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Among the insect pests of coconut, the black headed caterpillar is the most notorious and dreaded. It often assumes severe proportions in the coastal and backwater tracts.

Manu Prakash, an assistant professor of bioengineering at Stanford University, and two of his students have re-imagined the microscope to come up with a nifty device that’s printed on paper and folded like origami.

Traditional theory has it that the origin of complex life on earth was catalysed by oxygenation of the atmospheric and ocean. Scientists now counter this argument to suggest that in fact they were the first life forms, such as sponges, which oxygenated the deep oceans and aided in the evolution of complex life forms. The ocean contained sufficient levels of oxygen to support life for over 1.5 billion years before the first animals evolved. Yet, the oxygen so found was restricted to the upper few metres of the ocean. The ocean depths, including the bottom of the water body, continued to remain anoxic till half a billion years ago. Central to determining the oxygen levels in deep oceans is the delicate balance between oxygen supply and demand. The demand shoots up when organic matter in the form of dead organic material settles to the bottom. Sponges that were found in the continental shelf of the ocean played a crucial role in reducing the oxygen demand by the dead org...

The Supreme Court on Wednesday declined to review its January 21 verdict, commuting the death sentence of 15 convicts to life term because of inordinate delay on the part of the President in disposing of their mercy petitions.

2014 Lok Sabha Polls, Meghnad Desai column, Indian Express column General election, Rahul Gandhi, NArendra Modi,  Arvind Kejriwal Just think of it. The  three main contenders most often mentioned as likely prime ministers, or even the next seven or so, were all born after 1947. Except for PM hopefuls Lal Krishna Advani, Sharad Pawar and Mulayam Singh Yadav — all else are children of independent India. The majority of electors were also born post 1947 and a large proportion after Emergency. Had Rajiv Gandhi lived and become PM in 1991, Indian politics may have shifted to a younger generation. But that moment was lost. The premature deaths of their fathers has also propelled some yuvarajs into frontline positions, but in the Congress they cannot get to the top as the slot is pre-booked. The Janata Party movement brought students into politics. Hence, we have Lalu Prasad (born in 1948) and Nitish Kumar (1951) in Bihar. Narendra Modi (1950) is of Janata vintage, while Arvi...

Dismissing reports that BJP prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi was overshadowing the party, senior party leader Venkaiah Naidu cited the example of how former Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee wanted Modi to resign as Gujarat Chief Minister after the 2002 riots, but he had to give in to the party’s “collective decision” against the move. This is evidence that no individual leader is above the party, said Naidu, who was the BJP president at the time of the Gujarat riots. “No BJP leader is afraid of Modi... He is one of our colleagues and the darling of the masses today. In the BJP, the president presides, team decides,” said Naidu, speaking at The Indian Express Idea Exchange programme on Friday. “Even during Vajpayee’s regime, decisions were taken collectively... Atalji opined that the Gujarat Chief Minister (Modi) should adhere to raj dharma and step down (over the 2002 riots). But the party collectively decided that he should contin...

Dismissing reports that BJP prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi was overshadowing the party, senior party leader Venkaiah Naidu cited the example of how former Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee wanted Modi to resign as Gujarat Chief Minister after the 2002 riots, but he had to give in to the party’s “collective decision” against the move. This is evidence that no individual leader is above the party, said Naidu, who was the BJP president at the time of the Gujarat riots. “No BJP leader is afraid of Modi... He is one of our colleagues and the darling of the masses today. In the BJP, the president presides, team decides,” said Naidu, speaking at The Indian Express Idea Exchange programme on Friday. “Even during Vajpayee’s regime, decisions were taken collectively... Atalji opined that the Gujarat Chief Minister (Modi) should adhere to raj dharma and step down (over the 2002 riots). But the party collectively decided that he should contin...

RUSSIA: Russia's ministry of foreign affairs was not amused by the unorthodox statement from the US State Department under the title "President Putin's Fiction: 10 False Claims About Ukraine," which purported to rebut a series of assertions by Vladimir Putin in the eye-catching format of a top-10 list. The foreign ministry's own statements have an ornate formal tone, garnished with thick irony and rhetorical flourishes, and this casual treatment of the Russian president's words in the State Department list, released Wednesday, must have been jarring. A ministry spokesman, Alexander K Lukashevich, provided an angry five-paragraph response on Thursday afternoon, calling the list "shocking, not as much for its primitive distortion of reality as its cynicism and overt 'double standards.'" "The State Department is trying to play on a shamelessly one-sided interpretation of events, as if there was not plentiful evidence of atrocities commi...

Russia’s de facto annexation of the Crimea — which President Vladimir Putin says is a humanitarian intervention — has exposed ugly motives all round. On February 22, Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, panicking over public protests calling for early elections and a return to the 2004 Constitution, abandoned his violent crackdown on the protesters and fled the capital, Kiev. The national parliament voted to remove him from office and impeach him; Speaker Oleksander Turchynov took over as interim president, and the assembly decided to hold elections on May 25. Mr. Turchynov has since then made political appointments by decree, and some of his choices have extreme right-wing and anti-Semitic backgrounds. On March 1, Russian troops moved into the eastern province of Crimea, without facing any resistance; the Russian military had, in any case, retained their Sevastopol naval base and various airfields under an arrangement made after the Soviet Union was abolished in 199...

