress the bial activity in the paddy eco
pest population but also en- system. Plans are on to inhances the soil health troduce this method in other
through organic bio-fertilizer crops like cabbage, cotton and
utility.
groundnut in the coming
About 25 farmers from season.
Andhipalayam village near
For more information conGobichettipalayam and 30 tact Dr. P. Alagesan on mofarmers from Kallipatti in bile: 09443897654, email:
T.N.Palayam block have been myradakvk@dataone.in,
04285-241626,
initiated into this concept, phone:
explains Dr. P. Alagesan, Pro- 241627 and Mr. Karthikeyan
gramme Coordinator, Myr- on mobile: 09894905241,
on
mobile:
ada Krishi Vigyan Kendra,, Mr.Haridas
09486316620.
Gobichettipalayam, Erode.

15

of 1,07,03,873 stem cuttings


has been distributed across
India spreading over 15 states
during 2008 to 2014.

Guinea grass CO (GG) 3


The Guinea grass CO (GG)
3 is a clonal selection from
Mombasa. It has good seedling vigour with profuse tillering. It has large and long
leaves with high leaf stem ratio. Sheep, goats and pigs relish the fodder without
rejection. It had registered a
yield of 320 tonnes per hectare which is 18.5 per cent increased green fodder yield
over the CO 2 variety.
Sorghum, the foremost important forage crop in India
followed by Berseem and Lucerne is cultivated mainly in
western UP, Haryana, Punjab, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu
and Delhi and fulls over twothird of the fodder demand
during Kharif season.
This variety, rst of its kind
in India, was released more
than a decade back from the
department of forage crops.
It was released during 1980
and yields 80-90 tonnes in a
year from a hectare. A maximum of 12 harvests can be
made annually at intervals of
30 days.
(For information contact
the Professor and Head, Department of forage crops, Tamil
Nadu
Agricultural
University, Coimbatore-641
003, Phone: 0422-6611228,
email: forage@tnau.ac.in)

FARM QUERY

Seedling in sugarcane
Apart from regular sugarcane growing is there any other viable
business model which can be done on the crop?
RAMESH PRABHA

Tamil Nadu
Seedling production in sugarcane technology has been identied as a separate enterprise and promoted among many
nursery growers. For more details on this contact Dr. B.J.
Pandian, Director i/c, Water Technology Centre, Tamil Nadu
Agricultural University, Coimbatore: 641003. email: directorwtc@tnau.ac.in, Phone: 0422 6611278, 6611478, Mobile :
94432 86711.
Readers are invited to send their queries with full postal address to Farm Queries, The Hindu,
Kasturi Buildings, 859/860, Anna Salai, Chennai 600002 or email to farmqueries@thehindu.co.in

ND-ND

NOIDA/DELHI

14

THE HINDU

SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY


SNAPSHOTS
Plutos faintest known
moons spotted

REUTERS

NASAs New Horizons spacecraft


has for the first time snapped
Kerberos and Styx the smallest
and faintest of Plutos five moons,
capturing its first-ever family
portrait of the Pluto system.

Vineyard habitats help


butterflies return

M.A. SRIRAM

Wine grape vineyards in eastern


Washington, U.S., experimenting
with sustainable pest
management systems are seeing
an increase in butterflies due to
recovery of lost habitats.

Mapping drought-prone
West African regions

S.R. RAGHUNATHAN

Researchers have mapped West


African droughts from space. They
report that soil moisture
observations can map land
degradation accurately as soil
moisture leads to plant growth.

Myopia now more


common across Europe

Trees: high CO2 boosts


water-use efficiency

AFP

Increased atmospheric carbon


dioxide concentrations in Europe
have boosted the efficiency of
water-use of trees, which is
coupled to the uptake of carbon
dioxide during photosynthesis.

Predicting risk of
schizophrenia with MRI

THULASI KAKKAT

The symptoms of schizophrenia


are due to disordered connectivity
in the brain. Now, new scanning
methods that map the wiring of
the brain could provide a valuable
new tool to predict schizophrenia.
CM
YK

A team of neuroscientists and bioengineers has


created a miniature, bre-optic microscope
designed to peer deeply inside a living brain.

Why the May 12 quake is


called an aftershock

R. PRASAD

R. PRASAD

SILVER LINING: According to DST, more women are winning funding from
government grant schemes. PHOTO: S. MAHINSHA
compared with China (18 researchers per 10,000 labour
force) and Brazil (seven researchers per 10,000 labour
force). With six researchers
per 10,000 labour force, even
Kenya has a higher proportion than India.
The number of research
papers published by researchers based in the country has nearly quadrupled
since 2000 but it is way too
low compared with China. If
there were around 25,000 papers published from India in
2000, it was nearly 90,000 in
2013. In the case of China, the
numbers have risen phenomenally from about 50,000 in
2000 to over 310,000 papers
in 2013.
Besides the 40 CSIR laboratories, a few premier research institutions like the
IISc, Bengaluru, TIFR, Mumbai, 16 IITs and ve Indian
Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER),
there are over 600 universities in the country. But hardly
any of the international-level
research is done in the universities.
Facilities and teaching at
the universities that serve
more than 29million students are alarming. Most are
chalk and talk classrooms
with poor-quality teaching

laboratories, let alone research laboratories, writes


Hiriyakkanavar Ila, Professor
of chemistry at the Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientic Research,
Bengaluru in a Comment
piece.
There are several critical
issues that need to be immediately addressed for universities to become centres of
excellence. The rst and foremost change that necessarily
has to be undertaken is a
complete overhauling of
the University Grants Commission (UGC). Archaic ordinances and rules set by the
University Grants Commission have stied the spirit of
academic excellence and
hampered institutions exibility, writes Prof. Vinod
Singh, Director of IISER,
Bhopal.
Though India produces
9,000 PhD graduates a year in
science and technology, the
number pales in comparison
with the countrys population. The U.S. produces four
times more number of PhDs
despite having one-fourth of
Indias population. Number
is just one of the indicators.
The variation in quality of
Indian PhD graduates and
faculty members is a prime
concern, says Prof. Singh.

he May 12, 2015 earthquake of 7.3 magnitude


that struck 68 km west of
Namche Bazar, close to
Mount Everest is an aftershock of the April 25 Nepal
quake of 7.9 magnitude that
has till date killed over
8,000 people and injured
many thousands and rendered several thousands
more homeless.
The magnitude of aftershocks will always be lower
than the main event. The
higher the magnitude of the
main event, the higher will
be the magnitude of aftershocks. The magnitude of
the aftershocks will generally show a decreasing trend
with time. Such a reduction
in the aftershock magnitude
was witnessed in Nepal after the April 25 event.
But the May 12 Nepal aftershock suddenly showed a
spike in magnitude. So why
is the May 12 event called an
aftershock despite its magnitude suddenly spiking in
intensity three weeks after
the main event? Aftershocks will generally follow
an exponential decay pattern. But in some cases
there can be outliers; some
anomalous things can happen, said Dr. R.K. Chadha,
Chief Scientist at the Hyderabad-based National Geophysical
Research
Institute (NGRI).
For a higher magnitude
earthquake, the phenomenon of aftershock magnitude decay is not always a
linear process, he said. Such
anomalous events had been
observed in the past across
the world.

Quality-control
mechanisms must be established for
the national accreditation
and assessment of Indian
PhDs and to improve research and educational training.
I have noticed a fundamental difference in the attitude of young U.S.scientists
from that of their Indian
counterparts: their appetite
for big problems. Going for
great is a skill acquired very
early on in the West, writes
Yamuna Krishnan, professor
of chemistry at the University
of Chicago, Illinois. She was
earlier with the Bengalurubased National Centre for Biological Sciences before moving over to the U.S.
Unlike in the West where
talent is spotted at the graduate level and nurtured, researchers in India are
mentored way too late.
Is there a dearth of talent
in India? Certainly not. Is
there a dearth of unstoppable
achievers and innovators?
Yes: because making talent
shine takes a culture that is
proud of its scientists and a Exporting e-waste
charged intellectual environment that nurtures, mentors DIVYA GANDHI
and drives them., writes
uch of the 40 million
Prof. Umesh Varshney of the
tonnes of electronic
Department of Microbiology
waste produced around the
and Cell Biology, IISc.
world old smartphones,
TVs, laptops and obsolete
kitchen appliances nds its
way illegally to Asia and Africa every year, says a report by
the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).
Close to 90 per cent of the
worlds
electronic waste
INSAT-3A to another nineworth nearly $19 billion is
metre Hub at IMD.
He said both INCOIS and illegally traded or dumped
IMD act as mirror centres to each year, to destinations half
each other by ensuring com- way across the world. While
plete availability of the data the European Union the U.S.
as the entire computational and Japan are the primary
infrastructure
including origins of e-waste shipments,
hardware, operating systems, China, India, Malaysia and
application software, proc- Pakistan are the main destiessing and archival software nations, says the report. In
and also monitoring pro- Africa, Ghana and Nigeria are
grammes have been installed the biggest recipients of ewaste.
at both the places.
While the users earlier had Destination India
to visit certain specic instiIllegal trade is driven by
tutions to download data
the
relatively low costs of
once in six months or so, the
ISGN network now has come shipment and the high costs
in handy for researchers as of treatment in the developed
well as operational monitor- countries. Quoting an U.S.
ing for INCOIS and IMD. All Environmental Protection
the real-time data received Agency study, the UNEP refrom various stations is ar- port says that exporting echived at INCOIS and IMD waste to Asia worked out 10
and made available through times cheaper than processthe website www.isgn.gov.in. ing it in within these
The communication and countries.
The Indian subcontinent
computational infrastructure
is capable of catering to up to has turned into an important
500 standalone seismic/
GNSS stations and plans are
on to achieve the same in the
next few years, he says.

