The future of farmers lies in big cities

When the Doha global trade negotiations collapsed in July, many countries shared the blame. But one of the more surprising culprits was India.

With inflation over 12 % for some commodities, removing agricultural trade barriers would surely have helped get cheaper food to India’s millions of poor citizens, says an article by Salil Tripathi

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What is ambergis?

Ambergis is a solid, waxy material produced in the sperm whale and in the pygmy sperm whale. Ambergis is formed in the rectum of the whale by indigestible objects from animals on which it feeds (like beaks of squid and cuttlefish). The ambergris is usually released when the whale dies. When released, it is pale white and soft with a strong smell quite like cow manure. Over time and exposure to the elements, ambergis oxidizes, becomes darker in colour and loses its unpleasant odour. It is used in the manufacture of perfume. Ambergis is found in lumps, ranging from 15 gm to 400 kg.

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What is an aMap?

An aMap (argument map) is a visual representation of the structure of an argument in informal logic. It includes the components of an argument such as a main contention, premises, co-premises, objections, rebuttals and lemmas. Argument maps are often used in the teaching of reasoning and critical thinking and can support the analysis of pros and cons when deliberating over problems. This approach in argument mapping seeks to enable research and analysis of natural human decision making in real life contexts of risk and uncertainty. The techniques involved were first presented by Facione and Facione in ‘Thinking and Reasoning in Human Decision Making: The Method of Argument and Heuristic Analysis’.

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How are deemed universities different from others?

Ordinary universities are officially approved by the University Grants Commission (UGC) of India as per the latter’s guidelines for the universities’ overall supervision and administration. ‘Deemed university’ is a term indicative of status of autonomy granted to high performing institutes and departments of various universities. Such status enables deemed universities not only full autonomy in setting course work, syllabus and research centres, but also allows it to set it’s own guidelines for admission, fee and instructions to students. Parent universities have no control over deemed universities in matters of overall administration.

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What is contact scraping?

Social networking has brought about a new trend called contact scraping, where an online company with access to a person’s mail account goes through the contact list and sends out an invitation to all to join the site. Once a person enters his/her credentials, like user name or password, the company sweeps through the contact list. The company gets free publicity and widens its user base, but could put the person concerned in an embarrassing and annoying situation, especially when there are friendly mails from strangers in return.

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Why is sea water very high in salt content?

The average salinity of sea water is about 3.5%. One cubic mile of sea water contains 166 million tonne of salt. The salts of the sea come from the breaking up of rocks and gradual wearing away of mountains releasing salts that are washed down by rainwater. It is estimated that more than 400 million tonne of dissolved salts are brought to the sea every year by 27,000 cubic km of water. The second source of salt is rocks beneath the ocean bed. There has been a constant slow addition of sea salinity due to evaporation from the ocean surface, combined by discharge from land.

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What is a chemical bond?

A chemical bond is one in which atoms of different or same elements combine to become stable. There are two types of chemical bonds — electro-valent bond and co-valent bond. In an electro-valent bond, a metal donates an electron to a non-metal and forms the bond. Such bonds are very strong. A co-valent bond is formed between non-metals only. These are easy to break.

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Is rain water completely pure?

Rain water is considered the purest form of water. Impurities and salts present in water on earth are left behind during vaporisation by the sun. However, the rain water we receive on earth is not necessarily pure, as it brings down impurities and particles present in the atmosphere along with it.

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What is 'The Magic of Scheherazade'?

The Magic of Scheherazade is a game for the Nintendo Entertainment System released by Culture Brain in 1989. It is the translation of the 1987 Famicom game Arabian Dream Scheherazade. The game was innovative for its time, incorporating elements of adventure and RPG styles.

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What is an electron gun?

It is a device in the back of a "cathode ray tube" television or computer monitor (pre-plasma or LCD flat-panel). The electron gun fires a stream of electrons from the back of the TV onto the inside face of the screen, which is coated with a material that glows when hit by electrons. By using powerful magnets to direct the stream across the screen, a series of dots ('pixels') is built over the screen which appears as an image.

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Why does steel glow when it's hot?

Hot steel glows red when hot because its atoms vibrate with a lot of energy. The amount of energy varies in atoms resulting in a range of colours.

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