Must Read News Articles – July 1, 2018

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India backs FATF’s grey-listing of Pak.

India on Saturday welcomed the step by an international organisation that placed Pakistan on a special list of countries that are kept under watch in a move to counter international terror financing.

Karnataka decides to challenge Cauvery water authority in SC

The Karnataka government on Saturday decided to file an appeal in the Supreme Court against the setting up of the Cauvery Water Management Authority (CWMA) and the Cauvery Water Regulation Committee (CWRC) on the grounds that the formation should have been discussed in Parliament.

Hindu Rohingya refugees also wait for a home

Less than a kilometre from the gates of the world’s largest refugee settlement, in southeast Bangladesh, 101 Hindu Rohingya families wait to be rescued from their status as the “minority” within the world’s most persecuted minority community — the Muslim Rohingyas.

Anti-conversion law must stay: tribal groups

Followers of indigenous faiths in Arunachal Pradesh have resented Chief Minister Pema Khandu’s move to repeal an anti-conversion law that they say is necessary to save traditional belief systems and local cultures.

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Aiming to be like Sikkim

The fight against plastic goes as far back as 1999 in India, when the Centre notified rules controlling the manufacture, sale and usage of plastic. The rules have been amended since then. Changes introduced in 2016 were considered the most environment friendly, extending responsibility to producers and generators of plastic, and imposing responsibilities on industry, consumers and civic bodies (up to and including the village level) for segregating, managing, recycling and reducing the usage of plastic.

Turning the tables on TB

Over the last few decades, the emergence of TB strains that are resistant to first-line medication has alarmed doctors and public health experts. Some forms of drug-resistance — especially to the two first-line drugs (referred to as multidrug-resistant TB or MDR-TB) — require a longer duration of therapy that is more expensive and toxic.

A hundred and beyond

Since 1900, average life expectancy around the globe has more than doubled, thanks to better public health, sanitation and food supplies. But a new study of long-lived Italians indicates that we have yet to reach the upper bound of human longevity.

‘Economic growth in FY19 will be better’

The Indian economy is on a sound footing and with consistent growth, India will emerge as the world’s largest economy by 2050, surpassing the U.S. and China, according to noted industrialist and chairman of the Godrej group Adi Godrej .

Rural India is buying more packet tea: study

Tea consumption in India is skewed towards the northern and the western parts which together consume 63 % of the beverage, south accounted for 18 % of the domestic consumption and east and north-east had 19 % share while accounting for 75% of the annual output.

University of Hyderabad increases bioavailability of harpin biopesticide

Researchers at the University of Hyderabad have found that harpin biopesticide brought about 80-90% reduction in severity of fungal infection in tomato plants when it is encapsulated in chitosan nanoparticles. The fungal infection was caused by Rhizoctonia solani.

Bacteria develop resistance even without exposure to antibiotics

The environment where bacteria such as E. coli thrive can be complex with different stresses being present at the same time and changing unpredictably at different time scales — daily or seasonal. Researchers at Pune’s Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER) found exciting results when they replicated these conditions in the lab — E. coli developed resistance to antibiotics and heavy metals even when the bacteria were not exposed to them.

Decreasing ‘greenness’ in India’s forests

Most forests are green. But a recent study finds that this ‘greenness’ is consistently decreasing across more than 46 lakh hectares of various types of forest in India, particularly in core protected areas. This indicates that our forests are vulnerable, write scientists.

Using multiple sclerosis drug to treat pancreatic cancer

The effectiveness of the multiple sclerosis drug when used together with the current pancreatic cancer drug was checked in mice models. The combination drug treatment was able to control various signalling molecules, thereby decreasing cancer cell proliferation and increasing apoptosis.

Astronomers puzzled by ‘cow’ in the sky

The cow proved to be suitably interesting, because though it was initially thought to be a nova, later analysis showed that it was more like a broadline supernova of the type Ic. Transient astronomical events last from a few seconds to several weeks and may have several causes.