EXCEPTION: Aftershocks generally follow an


exponential decay pattern in terms of magnitude.
But in some cases there can be outliers. PHOTO: AP
After the December 2004
9.1 magnitude earthquake
off the coast of Sumatra that
caused the killer tsunami
waves, there were two aftershocks of 7.2 magnitude
that did not follow a linear
pattern of magnitude decay.
Similarly, there was an
earthquake on April 11, 2012
of 8.6 magnitude in the Bay
of Bengal. The very same
day, an aftershock of 8.2
magnitude was registered in
the same fault.
But most importantly,
the May 12 Nepal earthquake occurred in the same
fault some 160 km east of
the April 25 quake. The fault
is in between the two major
fault systems in the Himalayas the Main Boundary
Thrust and the Main Central Thrust. The two fault
systems are 100-120 km
apart and run as a linear belt
all along the Himalayas
from Kashmir to Arunachal
Pradesh. In the Himalayan
region, 90 per cent of the
earthquakes occur between
these two fault systems, he
said.
According to Dr. Chadha,

seven to eight earthquakes


that rocked the region on
May 12 after the 7.3 event
are aftershocks of the April
25 quake and not of the May
12 event. If you remove the
7.3 quake aftershock, the
other earthquakes are following the pattern of magnitude decay of the April 25
main event, he said.
The only silver lining is
that despite the May 12 Nepal event, there has not
been any extension or migration of the fault. That
means as on May 13, whatever energy is leftover from
the April 25 event is being
released within the 170-180
km initial fault length.
Cautioning on the vulnerability of buildings, he said
that people should not reside in houses that are partially collapsed or have
already developed cracks.
They should be retrotted
before people can move in,
he said. For a nearly 8 magnitude earthquake, aftershocks can continue for up
to three months and in
some cases up to six
months.

India, a victim of e-waste crime


to Asia works out 10 times cheaper

Seismic networks efficacy


proved during Nepal earthquake
T

Myopia is becoming more common


across Europe, according to a new
study. The meta-analysis of
findings from 15 studies found that
around a quarter of the European
population is short-sighted.

Microscope allows deep brain study

Ten-year survival of a rare malignancy called


mesenchymal chondrosarcoma has been reported to be
as low as 20 per cent.

Most universities have poor-quality teaching labs let alone research labs

Y. MALLIKARJUN

R. RAVINDRAN

Survival from rare bone cancer remains low

What ails science in India?


nlike other countries, India successfully sent a
spacecraft (Mangalyaan) to Mars in its rst
attempt. But the country has
failed to produce any pathbreaking research or Nobel
Laureates for the last several
decades. And in all likelihood,
India may not produce one in
the near future unless some
dramatic changes are brought
about.
What stares Indian science
in the face is the governments shocking decision to
dissolve the scientic advisory council to the Prime Minister, thereby cutting a crucial
link that has served science
and the scientic community
well. Another jolt has been
the cut in research budget,
which has been static for
about a decade at a paltry 0.9
per cent of the gross domestic
product (GDP). Compare this
with that of Chinas almost
2 per cent; it was about 0.8
per cent in 2000.
Science is the engine of
growth of a country and is
crucial to revitalise the economy. So any squeeze on research and development
funding will be at the countrys own peril.
Nodal agencies like the
Council of Scientic and Industrial Research (CSIR) and
the Indian Council of Medical
Research (ICMR) have been
headless for over a year. The
same is the case in several national laboratories and central
universities.
The
Department of Science and
Technology (DST) got its secretary only in January this
year, eight long months after
the earlier incumbent retired.
Indian science suffers, today more than ever, from government apathy, writes
Raghavendra Gadagkar, Professor of ecology at IISc, Bengaluru in Natures special
issue published today (May
14). The special issue paints a
sorry picture of the state of
science in India.
India has only 200,000 full
time researchers four researchers per 10,000 labour
force. That is way too low

THURSDAY, MAY 14, 2015

he April 25 Nepal earthquake, the rst major


temblor after the establishment of the Indian Seismic
and GNSS Network (ISGN) in
2013, proved the effectiveness
of the system, that provides
real-time data to 100 standalone seismic stations spanning across the country.
ISGN seeks to enhance the
capability in monitoring seismic activity in India, besides
providing high quality data for
researchers.
The Hyderabad-based Indian National Centre for Ocean
Information Services (INCOIS),the nodal agency for
implementing the project, is
partnering with Indian Meteorological Department, National Geophysical Research
Institute, Institute of Seismological Research, Snow and
Avalanche Study Establishment and several other national institutions, including
IITs and universities.
According to Dr. T. Srinivasa Kumar, in-charge of the In-

The VSAT hub antenna receives seismic/GPS data


from remote field stations. PHOTO: SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT
dian Tsunami Early Warning
Centre at INCOIS, the 7.9
magnitude Nepal earthquake
provided an undesired testing ground for the performance of the network. It
provided an opportunity to
see how this entire system is
working, he added, while
pointing out that this was
largest earthquake after the
network was inaugurated on
November 21, 2013.
Although an earthquake of
more than 6 magnitude occurred in the Bay of Bengal
last year, this was the most

devastating temblor in recent


times in the region, he added.
All the seismic and GNSS
stations are linked through
VSAT while INCOIS and IMD
with state-of-the-art data
centres serve as Satellite Hub
Stations. In view of the critical nature of the data, the
communication network has
been linked with two satellites for redundancy. While
half the number of stations is
connected through GSAT-12
to a nine-metre Hub set up at
INCOIS, the remaining stations are connected through

new tree species that


gives out strong smell of
camphor when its leaves and
stem are crushed has been reported from southern Western Ghats.
The species, which is endemic to the Ghats region of
Kerala, was named as Cinnamomum agasthyamalayanum
after the type locality, Agasthyamala hills, from where it
was reported. The nd attains
signicance as this is considered the only endemic species
that gives out the smell of
camphor. Now, the challenge
is to nd out whether camphor can be distilled from the
plant at commercially viable

level. While natural camphor


is extracted by distilling the
leaves and bark of Cinnamomum camphora, a native to
China, Taiwan, southern
parts of Japan, Korea, and
Vietnam, it is also synthetically produced. Camphor oil
is extracted by steam from
the chipped wood, root
stumps and branches of the
camphor tree. It is then rectied under vacuum and lter
pressed, explained scientists.
Camphor has a wide range
of medicinal applications especially in Ayurveda. Camphor has pain-relieving
effect. It is an ingredient in a
few externally applied oils to
relieve muscle spasm. It also
has mild mucolitic property

and can reduce bronchospasm. It is also used in mild


dosage in internal medicines.
Cinnamomum agasthyamalayanum was identied by
A.J. Robi, P. Sujanapal and
P.S. Udayan of the Kerala
Forest Research Institute,
Thrissur.
It was found distributed
between Attayar and Chemungi of Agasthyamala in Thiruvananthapuram. Isolated
populations were also recorded from Rosemala in Kollam
district of Kerala. The nding
was recently published in the
International Journal of Advanced Research.
Though
Cinnamomum
camphora would grow in Indian climatic conditions, it

workers disassemble the


units and collect whatever is
of value... What is not reusable is simply dumped as
waste, creating immense
problems and leading to what
has been described as a toxic
time bomb.
While Europe and North
America are by far the largest
producers of e-waste, Asias
cities are fast catching up as
consumers of electronic
goods and as generators of ewaste. In China, for instance,
73.9 million computers, 0.25
billion mobile phones, and
Toxic time bomb
56.6 million televisions were
The vast majority of illegal sold in 2011, the report says.
e-waste ends up in landlls, Forecasts say that in just two
incinerators, and in ill- years, the total quantum of
equipped recycling facilities. e-waste generated around the
The waste is dumped in ar- world will be 50 million
eas where local residents and tonnes.
destination for European
waste. This goes beyond ewaste to include household
waste, metals, textiles and
tires which are exported to
India and Pakistan, says the
report Waste Crimes, Waste
Risks: Gaps and Challenges in
the Waste Sector.
There is a signicant trade
in compressors to Pakistan.
These should be depolluted
prior to export, but waste operators seeking to avoid expense often omit this step,
the report notes.

New technique paints tissue


samples with light

Camphor-scented leaves found in Western Ghats A


K.S. SUDHI

The Indian subcontinent has turned into an


important destination for European waste.
Photo: M. Karunakaran

need not yield camphor at


commercially viable levels.
The new species can grow up
to 8 metres in the dense wet
evergreen forests of the Ghats
at an altitude between 500m
and 1400m, said scientists.
It was found distributed in
the windward evergreen forests of Agasthyamalai phytogeographical region of southern Western Ghats. The
population was found to be
very low in all regions which
were surveyed.
The leaves and stems of the
new species have the smell of
camphor probably due to the
high content of volatile oil,
said Mr. Sujanapal of the Kerala Forest Research Institute,
Thrissur, Kerala.

new advanced imaging


technique developed by
an Indian-origin scientist
that uses infrared light, instead of chemical stains, to
scan tissue samples can enable fast and broad diagnostic
assessments.
Using a combination of advanced microscope imaging
and computer analysis, the
new technique can give pathologists and researchers
precise information. The
study was led by Rohit Bhargava, University of Illinois
professor of bioengineering
and member of the Beckman
Institute for Advanced Science and Technology.
Any sample can be analysed for desired stains without material cost, time or
effort, while leaving precious

tissue pristine for downstream analyses, Bhargava


said.
To study tissue samples,
doctors and researchers use
stains or dyes that stick to the
particular structure or molecule they are looking for.
Staining can be a long and
exacting process, and the
added chemicals can damage
cells. Doctors also have to
choose which things to test
for, because its not always
possible to obtain multiple
samples for multiple stains
from one biopsy.
The new, advanced infrared imaging technique uses no chemical stains, instead
scanning the sample with infrared light to directly measure
the
chemical
composition of the cells.

The computer then translates spectral information


from the microscope into
chemical stain patterns, without applying dyes to the cells.
One of the bottlenecks in
automated pathology is the
extensive processing that
must be applied to stained
images to correct for staining
artifacts and inconsistencies, said David Mayerich,
rst author of the study.
The ability to apply stains
uniformly across multiple
samples could make these
initial image processing steps
signicantly easier and more
robust, said Mayerich, who
was a post-doctoral fellow at
the Beckman Institute at the
time of the study and now is a
professor at the University of
Houston. PTI
ND-ND

SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY / AGRICULTURE

NOIDA/DELHI

THE HINDU

THURSDAY, MAY 14, 2015

FARMERS NOTEBOOK

QUESTION CORNER

Inculcating agricultural skills


in younger generations

National Innovation
Foundation and ICAR
join hands
STAFF REPORTER

Students should be made aware about the importance of agriculture

ational
Innovation
Foundation India
(NIF) entered into an understanding with the Indian
Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) recently to
verify, validate and promote
innovations from the agricultural sector.
The agreement was signed
by Prof Anil K Gupta, Executive Vice Chair, National Innovation Foundation India
and Dr.S. Ayyappan, Secretary, DARE and Director General, Indian Council of
Agricultural Research at New
Delhi.