Ukraine threatens to become the Syria of Eastern Europe. And like Syria, civil war could ultimately decimate a vibrant and ethnically diverse society, and a rich civilisational legacy The political crisis in Ukraine, that has now entered its fourth month, is rapidly reaching a point of no return. Territorial fissures in the country along political, linguistic and ethnic lines, the real possibility of civil war, and the emergence of the southern (autonomous) Ukrainian republic of Crimea as a potential, international military flashpoint, are among the different aspects of the current situation in the country, which is the second largest state in Europe. The focus has shifted from Kiev to the southern province of Crimea where the interim government that deposed former President Viktor Yanukovych has not been recognised. With its complex ethnic mix and historical past, the region has traditionally had strong ties with Russia. Russia has stepped up its military presence in Crimea — ...

Bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh to create Telangana on Friday came under judicial scrutiny with the Supreme Court agreeing to examine it and sought response from the Centre. A bench headed by Justice H.L. Dattu issued notice to the Centre on a batch of petitions filed by several people, including former Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Kiran Reddy, challenging bifurcation of the State. The court favoured interference of a Constitution bench for hearing the issue and said the larger bench can consider whether stay can be granted on bifurcation of the State. The petitioners contended that the bifurcation of the State is illegal and unconstitutional. They questioned Centre’s decision to pass the Bill pertaining to bifurcation of the State in Parliament despite it being rejected by the State Assembly. There are around 18 petitions filed in the apex court challenging the bifurcation of the State. The apex court had on February 7 and 17 respectively refused to entertain petitions challe...

Growing up as I did reading The Hindu’s sports pages, I was taken by the phrase “pyrrhic victory”. Clearly, the paper’s sports desk was too: it made the headlines an impressive number of times, usually to describe dead rubber Ranji matches. Since then, it has been among my unstated goals as a writer to ­deploy the phrase without sounding a cliché. This has been an unfulfilling enterprise in these minimalist times, where victories are hard to come by, let alone those laced with failure. Until now. Last week, when Seemanto Roy, scion of the Sahara Parivar, read out a message from his father Subrata describing his recent arrest as “the Best ­Honour My Country Could Give Me”, I knew I had my phrase. At the end of a long, and in the words of the Supreme Court, “outrageously ridiculous” cat-and-mouse game with Sahara, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) has won a pyrrhic victory. Between 2009 — when it first ...

The refusal by two eminent jurists to join the Lokpal Search Committee is symptomatic of the credibility crisis that the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) regime faces in its last days. Even the process of putting in place an independent anti-corruption ombudsman has been engulfed in controversy, exposing the government to the charge that it is in an unseemly hurry to appoint the body before the expiry of its term. At the very first meeting of the Selection Committee, Sushma Swaraj, Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, objected to the inclusion of senior advocate P.P. Rao in the selection panel as the fifth member, and her objection was overruled. Senior advocate Fali Nariman declined to be on the Search Committee, voicing the fear that in the two-stage selection process, “the most competent, the most independent and the most courageous will get overlooked.” Retired Supreme Court judge, Justice K.T. Thomas, went through the Rules framed under the Lokpal and Lokayukta A...

Pakistan’s response to terrorism continues to be characterised by confusion, lack of national consensus on a way forward, lack of will and capacity to fight the menace and the consequent creeping surrender of the state to extremists and terrorists Despite being a country subject to and used to frequent terror attacks, the alarming upsurge in terror-related violence in January in Pakistan made people sit up. Nearly 40 personnel of the army and other security forces were killed in terror attacks between January 19 and 22, including one near the GHQ in Rawalpindi; 24 Shias were killed near Quetta by Sunni extremists on January 21. Daily killings in Karachi and attacks against polio vaccinators continue. These incidents are a reminder, if one was needed, of the enormity of Pakistan’s terror conundrum. Yet, a large section of Pakistan’s political class believes that the terror challenge can be met through dialogue. Slow track to dialogue A conditional offer of talks by t...

Finance Minister P Chidambaram on Wednesday said he will discuss United Bank of India’s bad loan crisis with the Reserve Bank Governor later this week. “United Bank is a special case. We will deal with that. It’s not an alarming case...UBI issue will be discussed separately when the governor comes here on (March) 7th and we know the path forward. It will be resolved on 7th,” he said. The Finance Minister is scheduled to address the Reserve Bank of India board here on March 7. Besides the UBI issue, Chidambaram will discuss matters related to new bank licences. Kolkata—based UBI posted a net loss of Rs 1,238 crore in the three months ended December, during which its gross non—performing assets (NPAs) surged to Rs 8,546 crore from Rs 2,964 crore at the end of March last year. UBI has recovered Rs 400 crore in cash and has upgraded Rs 800 crore worth of accounts. NPAs have been reduced by Rs 1,200 crore, Chidambaram said after meeting with chief exec...