Effective and Economically Viable Organic Agriculture under Inhana Rational Farming (IRF) Technology – A Potential Alternative to Support India Organic Movement

Organic farming has been identified as the road map for food sovereignty, economic security, and alleviation of food toxicity. And, with changing climatic patterns it has become more of a necessity for harnessing both mitigation and adaptation potentials. For sustainable agriculture qualitative developments of soil has been prioritized. But it has been a time taking process, moreover; component wise redressal has not provided much relief considering that still now not even 1% of total agricultural production world over is organic. To reach the objective in a time bound manner, besides healthy soil, healthy plant system has become pre-requisite, as also supported by ‘Trophobiosis theory’ of French scientist F. Chabassou (1985) that depicts ‘Healthy Plants’ as the trump card for successful agriculture. There has been need for a method/ practice/ technology which can etch out the scientific road map towards the objective, at the same time should be Safe, Effective, Complete, Convenient and Economical; i.e., the five foundation pillars for ensuring large scale adoptability. Inhana Rational Farming (IRF) Technology a comprehensive organic package of practice (POP) was developed by Indian Scientist Dr. P. Das Biswas, and has been ensuring sustainable agriculture for more than a decade now. Production of approximately 2.0 million kg certified organic teas annually in a cost- effective manner substantiates its efficacy while recognition of West Jalinga as ‘World’s 1st Carbon Neutral, Organic Tea Garden’ evidences its GHG mitigation and carbon sequestration potentials. FAO-CFC-TBI Project entitled ‘Development, Production and Trade of Organic Tea’ (at Maud Tea Estate, Assam; period: 2008-2013) provided opportunity to test IRF Technology in terms of yield, soil development and economics as compared to all other available organic methods/ POP. Highest yield, speedy soil quality rejuvenation was recorded under IRF Technology at lowest economics and under all growth phases of tea plant viz. mature, young, newly planted and nursery. The comprehensive process of soil and plant energization i.e. invigorating the native soil microflora as well infusion of deficient energy for plant metabolic functions has ensured the universality of IRF Technology. Projects undertaken in collaboration of State/ Central Agricultural Universities and Krishi Vigyan Kendra in a wide variety of field crops viz. cereals (rain fed and winter paddy, baby corn), pulses (green/ black gram), vegetables (tomato, potato, okra, cauliflower, cabbage, chilli, radish etc.) and exotic vegetables (horse radish, celery, Chinese cabbage, pak choi, broccoli, parsley etc.); have substantiated technological effectiveness. These field trials in diverse ecological regions of West Bengal indicated that yield sustenance/ hike is possible under organic, even from the very first year, and can ensure economic security even without any support price for organic. To evaluate the status of developments proposed under IRF Technology and standardize various components of crop production, several tools have also been developed viz. Compost Quality Index, Soil Quality/ Development Index, SWOT Study, Crop Pesticide Pollution Index, Pesticide Load on Crop, Soil Pesticide Pollution Index, etc. The initiatives and experience under IRF Technology indicate that it can be used as a potent weapon for economically viable, large scale and energy efficient organic farming; especially relevant with India’s commitment towards climate change and GHG mitigation and for tapping the growing export potentials

Soil Microbial Rejuvenation through Soil Resource Recycling as a part of Sustainable Management Programme: A Case Study from Lakhipara Tea Estate, Dooars, West Bengal, India

Quest for sustainability in the Indian tea industry starts on a serious note in the backdrop of several key issues such as impact of climate change on crop productivity, higher intensity of pest and diseases, rampant use of agrochemicals, issue of pesticide residues, increasing mandays cost etc. In this difficult time when most of the tea producers are looking for areas for cost curtailment, Goodricke Group Ltd., initiated the Sustainable Management Programme with the objectivity of producing sustainable teas with low pesticide footprint from the year 2014 onwards. The present study was conducted as a part of the above programme, to evaluate the effectiveness of on-farm generated compost towards soil microbial enrichment. Large-scale composting was done using Novcom composting method and end product quality was analyzed as per International Standards. Total N, P, K in the mature compost was 1.97%, 0.75%, and 0.87%, respectively but most important was the presence of self-generated microbial population in the order of 1014–1016 c.f.u. The rate of CO2 evolution, nitrification index and phytotoxicity bioassay value confirmed end product maturity and absence of any toxicity towards root growth. Assessment of Soil development Index (SDI), one year post compost application showed maximum soil development under organic soil management followed by soils receiving integrated soil management whereas nominal variation was documented under conventional soil management. Biological properties of soil were found to play a major contributory role towards variation of SDI value indicating the importance of microbial rejuvenation towards soil quality development

Unusual Renal Tumors — Report of Four Cases

Collecting duct carcinoma, plasmocytoma and malignant fibrous histocytoma are rare but aggressive tumors of the kidneys. We present four cases we have recently encountered in our practice. In most of the cases imaging did not help in the pre-operative diagnosis. Surgery is the mainstay of treatment when recognized early. Clinician should be aware about these rare varieties of renal tumors whose prognoses may be worse than that of renal cell carcinoma. The Annals of African Surgery, Volume 6, 201