M.J. PRABU
PHOTO: M. PRABHU

Satellite launch
Why are all satellites and missiles launched from the east
coast?
A. KARTHIKA
Chennai
Before we discover the reason, let us know about the
Earths rotation. When seen from the North Pole, the Earth
rotates anti-clock wise. It means in general term, from west
to east as we see the sun rising in the east and setting in the
west.
The surface velocity of rotation varies from point to
point on the Earth. It is about 1600 km per hour or about
460 meters in a second near the equator.
The velocity gradually reduces as we move to the poles
and it is practically zero there. A satellite launched from
the sites near the equator towards the east direction will
get an initial boost equal to the velocity of Earth surface.
This is similar to an athlete circling round and round
before throwing a discus or a shot put.
The initial boost helps in cutting down the cost of rockets used to launch the satellites.
This is the major reason for launching satellites in the
east ward direction. But this benefit can be taken only for
such satellites which are placed in geo-stationery orbit or
which circle the Earth parallel to the equator. Such satellites are usually communication satellites or satellites used
for scientific research such as ISS.
There are other satellites which are placed in polar
orbits moving across the equator in north south direction
and used mainly for mapping or some times for spying.
Such satellites are generally launched in south ward or
north ward direction and therefore cannot take advantage
of the Earths rotation.
Another characteristic of launching satellites is that the
launching stations are generally located near eastern coast
line so that, just in case of failure of the launch, the satellite
does not fall on built-up hinterland.
RASHMI JAIN
Greater Noida, Uttar Pradesh

This weeks questions


Drinking soda helps us during indigestion. How?
S.M. Shvani, Chennai
Why do earphones often contain left (L) and right (R)
inscriptions on them?
Rahul Kumar, Nawada, Bihar
Readers can send questions/answers on science and technology for the Question Corner
along with their names and address to the following email id:
questioncorner@thehindu.co.in or to The Editor, The Hindu (Science and Technology),
859-860, Anna Salai, Chennai 600 002.

CM
YK

n ambitious programme
called Mukulam from
CARD-Krishi Vigyan Kendra in Pathanamthitta district has been inaugurated as
an educational tool to create
awareness among school
children to grow crops in
their school gardens as a
supplemental instruction to
their regular studies.
The programme, launched
in the year 2010, aims to provide a platform for students
for showcasing their talents
in nurturing nature and
building awareness of their
role in contributing to the
nation's food security.

Last two years


Upper primary, high
school and higher secondary
levels that have eco-clubs
functioning for the last two
years with 25-30 members
each and 5-10 cents of cultivable land formed the part of
the programme. The best
school is awarded a cash
price of Rs. 5000 and a rolling trophy and citation.
It was conceived mainly
to create awareness among
school children about need
for promotion of biodiversity conservation and food security. It provides an
atmosphere that includes
hands-on activities and
strengthens academic, personal, and social skills, says
Dr. C.P.Robert, Programme
Coordinator at the institute.
The institute organised a
variety of programmes such
as seminars, students meet,
quiz competition, drawing
cum painting competitions
and traditional food fest.
It also supported the participating schools with technology training, planting
materials, seeds, organic inputs and garden tools, so
that school clubs put in their

Working areas
OUTSTANDING: The best school is awarded a cash price of Rs. 5000 and a
rolling trophy and citation. - PHOTO: SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT
effort to develop a garden in
five cents of land.
In this five-year journey
through Mukulam, we could
instil a culture of safe farming
among more than 10,000
families through 1,500 school
children from 46 schools,
who participated in this programme. The schools' eco
clubs demonstrated their
commitment towards the
cause by working in the
school garden even on holidays, explains Dr. Sindhu Sadanandan, specialist at the
Kendra in charge of the
project.

Garden maintanence
Besides participating in every activity, the school gardeners cultivated a variety of
vegetables, fruit crops and
medicinal garden all grown
organically. Club members in
relay maintained the garden
and attended to the plants in
a scheduled manner before
and after school hours.
The programme instilled a
sense of responsibility in the
younger generation to conserve nature and contribute
to food security.
Participating schools on
an average harvested over

500 kg of vegetables, part of


which was shared for school
mid-day meal purpose. Besides this, the clubs also
earned Rs.10,000 from the
sales of vegetables each year
contributing to a turnover of
Rs. 4,60,000 in these five
years, which added colour to
the programme called earn
while learning, says Ms.
Sadanandan.

Eco safe programme


Seeing the success of the
programme, the institute introduced eco-safe sustainable
vegetable
production
through ultra density portable rain shelter in the schools
in 2014.
Portable rain shelter with
drip irrigation system for ultra density vegetable cultivation in the schools proved to
be unique for growing safe
vegetables from a limited area
round the year, says Ms. S.
Leelamma, Headmistress of
N.S.S English Medium School
which bagged the first prize
and won the rolling green trophy this year.
According to Mr. V. Sreejith, a teacher, the programme is unique and
inspired the children to un-

derstand need for growing


healthy
food
without
chemicals.
The programme is one of
its kind with a focus on school
children to enable them to acquire skill and knowledge in
agriculture.

Made aware
Programmes like this can
be conducted across the several hundreds of schools
across the country. Students
should be made aware about
the importance of agriculture
and from where they get their
food. If we fail in this most
important task, then future of
agriculture and food security
is a bog question, says Dr.
Robert.
For more information
please contact Dr. Sindhu Sadanandan
on
mobile:
09946090961, email: sindhu@kvkcard.org,
CARDKrishi Vigyan Kendra-Pathanamthitta District, (Farm
Science Centre, Indian Council of Agricultural Research
(ICAR), Kolabhagam P.O., Tiruvalla (Via),Pathanamthitta
district, Kerala, phone: 0469
2662094
and
266182,
Extn-11/12,
website:
www.kvkcard.org

15

NIF, an autonomous body


of the Department of Science
and Technology, Govt of India is engaged in scouting,
documentation, augmenting
and adding value to the innovations at the grassroots
level whereas ICAR is engaged in conducting research
and development in agriculture and allied sectors in a
number
of
institutions
spread all over the country.
Under the agreement, NIF
will share with ICAR, promising technologies from its database comprising innovative
agricultural
machineries,
plant protection practices,

improved plant varieties,


farm practices etc., which will
be verified and validated
through ICARs available
R&D facilities. A Joint Implementation Committee (JIC)
chaired by Director General
ICAR will monitor and steer
the activities proposed under
the agreement.

Expectation
This collaboration is expected to convert many of the
ideas and innovations from
the grassroots to the value
added products and generate
wealth for innovators, and
value for society. These technologies will also generate
livelihood options for the
youth and self- help groups in
rural areas.
The ICAR has played a pioneering role in ushering in
the Green Revolution and
subsequent developments in
agriculture in India through
its research and technology
development that has enabled the country to increase
the production of foodgrains,
while NIFs major contribution from the Honey Bee Network, has been able to build
up a database of more than 2,
10,000 technological ideas,
innovations and traditional
knowledge practices (not all
unique, not all distinct) from
over 575 districts of the country.

FARM QUERY

Encapsulating bio input


Is it possible to encapsulate organic manures like Panchagavya
in capsule form and apply it to crops?
T. LOGANATHAN

Tamil Nadu
The Indian Institute of Spices Research (IISR), Kozhikode,
has made a significant breakthrough in bio-fertilizer production by successfully encapsulating plant growth nutrients. For
details contact Dr M. Anandaraj, Director, Indian Institute of
Spices Research, Kozhikode, phone: Phone0495-2730294,
email: anandaraj@spices.res.in, and Business Planning and
Development Unit on email: bpd.iisr@gmail.com
Readers are invited to send their queries with full postal address to Farm Queries, The Hindu,
Kasturi Buildings, 859/860, Anna Salai, Chennai 600002 or email to farmqueries@thehindu.co.in

ND-ND

NOIDA/DELHI

14

THE HINDU

SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY


SNAPSHOTS
Making airports
greener, more efficient

Natural sounds boost mood, productivity

Horizontal gene transfer in E.Coli

Playing natural sounds such as flowing water in


offices could boost worker moods and improve
cognitive abilities says a new study.

One malicious strain of E. Coli has acquired genes


through horizontal transfer from other strains
that make it even more virulent than others.

India flooded with unsafe fixed


dose combination drugs
Many unapproved FDC formulations contain banned, restricted, or never approved drugs
R. PRASAD

AP

The sharing of real-time data by


airports, aircraft operators,
ground staff and air traffic control
to cut delays, predict events and
optimise resources has been
tested with success.

Reshaping mountains
to save species

AFP

Contrary to being pyramid shaped,


most ranges increase in area at
higher elevations. Scientists must
reconsider conservation
strategies for mountain species
threatened by climate change.

Air pollution directly


affects cognition

NAGARA GOPAL

Studies have shown that both air


pollution and impaired lungs can
cause cognitive deficits. A new
study shows that air pollution
directly affects cognition and is
not mediated by lung function.

How Burmese pythons


body changes

AFP

The Burmese python's body and


organs grow dramatically after it
eats and shrink after the meal is
digested. A new study links the
extreme body changes directly to
changes in gene expression.

Spiders are masters of


colour vision: study

REUTERS

Spiders have four pairs of eyes for


different aspects of their
surroundings. Their principal
eyes see in red, green, and UV. A
filter also converts some greensensitive cells to seeing red.

