Feature Article

This article attempts to unravel the underlying reasoning behind the contemporary practice of "trophy hunting." It uses deontology to critique the debate on trophy hunting, which, it reckons, is based on utilitarianism. This debate is wrongly pitched between those who consider trophy hunting as economically viable and those who decry this viability. This understanding treats environment as "unrelated" or "irrelevant" domain for the economic benefits, denies its intrinsic value and makes its instrumental use as a collective norm.

Data from seven decades of survey in Palanpur provide insights into the changing nature of the village economy. Starting as a predominantly agrarian economy, Palanpur has seen non-farm employment emerge as a major driver of growth and distribution of income in the village economy, but accompanied by increasing inequality. There is evidence of greater mobility among the disadvantaged in Palanpur alongside falling inter-generational mobility.

Rampant deforestation, extensive damming of the rivers, huge diversions of water for industrial projects and even elite resorts can be seen across the state. All these underlie Maharashtra’s terrible water crisis. They won’t get washed away by the monsoon, even if media coverage of it dries up with the onset of the rains.

Soil pollution in Guwahati city, Assam, India has become a major concern since the last few decades. To study the impact of automobile and industrial emission, distribution patterns of 16 different polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and eight heavy metals were investigated in the soil samples collected from 15 different sites. Higher concentration of total PAHs and heavy metals was found in the industrial areas compared to the high traffic areas.

Congenital heart disease (CHD) is one of the major causes of cardiovascular diseases in developing countries. CHD among neonates and young children is responsible for the largest proportion of mortality (30–50%) caused by birth defects . Though there is a significantly reducing trend observed in both overall and infant mortality resulting from CHD in developed countries like USA and Europe, CHD contributes 14% among 10.3 million total deaths in India, with 1931 disability adjusted life years (DALYs) per 100,000.

The origin of cities can be traced back to the river valley civilizations of Mesopotamia, Egypt, Indus Valley and China. Initially these settlements were largely dependent upon agriculture; however, with the growth in population the city size increased and economic activity transformed to trading . The process of urbanization gained impetus with the Industrial Revolution 200 years ago and accelerated in the 1990s with globalization and consequent relaxation in market economy. (Guest Editorial)

Climate change will have large impacts on water resources and its predictions are fraught with uncertainties in West Africa. With the current global drive for renewable energy due to climate change, there is a need for understanding the effects of hydro-climatic changes on water resources and hydropower generation. A hydrological model was used to model runoff inflow into the largest hydroelectric dam (Kainji) in the Niger Basin (West Africa) under present and future conditions.

It was the result that most scientists didn’t want. The United Kingdom’s vote to leave the European Union has plunged it into political and economic uncertainty — and left researchers worried over the future of their funding and collaborations, the UK’s participation in major European research programmes, and the freedom of movement and employment status of thousands of scientists.

This bottom-up modeling study, supported by new population census 2011 data, simulates ozone (O3) and fine particulate matter (PM2.5) exposure on local to regional scales. It quantifies, present-day premature mortalities associated with the exposure to near-surface PM2.5 and O3 concentrations in India using a regional chemistry model. We estimate that PM2.5 exposure leads to about 570,000 (CI95: 320,000–730,000) premature mortalities in 2011. On a national scale, our estimate of mortality by chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) due to O3 exposure is about 12,000 people.

Zika virus (ZIKV) was discovered in 1947 and was thought to lead to relatively mild disease. The recent explosive outbreak of ZIKV in South America has led to widespread concern, with reports of neurological sequelae ranging from Guillain Barré syndrome to microcephaly. ZIKV infection has occurred in areas previously exposed to dengue virus (DENV), a flavivirus closely related to ZIKV. Here we investigated the serological cross-reaction between the two viruses.