Category Health & Science

Cuisine from the arid earth

1 Comment read Environment & Development, Gender, Health & Science
Chunni Bishnoi with her buffalo in Guda Bishnoiyan, 22 km south-east of Jodhpur in the western Indian state of Rajasthan. Photo Credit: ©Neena Bhandari

By Neena Bhandari

Guda Bishnoiyan & Khejarli villages (Rajasthan), India, 04.03.2012 (WFS/The Hindu): Traditional western Rajasthani delicacies are fast becoming a gourmet’s delight in India and abroad. In fact, no Marwari feast is complete without the ‘exotic’ Sangari, cooked as a dry vegetable or with gravy. This fruit of the versatile Khejari (Prosopis cineraria) tree, indigenous to the vast Thar Desert, has provided nutrition and nourishment to the local communities for generations.

As the sun rises on the eastern skyline, Chunni Bishnoi, 65, begins milking her three buffaloes and three cows in the outer courtyard of her `pucca house’, shaded by the thorny Khejari trees that grow thick and green in the villages of Guda Bishnoiyan, 22 km, and Khejarli, 26 km south-east of Jodhpur in the western Indian state of Rajasthan.

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Good nutrition essential to reduce maternal & infant mortality

0 Comments read Gender, Health & Science
Mohani Devi covering chhach (buttermilk) and bajre ki roti. Photo Credit: © Neena Bhandari

By Neena Bhandari

Jhakaron ki Dhani (Jodhpur, Rajasthan) 11.02.2012: In the dusty village of Jhakaron ki Dhani, 25 km from Jodhpur in western Rajasthan, early marriage and early motherhood are not uncommon. Shamu Meghwal was married at the age of 13 and her first baby was born at 15. At 25, she is the mother of four kids and has just lost her husband. Visibly anaemic, she epitomises the many young women in her community experiencing weakness, back and abdominal pain.

It is estimated that more than half of all married women in India are anaemic and one-third of them are malnourished (have a body index below normal). “These women are already at a lower health level when they get pregnant. They don’t receive proper nutrition, especially vital during pregnancy. This makes them anaemic resulting in long-term consequences on their health”, says Dr Kanta Tiwari, a known gynaecologist, who has been working in Jodhpur and surrounding areas for the past 41 years.

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Veena Sahajwalla honoured for `green steel’ technology

0 Comments read Environment & Development, Health & Science
Prof. Veena Sahajwalla. Photo Credit: SMaRT@UNSW

By Neena Bhandari

Sydney, 30.09.2011 (Business Standard): Indian-born engineering professor, Veena Sahajwalla, whose research led to the commercialisation of a world-first “green steel” manufacturing process, has been honoured with the Nokia Innovation Award at the 2011 Telstra NSW Business Women’s Awards here today.

Sahajwalla, who is the Director at the Centre for Sustainable Materials Research and Technology (SMaRT) at The University of New South Wales (UNSW), is helping the materials industries combat environmental challenges with technology that reduces carbon-emissions and uses recycled rubber tyres that would otherwise go to landfill in electric arc furnace (EAF) steelmaking.

Growing up in Mumbai, Sahajwalla didn’t think of anything as waste. “In India, we used and recycled just about everything.” Values ingrained at an early age have paid off. She has been developing an environmentally friendly process that uses recycled rubber tyres as a partial replacement to coal-based carbon for EAF steel making.

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