Ways to boost weather,


climate predictions

SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT

Long range weather forecasts and


climate change projections could
be boosted by advances in our
understanding of the links
between layers of the atmosphere
stratosphere and troposphere.
CM
YK

illions of unapproved formulations


and
products
of
fixed dose combinations
(FDCs) available in India in
three therapeutic areas
analgesia,
anxiety/depression and psychosis are unsafe and at times dangerous
or even lethal, as in the case of
anti-psychotic. In contrast,
98 per cent of metformin
FDCs to treat diabetes has
been approved by the Central
Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO).
Approval by CDSCO has
been made mandatory for
FDCs since 1961. Several
amendments to the rules,
particularly the last one in
2002, have only made it explicitly clear. Yet, the proportion of unapproved FDC
formulations did not decrease overall after May
2002.
A fixed dose combination is
one that contains two or more
drugs combined in a fixed ratio of doses and available in a
single dosage form.
Multiple formulations [in
the four therapeutic areas
studied],
most
without
CDSCO approval [for efficacy
and safety], included drugs
banned, restricted, or never
approved internationally owing to adverse effects, notes a
paper published last week in
the journal PLOS Medicine.
Over 12 per cent of nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs
(NSAID) FDCs sales volume
contain drugs that have ei-

The multiple unapproved FDC formulations have, in turn, given rise to


hundreds of unapproved FDC branded products. PHOTO: KARISHMA ANAND
ther been withdrawn from
the market or have had their
use restricted.
Also, many NSAID FDCs
available in India contain
muscle relaxants and enzymes that have been approved as a single dosage
form in the U.S. and UK but
never as a fixed dose combination.
Most of the FDC formulations available in India [in the
four therapeutic areas studied] were unavailable in either UK or the U.S. the
authors note.
The study by Patricia
McGettigan from the London
School of Medicine and Dentistry, London and others also

Giant pandas have not


evolved to eat bamboo
BEIJING: Despite two million
years of munching almost exclusively on bamboo, the giant pandas gut has not
adapted to eating the plant
putting the creatures in an
evolutionary dilemma, scientists said on Wednesday.
The surprising study, reported by online US journal
mBio, examined 45 giant pandas over the course of a year
and found that the animals
appeared to have a digestive
system entirely differentiated from other herbivores.
Instead, the pandas still retained the gut bacteria of the
omnivorous
bears
they
evolved from, the reports
summary said.
Unlike other herbivores
that
have
successfully
evolved anatomically specialised digestive systems to efficiently deconstruct fibrous
plant matter, the giant panda
still retains a gastrointestinal
tract typical of carnivores.
This, the report said, may
adversely influence the coevolutionary fitness of this
herbivore.
Giant pandas spend up to
14 hours a day eating 12.5 kg
(27.5 pounds) of bamboo, but
can digest only about 17 per

found that even in the case of


approved formulations and
products, numerous FDCs
were marketed before the
CDSCO approval date.
Worse, since 2001, the
CDSCO has approved some
new drugs even without clinical data for efficacy and
safety. And the grounds on
which approval has been
granted are not published.
With pharmacovigilance
being at a nascent stage and
reporting of adverse events
being low, the absence of information on adverse effects
of even approved FDCs,
therefore, does not mean they
are safe.
Unapproved formulations

should be banned immediately, prioritising those withdrawn/banned


internationally, the authors
recommend.
This is the first time an empiric study of FDCs available
in India has been undertaken.
The researchers found that
over 73 per cent of the 124
NSAIDs (analgesia) FDC formulations marketed in India
were unapproved. The unapproved FDC formulations to
treat
depression/anxiety
were 81 per cent and 70 per
cent in the case of anti-psychotics. Contrastingly, only
20 per cent of the 25 metformin formulations for diabetes sold were unapproved.

would make it ten times more


sensitive, which, in turn,
would provide a 1000-fold inast year, there was much crease in the number of astroexcitement as scientists physical
candidates
for
at the BICEP2 telescope at gravitational wave signals.
the South Pole claimed to This upgraded detector was
have gathered evidence of officially dedicated in a ceregravitational waves that were mony held on May 19.
released shortly after the Big
We've spent the past seven
Bang.
years putting together the
However, it was later most sensitive gravitationalshown that intergalactic dust wave detector ever built we
had led them astray in their are looking forward to our
observations, and they had first science run with Adnot detected gravitational vanced LIGO beginning later
waves at all.
in 2015. This is a very exciting
time for the field, Caltech's
Field open
David H. Reitze, executive diThis leaves the field open rector of the LIGO Project,
for experimental groups to noted in a press release.
search for first direct evidence of gravitational waves. Violent events
As early as 1916, Einstein
The experiments are very
challenging, given the fact predicted gravitational waves
that these waves are very as a consequence of his generfaint and extremely difficult al theory of relativity. Gravto detect; many groups are in- itational waves are ripples in
volved in this endeavour. One the fabric of space-time proof these is the Laser Interfe- duced by violent events such
rometer Gravitational-wave as the collision of two black
Observatory (LIGO), de- holes or by cores of supernova
signed and operated by Cal- explosions. They are produced by accelerating masses,
tech and MIT.
This detector recently un- just the same as accelerating
derwent upgradation which charged particles produce ra-

cent of what they consume.


This result is unexpected
and quite interesting, because it implies the giant pandas gut microbiota may not
have well adapted to its
unique diet, and places pandas at an evolutionary dilemma, said study co-author
Xiaoyan Pang from Shanghai
Jiao Tong University, according to Chinas state-run Xinhua news agency.
Pandas, whose natural habitat lies in mountainous
southwestern China, have a
notoriously low reproductive
rate and are under pressure
from factors such as habitat
loss. AFP

The multiple unapproved


FDC formulations have, in
turn, given rise to hundreds
of unapproved FDC branded
products. Forty-three per
cent of 2,739 NSAIDs products, 76 per cent of 301
antidepressanats/benzodiaze
-pines products and 78 per
cent of 211 anti-psychotics
products and only 2 per cent
of 536 metformin products
available in the market were
unapproved by CDSCO.
What makes some fixed
dose combinations unsafe
and even dangerous is when
multiple drugs from the same
therapeutic group are combined or when centrally acting drugs are clubbed
together. If the former compounds the risk of adverse effects, the latter makes it
difficult to undertake separate dose adjustments of the
drugs that are combined.
The huge availability of unapproved FDC formulations
was reflected in the proportion of sales volume and sales
value in 2011-2012. Though
the sales volume of unapproved NSAID formulations
was only 28 per cent, the sale
value was as high as 61 per
cent. In the case of unapproved
antidepressanats/
benzodiazepines
formulations, the sales volume of 69
per cent led to a sales value of
57 per cent. It was 43 per cent
sales volume and 6 per cent
sales value in the case of antipsychotic formulations.
Despite the sale volume of
unapproved metformin formulations being a meagre 4
per cent, the sales value was
at an alarming 99.7 per cent.

Upgraded detector to study


gravitational waves
SHUBASHREE DESIKAN

Giant pandas eat 12.5 kg


of bamboo a day, but can
digest only about 17 per
cent of it.

THURSDAY, MAY 21, 2015

dio waves (e.g. electrons in


antennas). Among other
things, studying gravitational
waves can tell us more about
the nature of gravity.
In fact, the waves have not
been directly detected so far,
but indirect evidence that
they exist comes from 1974
discovery of the Hulse-Taylor binary pulsar whose period of orbit decreases in a
manner exactly predicted by
general theory of relativity.
This system is believed to
emit gravitational waves, in
accordance with what Einstein had predicted would
happen to masses moving
relatively to each other. Russell Hulse and Joseph Taylor
were awarded the Nobel
Prize for this discovery in
1993.
The advanced LIGO will
also be used to search for
gravitational
cosmic
background.
Gravitational wave detectors receive signals from all
directions. However, to locate the sources of the waves,
a network of detectors is
needed. There is a proposal
(LIGO-India) to establish
one such detector in India.

Repurposed antibiotic
shows promise
R. PRASAD

y tweaking the antibiotic


spectinomycin, researchers have successfully boosted
its effectiveness against six
drug-resistant bacteria that
cause common respiratory
and sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). The antibiotic
spectinomycin was originally
developed to treat gonorrhoea.
The tweaked drug, tested in
vivo and on mice, produced
excellent results. Once clinical testing is completed, the
repurposed antibiotic can
prove to be a boon to public
health. The results are published today (May 21) in the
journal Science Translational
Medicine.
In its old form, the antibiotic is very safe for use but it
lacks the necessary antibacterial activity against many bacterial pathogens. As a result,
in the U.S., spectinomycin has
not been used to treat gonorrhoea since 2005.
While more and more pathogens are showing greater resistance against drugs, the
pipelines for new drugs are far
from keeping up with them.
Repurposing old drugs against
these pathogens is therefore
very encouraging.
The lead author David F.
Bruhn from the St. Judes
Childrens Research Hospital,
Tennessee and others modelled the spectinomycins binding site in the bacterial
ribosome and later tweaked
the drugs structure so it could
bind to the ribosomes of a variety of bacteria. By substituting a benzyl molecule, they
created six compounds that
form a new class of antibiotics
that they called aminomethyl
spectinomycins.
These were found to be effective against common respi-

The drug is effective


against six drugresistant bacteria.
PHOTO: AFP

ratory tract pathogens


Streptococcus pneumoniae,
Haemophilus influenzae, Legionella pneumophila, and
Moraxella catarrhalis as
well as the sexually transmitted bacteria Neisseria gonorrhoeae and Chlamydia
trachomatis.
The work moved the antibacterial activity of the series
into a therapeutic range for
these agents while also improving
pharmacokinetic
properties, they write.
The repurposed antibiotic
proved more effective as a result of greater accumulation
of the active compound within the bacteria. This was
achieved by successfully
blocking the efflux pump that
removes the active compound from a cell.
In addition to better activity, the repurposed antibiotic
had increased chemical stability and pharmacokinetics
and had increased half-life.
As a request, a lower dose of
the tweaked antibiotic was
found to be effective in clearing gonorrhoea.
In the case of S. pneumoniae, a predominant cause of
childhood upper respiratory
tract infection, the tweaked
antibiotic proved to be highly
efficacious and capable of
clearing the pathogens even
when lower doses were used.

A physics paper with


5,154 authors
Davide Castelvecchi
A physics paper with 5,154
authors has as far as anyone
knows broken the record for
the largest number of contributors to a single research
article.
Only the first nine pages in
the 33-page article, published
on May 24 in Physical Review
Letters, describe the research itself including references. The other 24 pages list
the authors and their
institutions.
The article is the first joint
paper from the two teams
that operate ATLAS and
CMS, two massive detectors
at the Large Hadron Collider
(LHC) at CERN, Europes
particle-physics lab near Geneva, Switzerland. Each team
is a sprawling collaboration
involving researchers from
dozens of institutions and
countries.
By pooling their data, the
two groups were able to obtain the most precise estimate yet of the mass of the
Higgs boson.
Robert Garisto, an editor
of Physical Review Letters,
says that publishing the paper presented challenges

Only the first nine


pages in the 33-page
article describe the
research itself,
including references
above and beyond the already
Sisyphean task of dealing
with teams that have thousands of members. The biggest problem was merging
the author lists from two collaborations with their own
slightly different styles, Mr.
Garisto says. I was impressed
at how well the pair of huge
collaborations worked together in responding to referee and editorial comments,
he adds.

