Feature Article

India's food products market is nearly ₹25 lakh crore and in the next five years it is expected too shoot over ₹40 lakh crore. In this scenario the role of the food regulator, Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) is crucial. However, the FSSAI is in a pathetic condition and its record of hauling up erring food products firms is far from satisfactory.

Bad news is good news; media revel in news of crisis and catastrophe. No news is bad news; some space has to be filled with news if anyone is going to look at accompanying views and ads. But if there is no news, pseudo-news can be invented, also known as speculation. Speculation is possible all round the year on weather, for luckily, India is situated far enough from the equator to have pronounced seasons.

Extreme precipitation events in the Mediterranean region during the cool season are strongly affected by the export of moist air from tropical and subtropical areas into the extratropics. The aim of this paper is to present a discussion of the major research efforts on this subject and to formulate a summary of our understanding of this phenomenon, along with its recent past trends from a climate change perspective.

Extreme precipitation events are increasing as a result of ongoing global warming, but controversy surrounds the relationship between flooding and mosquito-borne diseases. A common view among the scientific community and public health officers is that heavy rainfalls have a flushing effect on breeding sites, which negatively affects vector populations, thereby diminishing disease transmission. During 2014 in Montpellier, France, there were at least 11 autochthonous cases of chikungunya caused by the invasive tiger mosquito Aedes albopictus in the vicinity of an imported case.

Drinking water is recognized as a source of lead (Pb) exposure. However, questions remain about the impact of chronic exposure to lead-contaminated water on internal dose. The objective of the study was to estimate the relation between a cumulative water Pb exposure index (CWLEI) and blood Pb levels (BPb) in children aged 1 to 5 years.

Original Source

Figures index : From the study "Drying of Indian subcontinent by rapid Indian Ocean warming and a weakening land-sea thermal gradient".

Original Source

This new study led by an Indian scientist Dr Roxy Mathew Koll, from the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM) Pune, points out a significant decreasing trend in the summer monsoon rainfall over the central Indian subcontinent during the past century. It suggests an important role of the rapid warming in the Indian Ocean in weakening of monsoon circulation and rainfall.

Currently no direct evidence links in utero dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT) exposure to human breast cancer. However, in utero exposure to another xenoestrogen, diethylstilbestrol, predicts an increased breast cancer risk. If this finding extends to DDT, it could have far-reaching consequences. Many women were heavily exposed in utero during widespread DDT use in the 1960s. They are now reaching the age of heightened breast cancer risk. DDT exposure persists and use continues in Africa and Asia without clear knowledge of the consequences for the next generation.

Groundwater is a finite resource under continuous external pressures. Current unsustainable groundwater use threatens the resilience of aquifer systems and their ability to provide a long-term water source. Groundwater storage is considered to be a factor of groundwater resilience, although the extent to which resilience can be maintained has yet to be explored in depth. In this study, we assess the limit of groundwater resilience in the world's largest groundwater systems with remote sensing observations.

Groundwater is an increasingly important water supply source globally. Understanding the amount of groundwater used versus the volume available is crucial to evaluate future water availability. We present a groundwater stress assessment to quantify the relationship between groundwater use and availability in the world's 37 largest aquifer systems. We quantify stress according to a ratio of groundwater use to availability, which we call the Renewable Groundwater Stress ratio.