Management of a Fungal Perinephric Abscess (PNA): Dilemma Revisited

ABSTRACT Candida species can cause a wide variety of clinical syndromes, especially in immunocompromised and diabetic patients. Primary perirenal candidial abscess has been a rare reported entity. Here we report a rare case of primary PNA due to Candida species in an immunocompetent patient with diabetes mellitus and its minimal invasive management. Retrospective and prospective analysis of clinical, laboratory and radiological records along with continued follow up of patient was done. This patient was 48-year-old man, admitted with burning in micturition, right flank discomfort and low grade fever since 1 year. Abdominal ultrasound and computerized tomography were suggestive of a PNA of the right kidney. Candida species was isolated from sample obtained by C.T. guided needle aspiration. Culture of aspirate showed sensitivity to azoles. Systemic antifungal therapy based on culture report was started in form of oral drug. The patient responded well leading to resolution of lump and the fever. Appropriate timely treatment appears to be having a promising role in definitive therapy for renal and PNA due to Candida even in immunocompetent host with predisposing factors such as diabetes mellitus. This case highlights the fact that fungal infections should be included in the differential diagnosis of PNA in such patients

Robust tests for time-invariant individual heterogeneity versus dynamic state dependence

We derive tests for persistent effects in a general linear dynamic panel data context. Two sources of persistent behavior are considered: time-invariant unobserved factors (captured by an individual random effect) and dynamic persistence or “state dependence” (captured by autoregressive behavior). We will use a maximum likelihood framework to derive a family of tests that help researchers learn whether persistence is due to individual heterogeneity, dynamic effect, or both. The proposed tests have power only in the direction they are designed to perform, that is, they are locally robust to the presence of alternative sources of persistence, and consequently, are able to identify which source of persistence is active. A Monte Carlo experiment is implemented to explore the finite sample performance of the proposed procedures. The tests are applied to a panel data series of real GDP growth for the period 1960–2005

Experimental observation of Bethe strings

Almost a century ago, string states-complex bound states of magnetic excitations-were predicted to exist in one-dimensional quantum magnets(1). However, despite many theoretical studies(2-11), the experimental realization and identification of string states in a condensed-matter system have yet to be achieved. Here we use high-resolution terahertz spectroscopy to resolve string states in the antiferromagnetic Heisenberg-Ising chain SrCo2V2O8 in strong longitudinal magnetic fields. In the field-induced quantum-critical regime, we identify strings and fractional magnetic excitations that are accurately described by the Bethe ansatz(1,3,4). Close to quantum criticality, the string excitations govern the quantum spin dynamics, whereas the fractional excitations, which are dominant at low energies, reflect the antiferromagnetic quantum fluctuations. Today, Bethe's result(1) is important not only in the field of quantum magnetism but also more broadly, including in the study of cold atoms and in string theory; hence, we anticipate that our work will shed light on the study of complex many-body systems in general

Long range molecular dynamics study of regulation of eukaryotic glucosamine-6-phosphate synthase activity by UDP-GlcNAc

Glucosamine-6-phosphate (GlcN-6-P) synthase catalyses the first and practically irreversible step in hexosamine metabolism. The final product of this pathway, uridine 5’ diphospho N-acetyl-D-glucosamine (UDP-GlcNAc), is an essential substrate for assembly of bacterial and fungal cell walls. Moreover, the enzyme is involved in phenomenon of hexosamine induced insulin resistance in type II diabetes, which makes it a potential target for antifungal, antibacterial and antidiabetic therapy. The crystal structure of the isomerase domain of GlcN-6-P synthase from human pathogenic fungus Candida albicans, in complex with UDP-GlcNAc has been solved recently but it has not revealed the molecular mechanism of inhibition taking place under UDP-GlcNAc influence, the unique feature of the eukaryotic enzyme. UDP-GlcNAc is a physiological inhibitor of GlcN-6-P synthase, binding about 1 nm away from the active site of the enzyme. In the present work, comparative molecular dynamics simulations of the free and UDP-GlcNAc-bounded structures of GlcN-6-P synthase have been performed. The aim was to complete static X-ray structural data and detect possible changes in the dynamics of the two structures. Results of the simulation studies demonstrated higher mobility of the free structure when compared to the liganded one. Several amino acid residues were identified, flexibility of which is strongly affected upon UDP-GlcNAc binding. Importantly, the most fixed residues are those related to the inhibitor binding process and to the catalytic reaction. The obtained results constitute an important step toward understanding of mechanism of GlcN-6-P synthase inhibition by UDP-GlcNAc molecule

NS3 protease from flavivirus as a target for designing antiviral inhibitors against dengue virus

The development of novel therapeutic agents is essential for combating the increasing number of cases of dengue fever in endemic countries and among a large number of travelers from non-endemic countries. The dengue virus has three structural proteins and seven non-structural (NS) proteins. NS3 is a multifunctional protein with an N-terminal protease domain (NS3pro) that is responsible for proteolytic processing of the viral polyprotein, and a C-terminal region that contains an RNA triphosphatase, RNA helicase and RNA-stimulated NTPase domain that are essential for RNA replication. The serine protease domain of NS3 plays a central role in the replicative cycle of dengue virus. This review discusses the recent structural and biological studies on the NS2B-NS3 protease-helicase and considers the prospects for the development of small molecules as antiviral drugs to target this fascinating, multifunctional protein