Too big to print?


Every author name will also appear in the print version
of the Physical Review Letters paper, says Mr. Garisto.
By contrast, the 2,700-odd
author list for a Nature paper
on rare particle decays that
was published on May 15 will
not appear in the June print
version, but will only be
available online. New
York Times News Service

Snakes evolved on Real-time identification of algal blooms a reality


The new approach will help in identifying the phenomena without venturing into the water
land, not in sea
K.S. SUDHI

lthough snakes are found


in a wide range of habitats, such as land, water and
on trees, they first evolved on
land and not in the sea as is
popularly believed, says a
new study.
The original snake ancestor was a nocturnal, stealthhunting predator that had tiny hind limbs with ankles and
toes, the researchers noted.
While snake origins have
been debated for a long time,
this is the first time these hypotheses have been tested
thoroughly using cuttingedge methods, said lead author Allison Hsiang from Yale
University in the US.
By analysing the genes,
fossils and anatomy of 73 different snake and lizard species, both living and extinct,
we have managed to generate
the first comprehensive re-

construction of what the ancestral snake was like,


Hsiang pointed out.
They most likely originated
in the warm, forested ecosystems of the Southern Hemisphere around 128 million
years ago. They most likely
came from the ancient supercontinent of Laurasia, the
study noted.
While many ancestral reptiles were most active during
the daytime (diurnal), the ancestral snake is thought to
have been nocturnal.
Diurnal habits later returned around 50-45 million
years ago with the appearance of Colubroidea the
family of snakes that now
make up over 85 percent of
living snake species, said the
study published in the journal
BMC Evolutionary Biology.
IANS

Monitoring and Assessment.


The algorithm could be applied for real-time identification of the algal bloom
anywhere in Indian waters,
said Dr.K.B. Padmakumar of
CMLRE.

ithout venturing into


the sea and through insitu observations, ocean researchers can now quickly understand how parts of North
Arabian Sea turn deep green
and straw yellow at times.
The real-time assessment
and species identification of
algal blooms, which add colour to the oceanic waters, has
been made possible by using a
satellite-based remote sensing technique. Researchers
have also developed an algorithm for the process.
A group of ocean scientists
from the Centre for Marine
Living Resources (CMLRE),
Kochi, of the Ministry of
Earth Sciences, who had been
tracking the algal blooms in
many water bodies, claimed
to have perfected the algorithm for identification of
Noctiluca scintillans, the algal

Efforts on

NO DELAY: Algal bloom caused by Noctiluca


scintillans in the Arabian Sea can be tracked.
PHOTO: SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT

bloom and a diatom, which


gives dark green colour to the
oceanic waters.
The team led by R. Dwivedi
of CMLRE consisted of researchers from CMLRE, the
National Centre for Antarctic
and Ocean Research, Goa, and
Space Applications Centre,
Ahmedabad, has described

the approach for detection


of bloom-forming algae N.
scintillans and its discrimination from diatoms using
moderate resolution imaging
spectroradiometer in a
mixed species oceanic environment. The research paper was recently published in
the journal Environmental

The new approach will help


ocean researchers in quickly
identifying algal blooms without venturing into the water.
Efforts are on for identification and discrimination of
more algal blooms and associated diatoms, he said.
The present analysis has
been carried out by utilising
species-specific response of
phytoplankton from remote
sensing reflectance spectra
obtained with a Satlantic underwater profiling radiometer. The capability of
species identification in near
real time can help in planning
field campaigns for guiding

the ship to an appropriate location for in situ measurements, the research paper
said.
The bloom, also known as
green tide, occurs during the
winterspring (mid Februaryend March) and spreads
to the entire northern half of
the basin. Researchers had
been regularly monitoring
the bloom since 2009. During
their cruises, researchers had
found the colour of water was
remarkably dark green in
ocean depths exceeding
2,000 metre.
Though not toxic, it is classified as harmful algal bloom
as its spread can lead to depletion of dissolved oxygen in
the bloom region. The decay
of the high biomass can lead
to the release of ammonia and
steep reduction in dissolved
oxygen, which may force other marine organisms to move
to safe regions, he said.
ND-ND

SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY / AGRICULTURE

NOIDA/DELHI

THE HINDU

THURSDAY, MAY 21, 2015

QUESTION CORNER
Drinking soda
Drinking soda helps us during indigestion. How?
S.M. SHVANI
Chennai
Soda water or carbonated water is water in to which low
levels of pressurized carbon dioxide has been dissolved,
creating carbonic acid. The intake of soda water helps
those with impaired digestion. Soda water causes bloating,
which stretches the stomach. Mechanoreceptors in the
stomach detect the stretching resulting in parasympathetic innervations to gastrointestinal (GI) smooth muscles.
This results in an increase in GI motility.
Researchers have found that people who drank at least
1.5 L of carbonated water every day for 15- 30 days had a big
amelioration in their indigestion and constipation compared to people who drank regular tap water. All carbon
dioxide in soda water does not reach the stomach. Much is
lost in the zz when the bottle is opened, and some combines with swallowed air to cause belching and small
amount is rapidly absorbed through the wall of the GI
system.
Since soda water is a liquid, it easily passes down the
oesophagus and the lower oesophageal sphincter relaxes
and opens to allow its entrance into the stomach. The
upper part of stomach relaxes to store the swallowed soda
water. The digestive glands in the stomach lining produce
hydrochloric acid, containing pepsin. Stomach mixes the
digestive juices with soda water. Upon reaching the small
intestine, soda water mixes with secretions produced by
the pancreas and liver.
When the stomach is empty, soda water passes rapidly in
to the duodenum where carbon dioxide is transformed into
bicarbonate. The carbon dioxide dissolved is rapidly released in gaseous form as the uid is warmed. The free
carbon dioxide may be belched if the expanding gas increases the pressure and stimulates the gastric fundus,
triggering the belching mechanism. Distention of gastric
fundus can increase transient lower oesophageal sphincter
relaxation. If the soda water is taken while or after eating it
tends to localize in the upper part of stomach and will
produce feeling of fullness. Hence, carbonated water seems
to inuence stomach function by both mechanical and
chemical effects.
DR. SAINUDEEN PATTAZHY
Environmentalist and Chief Editor
Journal of Scientic Research & Reviews
Kollam, Kerala

This weeks questions


How is the difference in physical strength between males
and females explained in terms of metabolism?
Emmanuel Punnoose, Chennai
What is the difference between a national park, protected
area, sanctury and biosphere reserve?
Dr Mohd younis, Pulwama, Jammu & Kashmir
Why do not all people suffer from discomfort while
travelling in a bus, car or boat which is often termed as
motion sickness? How can one overcome it?
Md Junaid Ali Siddiqui, Hyderabad
Why do ceiling fans have three blades?
Nalini Singh, Lucknow
Readers can send questions/answers on science and technology for the Question Corner
along with their names and address to the following email id:
questioncorner@thehindu.co.in or to The Editor, The Hindu (Science and Technology),
859-860, Anna Salai, Chennai 600 002.

CM
YK

FARMERS NOTEBOOK

Moringa seedlings fetch better


income than just pods and leaves
Madurai Valaiyapatti variety generates Rs. 1.6 lakhs from
M.J. PRABU

amil Nadu is well


known for Moringa
cultivation in different
districts.
Though there are more than
a dozen and odd varieties,
many are area specic,
which thrive well in that particular region alone.
For example a variety
called sugarcane moringa
(named after sugarcane because of its sweetness and
taste) is specic to Paramathy, near Karur.
Moringa is one crop
which is still not commercially exploited fully. The oil
from its pods serves as a
good lubricant for watches,
clocks and aircraft, but how
many really know about
this?

Open fact
Commercially there are
no machines available for
the oil extraction. A tree
which requires practically
no expense for its care, yet
gives back multifold returns
in terms of leaves, pods,
stem, bark etc needs to be
popularised among farmers
to make them take up its cultivation on a larger scale.
The fact that from one acre
this tree can generate more
than Rs. 1 lakh during peak
season a year is something
which farmers need to experience personally, says Mr.
N. Madhu Balan, agriculture
extension adviser and administrator of Vivasayam
karkalam on face book.
Madurai
Valaiyapatti
moringa is one such variety.
Nearly a decade back not
much information was available on it. Today thanks to
farmers like Mr. K.P. M. Sadaiyandi of Pallipatti, Dindugal, this variety has
become
quite
popular
among farmers in the region.
What is so special about

GOOD BEARER: The tree bears about 100 kgs of pods


three times a year. - PHOTO: SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT
this Valaiyapatti variety?
When cooking it, there is a
pleasant mouth watering
odour. The quality and taste
of leaves and pods are good.
The trees are resistant to pest
and diseases. Pod length is
quite lengthy and the number
of seeds per pod is also higher
up to 22-25 numbers than
other varieties.

