Is climate change increasing the levels of toxic arsenic in our rice?
When it comes to food, most Indians cannot imagine a day without rice. Lunch is rice, and rice is lunch – and rice is also sometimes breakfast or dinner or just part of a number of other food items we consume. But how healthy is the rice we are eating? Scientists have known for a while now that a lot of rice contains some amount of arsenic. A new study that was published in The Lancet Planetary Health last month, however, had some newer, more worrying findings: it found that with rising carbon emissions and rising temperatures, the arsenic levels in rice will rise. The study was conducted over a 10-year period on 28 different strains of paddy rice at four different locations in China. Arsenic is a known carcinogen – it is linked to cancers including lung and bladder cancer as well as to other serious health conditions.
So what does this study mean for India, which is a large rice-growing and rice-eating country and one that is also experiencing climate change effects? What does arsenic do to your body in the long term? Are there methods to grow rice that decrease the amount of arsenic in it? What can you do to make the rice you are eating at home safer?
Guests: Lewis Ziska, associate rofessor, environmental health sciences, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University and Keeve Nachman, professor of environmental health and engineering, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
Host: Zubeda Hamid
Edited by Jude Francis Weston
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25:31
What does it mean for India to conduct a caste census?
The Union cabinet has announced that the next population Census will also include questions on caste. This is a sharp departure from the ruling BJP’s long-standing opposition to a caste census.
How do we understand this U-turn? How would this caste census differ from the last one, conducted in 1931? Given the massive scale and logistics involved, what are the challenges involved, and how do we ensure the integrity of the exercise and the data collection process?
Guest: Satish Deshpande, well-known sociologist
Host: G Sampath, Social Affairs Editor, The Hindu
Edited by Sharmada Venkatasubramian
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49:52
Are the extinct dire wolves really back?
The world of science was rocked early last month when U.S. company Colossal Biosciences announced that it had resurrected the dire wolf—a species that went extinct more than 10,000 years ago. Three pups, named Remus, Romulus, and Khaleesi are now living on a 2,000-acre enclosure in a secret location. Videos of the wolf pups howling went viral across the internet, as did photographs of their snowy white fur.
How did Colossal achieve this? Through genetic editing. After first extracting DNA from an ancient dire wolf skull and tooth and studying its genome, the company claims it then took the genome of a grey wolf, the closest living ancestor of the dire wolf, and made precise edits at 20 locations across 14 genes. Most of these edits were cosmetic changes—to do with fur colour and size. The modified genome was then implanted in embryos, and surrogate dog mothers gave birth to the wolf pups.
While the science sounds immensely exciting, several experts have contested the claim that these pups are dire wolves. Can a few edits in a genome truly recreate a lost species? Can these wolves behave just as the real dire wolves did, given that the ecology and environment that the dire wolves existed in no longer exist? The company claims that it wants to secure the health and biodiversity of our planet’s future—its next project is to ‘de-extinct’ the woolly mammoth. Is this the right way to go about conservation, and can it even work?
Guest: Kartik Shanker, Professor & Chairperson, Centre for Ecological Studies, Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru
Host: Zubeda Hamid
Produced by Sharmada Venkatasubramanian
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28:26
Is a candidate winning an election ‘unopposed’ unconstitutional?
According to Section 53 (2) of the Representation of the People Act, 1951, if there is only candidate contesting an election, then she can be declared elected unopposed. Now a legal think tank, the Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy has filed a petition in the Supreme Court challenging the constitutionality of this provision.
It cites the 2013 order of the Supreme Court which held that the right to cast a negative vote by choosing ‘NOTA’ was protected under Article 19 (1) (a) of the Constitution. It argues that this right is independent of how many candidates are contesting – therefore, not holding the election on the grounds that there is only one candidate deprives voters of this right.
Last week, the Supreme Court, while hearing this petition, suggested that in cases where there is only one candidate, there could be a requirement that the candidate should win a prescribed minimum of vote share – be it 20% or 25% or whatever – in order to be declared as elected.
But the Election Commission seems keen to retain the status quo, arguing that cases of candidates winning unopposed are rare and therefore the court should not entertain such a petition.
Is the Election Commission right? What if the phenomenon of candidates standing unopposed becomes more widespread in the future? What happens to the NOTA option then?
Guest: Arghya Sengupta, Founder and Research Director at the Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy, Delhi.
Host: G. Sampath, Social Affairs Editor, The Hindu.
Edited by Shivaraj S and Sharada Venkatasubramnian
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29:18
Aamir Aziz-Anita Dube controversy: What does the copyright law say?
In a controversy that seems to have divided the art world in India, Mumbai-based poet-activist Aamir Aziz has accused well known artist Anita Dube of using his poem without his consent, and profiting from it without giving him credit or compensation.
The poem in question is ‘Sab Yaad Rakha Jayega’, which became an anthem of the anti-CAA protests and later a global phenomenon after English rock musician Roger Waters read it out at an event in London.
While Dube has admitted to an “ethical lapse” and reportedly offered some remuneration to Aziz, the dispute has acquired a legal dimension, with Aziz sending her a legal notice.
What does the copyright law say in a case like this – where an artist may feel she has the right to ‘fair use’ of a text, but another artist feels that his copyright has been violated?
Guest: Shantanu Sood, a lawyer who specialises in intellectual property-related issues.
Host: G. Sampath, Social Affairs Editor, The Hindu
Recorded by Aniket Singh Chauhan
Edited by Shivaraj S
Produced by Jude Francis Weston
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