Dr Rajiv Desai
An Educational Blog
POPULATION PROBLEM
Population Problem: _ _ Prologue: In an interview given to Economic Times, JRD Tata had reminisced how Nehru once retorted to his concerns on rising population. “Nonsense, a large population is the greatest source of power of any nation,” the first prime minister of Independent India is believed to have told the industry doyen. Subsequently India’s bulging population was seen as threat to the country’s future so much so that Nehru’s grandson, Sanjay Gandhi, ran a controversial campaign of forced sterilization during the emergency (1975-77). Their present Prime Minister Narendra Modi red-flagged population explosion in the course of his Independence Day speech. Mainstream politicians, journalists, and academics frequently avoid discussing population issues since notions about population are often seen as being politically or ideologically motivated. As a result, population debates are generally argued from the fringes. Some groups characterize population growth as a Ponzi scheme, whereby increasing numbers of youth […]
DRINKING WATER
Drinking Water: ____________ _ For last 8 years, I lived in a small town Daman and drank purified bottled water because water supplied by local municipality is suspected of unhygienic quality and water from private bore-well may well be contaminated as many areas of town have poor sewer drainage resulting in seepage of sewage in the soil itself and sewage tanks are in the vicinity of bore-wells. Assuming you’re in reasonable shape and in ideal conditions — that is, not in the heat or cold and not exerting, a human can probably live for about 3 to 5 days without drinking water. Healthier humans can live another day or so longer. Water is believed to be elixir of life. Humanity highly depends on water and its proper utilization and management. Although, water has various uses, perhaps its use as thirst quenching fluid is the most significant one. The life-supporting […]
OBESITY
OBESITY: _ _ Prologue: It only needs a daily excess of energy of 100 kilocalories (the equivalent of a small chocolate bar) to lead to an increase of around 5Kg of fat over 12 months or 50 Kg over 10 years. For thousands of years obesity was rarely seen. Obesity is a modern problem – statistics for it did not even exist 50 years ago. The increase of convenience foods, labor-saving devices, motorized transport and more sedentary jobs means people are getting fatter. It was not until the 20th century that it became common, so much so that in 1997 the World Health Organization (WHO) formally recognized obesity as a global epidemic. The WHO describes the “escalating global epidemic” of obesity as “one of today’s most blatantly visible — yet most neglected — public health problems”. Obesity is a bigger health crisis globally than hunger, and the leading cause of […]
GENETICALLY MODIFIED
GENETICALLY MODIFIED (GM): Prologue: A year 2006 study of the global impact of GM crops, published by the UK consultancy PG Economics and funded by Illinois-Missouri Biotechnology Alliance concluded that globally, the technology reduced pesticide spraying by 286,000 tons in 2006, decreasing the environmental impact of herbicides and pesticides by 15%. On the other hand, a year 2009 study published by the Organic Center stated that the use of genetically engineered corn, soybean, and cotton increased the use of herbicides by 383 million pounds, and pesticide use by 318.4 million pounds. Whom to trust? This is the paradox about GM food. There are thousands of studies and research works on GM whose conclusions contradict each other. People are caught in the cross-fire between pro-GM lobby and anti-GM lobby. I do not know the truth but I will try to educate people on the most controversial issue of 21’st century. […]
ALCOHOL
ALCOHOL: Today, I will discuss the most controversial topic for about 12000 years,namely, Alcohol.The alcohol is consumed by 80 % of people at some time in their lives. Alcohol or Ethanol or Ethyl Alcohol is defined as an organic compound composed of carbon,hydrogen and oxygen atoms with the molecular configuration as CH3CH2OH. I will not discuss other alcohols like methyl alcohol,propyl alcohol etc etc. The human beings have been consuming alcohol in various alcoholic beverages since 10000 year BC…. I wrote my thesis on alcohol in the year 1986 for my MD exam and concluded that the life-span of a heavy alcoholic is reduced by 12 years; and one out of six deaths in a government hospital is related to alcoholism.I was novice and naive then and the sample size of my study was limited. Whisky is a short form of usquebaugh where uisce means water and bethad means of […]