Only problem
It is a perennial bearer and
can be maintained for more
than 25 years either as a
monocrop or as intercrop in
coconut gardens. The only
problem is during monsoon
or heavy winds the trees tend
to break since their stem is
not strong to withstand the
heavy wind ow.
For an acre as a monocrop,
about 160 seedlings are required to be planted at 5
metre distance between individual seedlings. As an intercrop about 80 seedlings are
sufficient.
The farmer has planted 80
trees as intercrop in his 10acre coconut garden. The
trees are watered through
drip lines and grown organically. Vermicompost, sheep
manure, panchagavya, practically any natural input is used
as manure. Plant extracts like
ginger paste diluted in tur-

Impact of urban areas


on agriculture
SAI BHASKAR REDDY

any water channels like


rivers are loaded with
an acre
domestic sewage and indusquite sufficient from this crop trial pollutants are the main
I wanted to increase it. I no- source of irritation for irrigaticed that there was a vast tion. Polluted water pollutes
scope for seedlings and decid- the crops grown. Especially in
ed to switch over to devel- the periurban areas and those
oping and selling good close to urban areas high inseedlings than just as leaves tensive agriculture of leafy
vegetables, vegetables, grass
and pods.
Though moringa trees as fodder for milch animals,
grow easily from seeds or etc. becomes a big problem.
In recent years, small rivstem cuttings, it takes a long
ers
or sewages have become
time for them to get established and also mortality per- perennial and the total ow of
centage is more in them. pollutants has tremendously
Suppose you need about 160 increased.
trees for an acre. While plant- Leafy vegetables
ing them about 30- 40 seedFarmers in the periurban
lings die.
areas are cultivating throughout the year i.e., harvesting
Air layering
To avoid this I preferred a three to four crops a year. The
technique of air layering and heavy metal contaminants
started this method of propa- from these polluted waters
gation before six years. When are reaching the consumers
tree starts owering, I tie the through the food chain. Espebranches by using moist coco cially in the leafy vegetables
peat with panchagavya called the heavy metal contamiair layers. The layers develop nants and biological pathoroots in a month. They are gens are nding their way
then separated from the into them.
As the domestic sewage
mother tree and transferred
to polythene bags, kept in the systems have heavy loads of
shade for a month for harden- phosphates and nitrogen
apart from other nutrients
ing, he explains.
In a year three batches of the farmers need to invest veseedlings are produced which ry little on the fertilizer inare sold at Rs.40 each to farm- puts. The overall yield of
ers of Dindugal, Theni, Salem some of the crops grown is
very high. Some grasses are
and Madurai.
Till now, four lakh seed- highly adapted to these pol-

meric solution are sprayed


for controlling caterpillar
menace common in this tree.
Though small in size the variety is fast-growing. The
farmer has trained the variety
in such a way it produces several branches from the bottom unlike other varieties
where branches grow on the
top.
Training the tree is important to get many branches.
The trees are allowed to reach
a height of 25 feet and bear
30-35 branches. They grow
quickly even in poor soil. Like
other varieties this also does
not require sophisticated and
expensive farming methods,
says Mr. Sadaiyandi.
lings (one lakh seedlings a
year) have been developed,
Option
generating a net income of Rs.
Farmers can opt for har- 4 lakh. About 20 trained
vesting either the leaves or women and three men work
pods. If leaves are harvested, in his farm doing the air layone cannot get pods and vice ering, separating rooted air
versa. The Madurai Valaiya- layers, then transferring to
patti produces at least 100 kg polythene bags.
of pods per tree during three
For details contact Mr. K.
seasons annually.
P. M. Sadaiyandi, KarthiThe farmer sells each kg of keyan moringa nursery, Palpod from Rs.10 to Rs.150 at lapatti, 624 201, Nilakottai
the local market depending taluka, Dindugal district,Taupon the demand. He was mil
Nadu,
moable to get a net income of bile:9791374087
and
Rs.1.6 lakhs from an acre dur- 9865078101 and Mr. N. Mading the 18 months of planting hu
Balan
on
mobile:
the trees.
9751506521 Dharmapuri disThough the income was trict, Tamil Nadu.

15

luted waters, but loaded with


pollutants affecting the quality of milk and other products.
Also the demand for water
in the urban areas is very
high. The farmers dependent
on the groundwater are having great difficulty. The
ground water, as they go
deeper, is saline and when applied to the elds over a period increases the alkalinity of
the soil.

Recent times
The leachates from the solid waste dumpyard sites pollute ground water. In recent
times people are producing
compost from city waste. The
city waste compost has highest number of the pollutants
including plastics which are
carcinogenic.
Some farmers buy these
materials for soil amendment
/ growth regulator for getting
high yield of the crops. But
these pollutants nd their
way into the food chain and
nally in the products consumed by people. There are
no regulatory mechanisms.
There is an urgent need to
explore the possibilities of
how urban areas could also
support the farmers than instead of seeing urban areas
affecting agriculture.
(Dr. N. Sai Bhaskar Reddy,
Coordinator,
ClimaAdapt
Project, Walamtari, email:
saibhaskamakka@gmail.com,
Mobile:09676799191.)

FARM QUERY

Rope from banana fibre


Can you please guide me on fibre extraction from banana
stems?
T. LOKESWARI

Tamil Nadu
Mr.S.Prasath an engineer from Gobichettipalayam, Erode
district produces about 5 tonnes of bre a month. In a month
he earns Rs. 4,200 as net income from this enterprise. In
addition, he provides employment to 25 agricultural labourers
on a regular basis. To know more contact him on mobile:
9790039998,
Email:
bananabres@yahoo.in
and
info.braydil@gmail.com
Readers are invited to send their queries with full postal address to Farm Queries, The Hindu,
Kasturi Buildings, 859/860, Anna Salai, Chennai 600002 or email to farmqueries@thehindu.co.in

ND-ND

NOIDA/DELHI

THE HINDU

15

THURSDAY, MAY 28, 2015

Tiny heart, big promise

Chandigarh bans sale of loose cigarettes

Studying zebrash, investigators have found a new


source for cells that can develop into coronary vessels
and have identied the protein guiding this process.

The Chandigarh Administration has imposed a ban


on sale of loose cigarettes, and other tobacco
products sans specied health warnings on them.

SNAPSHOTS
Location matters in the
lowland Amazon

SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

TB: India study confirms Xpert


diagnostic tests superiority
Compared with smear microscopy, Xperts use led to 16 per cent increase in case notification
R. PRASAD

AFP

New work shows a hidden


tapestry of chemical variation
across the lowland Amazon. Plants
in different areas produce an
array of chemicals that changes
across the region's topography.

Of quakes, premature
baby's brain activity

portant implication. Regardless of prior treatment


history, treatment for MDRTB can be initiated immediately in those patients who
are found to be rifampicin resistant through Xpert diagnostic testing, they note.
As per the WHO guidelines,
there is no need for a repeat
drug susceptibility testing for
MDR-TB in the previously
treated TB patients.

or the rst time in


India, the superiority of Xpert MTB/
RIF over smear microscopy for bacteriological
conrmation of pulmonary
TB and in diagnosing MDRTB (Multi Drug ResistantTB) patients before initiating
any treatment has been
proved in a large-scale study
undertaken in 2012-2013.

Change in guidelines

Encouraging results

ASHOKE CHAKRABARTY

Brainstorms generated by the


billions of neurons inside a
premature baby's head are
governed by the same rules as
other massive natural
phenomena, such as earthquakes.

Climate engineering
may save coral reefs

ZOOLOGICAL SURVEY OF INDIA

A new technique involves injecting


gas into the stratosphere, forming
microscopic particles which
reect some of the sun's energy
and so help limit rising sea surface
temperatures, saving corals.

Fungi help resolve


mushroom tree of life

M. SATHYAMOORTHY

Genetic material from fungi


collections helped researchers
resolve the mushroom 'tree of
life,' a map of the relationships
between key mushroom species
and their evolutionary history.

Key to more efficient


polymer solar cells

The latest study, the largest


in the world, found that using
Xpert molecular test as an
initial diagnostic test for TB
in public health facilities increased the rate of TB case
notication by 16 per cent
and of bacteriologically conrmed TB by 39 per cent.
Also, the rifampicin-resistant
TB case notication increased by vefold, notes a
paper published recently in
the journal PLOS ONE. Dr.
K.S. Sachdeva, Additional
Deputy Director General of
the Central TB Division, New
Delhi is the rst author.
The study was undertaken
in 18 TB programme units
eight in rural areas (3.9 million population), six in the urban areas (3.4 million
population) and four in tribal
and hilly areas that are difficult to reach (1.5 million population). The study was
implemented in two phases
baseline and intervention.
The baseline phase used
smear microscopy to diag-

BIGGEST ADVANTAGE: The use of Xpert led to a five-fold increase in rifampicinresistant TB case notification. PHOTO: K. MURALI KUMAR
nose TB in over 10,500 presumptive pulmonary TB
patients; the intervention
phase used Xpert diagnostic
testing on over 70,500 presumptive pulmonary TB
patients.
Unlike smear microscopy,
Xpert has excellent sensitivity and specicity to TB and
can return results in less than
two hours. Besides diagnosing TB, Xpert can tell if a subject has rifampicin drug
resistance.

Strongly indicative
The results strongly suggest that Xpert can substitute
smear microscopy as an initial diagnostic test to diagnose more number of TB
cases and also for diagnosing

rifampicin resistance. The vefold increase in identifying


rifampicin resistant cases became possible only because
Xpert was used for testing
drug resistance in all presumptive TB patients. Conventionally, drug susceptibility
testing is offered rather selectively to patients who have
already been diagnosed as
suffering from TB and who
run a high risk of having drug
resistance.
Also, almost one-third of
rifampicin resistant TB cases
were detected by using Xpert
in treatment nave cases. In
India, the prevalence of rifampicin resistance in new
TB cases is estimated to be
around three per cent. Generally, drug resistance comes up

Brain-machine interface
to move robotic arm
SHUBASHREE DESIKAN

aralysed from neck down


after suffering a bullet
wound that caused a lesion in
his spinal cord more than a
decade ago, 34-year-old Erik
G. Sorto is today able to move
his arm and even serve himself a drink just by thinking
about it. Thanks to a collaboration between Caltech,
Keck Medicine of University
of South California and Roncho Los Amigos National Rehabilitation Centre, U.S.,
Sorto is the rst person in the
world to have a neural prosthetic device implanted in
the posterior parietal cortex
(PPC) which can help him
move his arm by imagining
the movement.
There have been earlier attempts to have neural implants that would decode the
brains impulses and help in
moving prosthetic limbs, but
these have yielded jerky
movements unlike smooth
natural movements that we
are used to. For the rst time,
the researchers implanted
sensory devices in the PPC,

Erik Sorto is able to


perform some tasks with
his robotic arm by
thinking about them.
PHOTO: AP

which is a region that processes the intention of moving


the desired limb, rather than
the motor cortex which actually processes the movement itself, as others had
attempted to do earlier.
From animal studies, the
group led by Richard Andersen of Caltech had identied
that the PPC is the region
where the intent for making a

movement is processed.
The device, a 96-channel
electrode array, was implanted in Sortos brain in 2013 in
the regions of the PPC that
control two actions reach
and grasp. Recordings were
observed for 21 months and
no adverse effects were detected.
For about two years, he
trained himself on how to
move a robotic arm and a cursor on a computer. He had to
imagine a movement of the
arm to the desired position
and thereby learn to control
the movement. With all that
effort, today, he is able to perform some tasks with his robotic arm by thinking about
them.
Though the procedure and
device are not yet ready for
commercial use, the research,
published recently in Science,
represents a huge leap in
brain-machine interfaces, especially in its demonstration
of the role of the PPC. Especially, it holds promise for individuals who have suffered
paralysis due to various
causes.

in those who have been irregular in taking TB medicines


or in those who have stopped
medication midway through
the treatment.
This nding demonstrates
the potential impact of extending universal DST [drug
susceptibility testing] to all
presumptive TB cases under
routine programme conditions in improving case nding of TB as well as
rifampicin-resistant TB, particularly in areas where drugresistance in treatment nave
cases is of substantial concern, the authors state. The
observations may be useful in
guiding the decisions on
scale-up of universal DST in
the country.
The study has another im-

In the case of those who


have never been on anti-TB
treatment earlier, the researchers say that there is a
strong case for initiating
second-line treatment for TB
when Xpert result is positive
for rifampicin resistance.
Though the WHO guideline
requires a parallel conrmatory testing for drug susceptibility using liquid culture for
new cases, the question is
whether it should be done
away with based on the latest
study results
The current WHO guideline for a conrmatory drug
testing is based on a positive
predictive value of 60-65 per
cent. But for the rst time,
this study has had a high positive predictive value of 91.3
per cent for new cases (treatment nave cases). It is now
for the RNTCP to decide
whether more research is required before doing away
with the need for a conrmatory susceptibility testing in
new cases or to issue fresh
guidelines based on the results of this study.

Scanning kidneys
becomes easy
R. PRASAD

hanks to software developed by IIT Hyderabad


researchers, semi-skilled persons can use an ultrasound
imaging device to perform
preliminary diagnosis to classify a kidney as either normal
or abnormal in terms of
stones, cysts, or bacterial infection. When fully functional, the imaging system
developed by a team led by
Prof. P. Rajalakshmi, Department of Electrical Engineering, IIT Hyderabad can
provide a llip to healthcare
in rural and remote areas
where lack of trained sonologists has become a norm.
Preliminary results have
been published recently in the
2014 IEEE 16th International
Conference on e-Health Networking, Applications and
Services (Healthcom).
Unlike in the case of the
sphygmomanometer (blood
pressure measuring instrument) or ECG, only skilled
people can use an ultrasound
probe to get the desired information. The very objective
of Prof. Rajalakshmis work
was therefore to turn the device into one that can be operated by semi-skilled people.
To do that, a six-second ultrasound video is converted
into images 15 frames per
second. An organ validation
algorithm developed by the
team then checks each frame
to see if useful information
has been acquired. The algorithm was developed based on
ultrasound videos of kidney
collected by sonographers.
The system alerts the operator to rescan the organ when
partial data or useful data is
not available, she said. We
have developed a novel organ

The system can be


operated by semi-skilled
persons. PHOTO: AFP
validation algorithm for kidney but it can be expanded to
other organs too.
Once the organ validation
is performed, a CAD algorithm does a preliminary diagnosis to classify the kidney
as normal or abnormal. The
length of the kidney, the textural features and rst and
second order statistics are applied to classify a kidney as
normal or abnormal, said
Prof. Rajalakshmi. The abnormality could be a stone, a
cyst or bacterial infection.
The algorithm only classies
the organ as normal or abnormal and does not say what
the abnormality is.
Though 32 features extracted come under the rst
and second order statistics,
the team found kidney classication can be based on fewer
features. Our analysis shows
that only 10 features are
needed to classify a kidney as
normal or not, she said.
The valid images are uploaded to the cloud and information on whether the
kidney image is normal or not
is also tagged along with the
image.
The good news is that the
organ validation algorithm
and CAD can be integrated
with ultrasound machines.

Unravelling the evolutionary


history of coastal Kerala
K.S. SUDHI

eoscientists are peering


into the geological and
evolutionary history of the
coastal belt of Kerala to predict possible climatic and geomorphologic changes.
A group of researchers
from the Thiruvananthapuram-based National Centre
for Earth Sciences, led by D.
Padmalal, are reading the THE IMPLICATION: The study will fill the missing
sedimentary columns collect- knowledge gaps from the past 20,000 years to the
ed from boreholes drilled present. PHOTO: SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT
along the coastline.
Bore holes are drilled up to the evolutionary process of as the scientic community
50 metres to obtain undis- the Kerala coast. Since cli- has climate data including
turbed sediment samples. mate changes are cyclic in na- rain and temperature of the
The sedimentological, palyn- ture, there is a need to know past 150 years.
ological and geo-chronologi- the climatological data going
Pollen grains and spores
cal analysis of the sediments back to at least 20,000 years found embedded in sediments
collected from these bore- to precisely predict the future and pulled out from beneath
holes will reveal the palaeo- and possible climate and geo- the earths surfaces (they are
climate
and morphological changes. The classied as proxies, which are
palaeoenvironment. Around study will ll the missing considered as the indirect in30 such boreholes have been knowledge gaps from the past dicators of climatic condidug along the coastline. Cur- 20,000 years to present, he tions) will reveal information
rently, research is progress- explained.
about trees and vegetation
ing in the Kodungalloor area
The chronological proling present then.
in Thrissur district, explained and analysis of sediments
The stable isotopic examinDr. Padmalal.
dating back to over 20,000 ations of shells found in sediThe focus is to understand years is of utmost importance ments can provide us

information about temperature of water, productivity


and inux of fresh water from
the land to water bodies. Historical data about sea level
rises, mineral deposits and
receding sea level can also be
read out of the data, he said.
A full sediment column
can be considered as pages of
a book. The geoscientists can
read the sediment pages of a
borehole core and tell the
evolutionary details of a given
location, he explained.
The drilling studies in the
coastal lands (areas below
10m from mean sea level) of
Periyar River basin could unfold the channel migration
over the years and also provide insights into human migration and related aspects,
he said.
The coastal lands of the entire west coast will be covered
under the ongoing research
project. These studies will reveal how the coastal areas
evolved over the years and
the climatic and environmental conditions that inuenced
these changes, Dr. Padmalal
explained.

Tracing the bone and the marrow through the fruitfly


While the marrow is the nutrient source of the bone, the bone in its turn provides the environment essential for the marrow
REUTERS

Now, using carefully designed


materials and an "inverted"
architecture, scientists have
achieved efficiency of 10 per cent,
bringing polymer solar cells close
to commercial viability.

Special fats essential


for brain growth

SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT

Mutations in the protein Mfsd2a


cause impaired brain
development. Mfsd2a is the
transporter for a special type of
fat called LPC composed of
essential fatty acids like omega-3.
CM
YK

ones are not solid rods,


they are tubes. And within their hollow is the marrow,
the very seed bed of our daily
life. It is from the marrow
that we obtain our lifeline,
our blood. Hippocrates of ancient Greece talked about
marrow as a nutrient. Shakespeare in Macbeth shouts:
Avaunt! And quit my sight!
Thy bone is marrowless. Thy
blood is cold. And the contemporary scientist M Tavassoli says: for centuries,
poets, healers and philosophers saw and described the
close link between blood and
life. Not so the marrow. Its
role as the seed bed of blood
lay hidden, like a seed in the
soil.
In his eminently readable
review: The origins of bone
marrow as the seed bed of our
blood, Dr Barry Cooper of
Texas Oncology (Proc. Baylor
Univ Med. Center 2011: 24(2)
115-118), free on the web,
from where I have taken the

above two quotes) describes


the work of Drs. F. Neumann,
G. Bizzozero and W. Osler (all
of 19th century in Europe),
which made us understand
that it is from the marrow
that we get our red blood cells
(erythroids), white blood
cells lymphocytes (adaptive
immunity) and myelocytes
(innate immunity, blood clotting) and others so essential
for everybodys life, after we
are born (postembryonic).
And it is the marrow cells that
also have the stemness, out of
which other cells as those for
muscles, nerves and so on can
be generated. The marrow is
not just a nourisher, it is also
the source for the generation
of cells needed for other tissues and organs.
And interestingly, as Tavassoli noted, while the marrow is the nutrient source of
the bone, the bone in its turn
provides the environment essential for the marrow; each
needs the other, the niche and

Hematopoiesis does not


stop at the pupal stage
but continues in the
adult fly. PHOTO: REUTERS
the factory that keeps on producing cells all the time.
All this is well for animals
with bones. What about the
boneless invertebrates? They
too need their life-uids for
metabolism, growth, immunity and waste disposal. Evolution dictates that there
must be not just a proximate

source of blood generation


(call it hematopoiesis in technical lingo) but an ultimate
origin going back in history.
What are the ancestors or
precursors of the marrow; of
the bone; the niche and the
factory?
Primordial cells were simple and single cell organisms.
Uptake of nutrients and disposal of waste were simple
processes across the membrane. But when they evolved
into multicellular organisms
with primitive body parts,
transport between and across
cells required some form of a
body uid. Such a uid should
not only transport stuff but
also have components that
can repair damaged cells and
even generate new cells and
new body parts. In other
words, they would have to
have stemness a primary
source from where other
types of cells can be generated the factory mentioned
above. As evolution proceed-

ed, complexity increased but


the fundamentals were set in
place.
When one wants to study
such a primitive yet sophisticated organism, one
goes for an easily cultivable,
mutable and easy to work
with invertebrate. And the
development biologists favourite has been the fruit ies
(yes the same tiny dark one
that buzzes around the bananas in the fruit-sellers
cart).
Enough is known about its
metabolism, genetics and cell
biology, and it is easily mutable and manipulated. And it
has body parts and body
uids, so that the origin and
development of its marrow
and blood can be studied
with some ease. It was with
this idea that Dr. Lolitika
Mandal (of IISER Mohali)
started her work about a decade ago. Her question was
would these niches and cell
producing factories in the

fruit y, correspond to the


animal bone and marrow and
do these marrow-like cells
posses stemness? To put it
somewhat
dramatically,
where is the marrow and
what is the blood in the fruit
y? Or, does our blood trace
its ancestry to the y?
Conventional wisdom until
then was that such hematopoiesis in the y was conned
to the embryonic stage, and
once the larval stage goes on
to the pupa, this life uid-producing
organ
ruptures
(breaks down) and releases
the cells from there for circulation. The belief was also
that the adult y has no organ
for making such blood like
cells any longer. In other
words, it was a one-time
birthday gift for the baby y
to make do with for the rest of
its life.
The mother in Lolitika perhaps felt that no mother can
leave her daughter in such
dire straits, and began look-

ing for organs and tissues in


the adult y where such hematopoiesis might happen.
Her husband, Sudip Mandal,
gallantly joined her in this parental quest.

Landmark paper
And in a landmark paper
that has just been published
in the journal Developmental
Cell (Vol 33, May 26, 2015, pp
l-11), they show that hematopoiesis in the y does not stop
at the pupal stage but continues in the adult y, and the
niche (equivalent of the
bone if you will) are some
clusters on the upper side of
the y abdomen. It is here
that the equivalent of blood
cells is generated and contributes to immunity as well.
It is these hubs in the abdomen that are the precursors
of the vertebrate bone marrow, conclude the Mandals
with parental pride.
D. BALASUBRAMANIAN
dbala@lvpei.org
ND-ND

16

SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY / AGRICULTURE

QUESTION CORNER
Bio-diversity conservation
What is the difference between a national park, protected
area, sanctuary and biosphere reserve?
Dr. MOHD YOUNIS
Pulwama, Jammu and Kashmir
Due to enormous pressure of the exploding human population, the area of the forests is shrinking and many of the
ora and fauna are on the verge of extinction. Accordingly,
efficient in-situ conservation strategy has been organized
to conserve ecologically important areas by regulating human intervention and thus efforts have established a protected area network.
National park is an area with enough ecological, geomorphological and natural signicance with rich fauna and
ora, which is designed to protect and to develop wildlife or
its environment. The rights of the people living inside this
Category 2 type of protected areas are tightly regulated and
activities like grazing, hunting , forestry or cultivation,
encroachment, destruction of habitats and other activities
are strictly prohibited. But most national parks provide
outdoor recreation, camping opportunities and are designed to educate the public on the importance of conservation activities.
Protected areas are at the core of efforts towards biodiversity conservation, providing habitat and protection
from hunting for threatened and endangered species and
are key to buffering unpredictable impacts of impeding
climate change. Thus, protected areas are geographical
space, recognized, dedicated and managed, through legal or
other effective means, to achieve the long term conservation of nature and cultural values. In protected areas human occupation and exploitation of resources is limited.
Wildlife Sanctuaries or wildlife refuges are home to
various endangered species of wild animals and these animals are safe from hunting, predation or competition. and
safeguarded from extinction in their natural habitat. Wildlife sanctuaries and national parks attract millions of tourists and nature lovers. In Wildlife sanctuaries harvesting
timbers, cultivation, collection of forest products are allowed with permission.
Biosphere Reserves are areas of terrestrial and coastal
ecosystems which are internationally recognized within
the framework of the Man and the Biosphere ( MAB)
programme of the UNESCO and are not formed according
to the guidelines of the Wildlife (protection) Act, 1972 and
may have one more national parks or wildlife sanctuaries
in it. Under the MAB programme there is a World Network
of Biosphere Reserves (WNBR ) and within this network,
exchange of information, experience and personnel is allowed.
DR. SAINUDEEN PATTAZHY
Kollam, Kerala

This weeks questions


What is the reason behind greying of hair with age?
Sapna Prasad, Chennai
What state-of-the-art computer technology is used to
train pilots when simulating the experience of ying an
aircraft?
Vidhyunt, Palakkad, Kerala
Readers can send questions/answers on science and technology for the Question Corner
along with their names and address to the following email id:
questioncorner@thehindu.co.in or to The Editor, The Hindu (Science and Technology),
859-860, Anna Salai, Chennai 600 002.

CM
YK

NOIDA/DELHI

THE HINDU

FARMERS NOTEBOOK

A bus driver masters the art of


hiving wild honey bees
It is an art which requires patience and skill and only few gain mastery
M.J. PRABU

ll agriculture universities across the


country
have
Krishi Vigyan Kendras with them to reach out
to the farmers and act as a
bridge of knowledge transfer
from the lab to the land and
vice versa.
But in the present scenario, more than knowledge
sharing or imparting, it is becoming increasingly important to help a farmer earn
more, so that agriculture is
sustainable both for himself
and to the society at large.

Challenge
It is not necessary for a
farmer to own large areas of
land to earn better income.
In fact revenue generation is
possible even from a few
cents. To make it possible is
both a challenge and an art
which only few kendras have
been able to achieve and one
among them is the one attached to the Central Plantation and Crops Research
Institute
in
Kasargod
(CPCRI), says Dr. T.S. Manoj Kumar Programme
Coordinator.
Mr. Udayan, a temporary
bus driver with the Kerala
State Road Transport Corporation (KSRTC) was nding it difficult to make both
ends meet as his monthly income was only around Rs.
8,000.
Maintaining a family of
four in todays economic situation is no easy task. His 60
cents of ancestral land is
densely packed with diversied crops such as coconut
palms, pepper, banana, betel
leaf and different vegetables
along with a milch cow.
Racking his brain as to
how to earn some extra income he accidently happened to read in the local

HELPFUL: Honey bees in a garden have been helping to get 30 to 40 per cent
more yield. - PHOTO: SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT
dailies about training programmes on stingless bee
keeping (Meliponiculture)
being organized by the
Kendra.
Curious and excited he
contacted us to explore the
possibility of starting meliponiculture as a microenterprise since land was one of
the major barriers in taking
up agri enterprises involving
cultivation of crops, says Dr.
Manoj.
Usually bee keeping means
rearing bees with stings in
wooden boxes and training is
given on the art of handling
the insects and honey
extraction.

No easy task
Once completed the participants can collect the queen
bee and the box paying a
amount and start establishing
the colonies in their eld or
garden.
But collecting bees from
the wild called hiving is not so
easy. It is an art which requires patience and skill and
only some gain mastery over
it.
Immediately after attending the training programme,
Mr. Udayan started his venture with the condence that
he can practice hiving. He had
noticed small bees going in
and out of bamboo poles in a

nearby forest land. He wanted to hive natural colonies


from the forest areas and contacted a former trainee of the
Kendra for help. He arranged
bee boxes of standard specications and started hiving
natural colonies.

Enterprise
Together they initiated
their enterprise with ve colonies. They started locating
colonies rst by observing
bees and later hiving it at
weekly intervals. From their
experience, they found that in
large areas with wild vegetation, small bees prefer to colonise in dried bamboo poles
as compared to hollows or
cavities of wild trees.
Now, they are able to collect ve to seven colonies a
week. At present, there are
around 95 colonies in their
unit. They have sold 65 colonies at Rs.1200 per colony
and around 25 kg of honey at
rate of Rs.1,500 per kg thereby earning Rs.1,15,000 in the
last six months, explains Dr.
S. Leena, Chief technical
officer.
The honey is marketed under brand name called
Unique honey and is quite
popular since it is extracted
from from stingless bees (also
called dammer bees) is natural and medicinal in quality.

THURSDAY, MAY 28, 2015

Mulching in tuberose
for weed management
K. INDHUMATHI
& P. S. SHANMUGAM

uberose is an important
traditional ower of India. It is used both as loose
ower and cut ower. The
major constraint in tuberose
cultivation is weed management and about 70-80 per
cent of cultivation cost accounts for weeding.
Plastic mulching is recommended for weed management, if planted under drip
and fertigation system.
Raised beds should be prepared at a height of four feet
and lateral drip laid out along
the centre of the raised beds.
Plastic mulch sheet of 40 micron thickness top silver and
bottom black should be
spread on the raised beds.

Their duos success of hiv- Recommended spacing


ing bees from the wild was
Bulbs are planted in the
widely reported in local
holes made at recommended
media which inspired several
spacing. Use of the plastic
youth in the region to apmulch reduces the weed manproach the Kendra for similar
agement cost to a tune of 80
training.
per cent.
Kasaragod has been deIt prevents the evaporation
clared an organic district by
of irrigation water which rethe government and under
duces the irrigation water reorganic cultivation; initially it
quirement by 30 per cent.
takes three to four years for
The cost towards plastic
the yields to stabilise. The onmulching per acre is about Rs
ly way to encourage better
20,000. The crop period is for
yield is by raising honeybees.
two to three years and the life
It has been recorded by us
of mulch sheet almost exthat honey bees in a garden
tends for the period of 15-20
have been helping to get 30 to
months. If plastic mulching
40 per cent more yield over a
period of time,explains Dr.
Leena.

sheet is not used then weeding must be done once in 2025 days.
The mulch sheet reduces
the weeding cost by 80 per
cent. The furrows between
the raised beds alone need to
be weeded. The furrow space
is used for daily harvest of the
owers and hence the need
for weeding in that area is also lesser.

Harvesting
Flowers are harvested daily
and about 20 kilograms of
owers can be obtained per
acre per day.
The average cost per kg of
ower is about Rs.40 which
leads to an income of Rs.
24000 per month.
If plastic mulching is not
used, about Rs. 6,000 per
month will be spent for weeding, which is now saved by the
use of plastic mulching.
As a result, the net returns
increases by 40 to 60 per cent
compared to an unmulched
eld. The quality of the owers is also improved since the
soil moisture is maintained
and the plants are of vigour
physiology.
(Dr. K. Indhumathi, Asst
Prof (horticulture) and Dr. P.
S. Shanmugam, Krishi Vigyan
Kendra, Papparapatty, Dharmapuri district 636 809,
email: nilaadoss@gmail.com,
mobile: 09994672204, Phone
: 04342-245860.)

FARM QUERY

Proposal
The Karadka panchayath
has submitted proposal for a
project on creating honey village with the objective of establishing one colony in every
homes which is a similar idea
like every home must grow a
sapling.
To know more about this
interested readers can call
Mr. Udayan, Panoor kochi
house, Karaduka P.O., Muliyar (via), Kasaragod 671 542,
mobile: 8547994801 and Dr.
S. Leena, Chief Technical Ofcer ( Entomology), mobile:
09446062182,
phone:
04994-232993.

Barren land
Is it possible to make my two acre barren land productive?
RAMESH DUGAR

Maharashtra
Mr. Nand Kishore a farmer in Jaisalmeria Rajasthan is able
to earn Rs.41,000 a year from one hectare from cultivating ber
crops. The crop generates constant revenue all through the
year from his land that was considered barren and dry. It is
nearly 35 years since the ber orchard was created and even
now it is well maintained . For more details contact Mr. Nand
Kishore Jaisalmeria, House No. 5, Jaisalmeria ki gali, Nawchokia,
Jodhpur,
Phone:
0291-2622185,
mobile:
07597248866.
Readers are invited to send their queries with full postal address to Farm Queries, The Hindu,
Kasturi Buildings, 859/860, Anna Salai, Chennai 600002 or email to farmqueries@thehindu.co.in

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