Agricultural Terms of Trade in Pakistan: Issues of Profitability and Standard of Living of the Farmers

Liberalisation policies have a major impact on the profitability, employment, and incomes in agriculture sector, as well as on living standards and the poverty levels in the rural areas. In the wake of the IMF structural adjustment programmes and the new emerging trade scenario, the Government of Pakistan, in addition to eliminating input subsidies, is also reluctant to increase support prices for various crops. This has initiated a debate. One view is that the Government must support agricultural prices and farmers must be protected from the decline in market prices of agricultural commodities. The contrasting view is that the subsidies have made the agriculture sector highly dependent on government support, and in order to survive in the WTO trade regime the sector must become highly competitive, efficient, and self-dependent. This paper computes relative price changes in the crop sector to explore whether profitability in this sector has improved or deteriorated. Another goal is to gauge the impact of price changes on the standard of living of the farmers. For this purpose, various terms of trade are calculated. The terms of trade for the crop sector are defined as the ratio of the index of prices received by the crop sector and the index of prices paid by the sector. The paper also probes how movements in international crop prices affect the profitability in the sector and the standard of living of the farmers. The empirical findings, based on the data from 1983-84 to 2002-03, show that the purchasing power and profitability of the farmers in the crop sector have not improved over the last twenty years.Agricultural Trade, Standard of Living, Pakistan

Determinants oF Recent Inflation in Pakistan

The expansionary economic policies of the government and of the central bank (State Bank of Pakistan – SBP), which on one side resulted in impressive economic performance, stimulated a rise in the Consumer Price Index (CPI) on the other. This initiated a debate on the determinants of the recent inflation. Some blamed fiscal policy or monetary policy, while others blamed imported inflation, administered prices or mismanagement and loose control of the government. This study, adopting an econometric framework, focuses on the identification of the main determinants of recent inflation trends. Using data from the 1972-73 to 2005-06 period, applying ordinary least square method and verifying results through Breusch-Godfrey Serial Correlation LM and Augmented Dickey-Fuller tests, it finds that the most important determinants of inflation in 2005-06 were adaptive expectations, private sector credit and rising import prices. Whereas, the fiscal policy’s contribution to inflation was minimal.Fiscal policy; monetary Policy; Inflation; Determinants

Mitochondrial dynamics and viral infections: A close nexus.

Viruses manipulate cellular machinery and functions to subvert intracellular environment conducive for viral proliferation. They strategically alter functions of the multitasking mitochondria to influence energy production, metabolism, survival, and immune signaling. Mitochondria either occur as heterogeneous population of individual organelles or large interconnected tubular network. The mitochondrial network is highly susceptible to physiological and environmental insults, including viral infections, and is dynamically maintained by mitochondrial fission and fusion. Mitochondrial dynamics in tandem with mitochondria-selective autophagy 'mitophagy' coordinates mitochondrial quality control and homeostasis. Mitochondrial dynamics impacts cellular homeostasis, metabolism, and innate-immune signaling, and thus can be major determinant of the outcome of viral infections. Herein, we review how mitochondrial dynamics is affected during viral infections and how this complex interplay benefits the viral infectious process and associated diseases

Meeting the Challenge of COVID-19 in DHQ Orthopaedic Department

Introduction: The World Health Organization (WHO) declared Covid-19 as a pandemic on March 11, 2020. Not only that the COVID-19 pandemic has brought the world to a complete lockdown but also burdened healthcare systems across the world immensely. Objective: In this paper, we discuss the different strategies we adopted in the Orthopaedics Department of District Head Quarter [DHQ] Objective: In this paper, we discuss the different strategies we adopted in the Orthopaedics Department of District Head Quarter [DHQ hospital Rawalpindi, during this ongoing pandemic and share our experience of successfully but cautiously providing orthopedic services to patients in a public hospital. We compare our workload and output of May 2020 [pandemic phase] to May 2019 [standard/normal phase]. Methodology: The Hospital policy was changed after the COVID-19 pandemic. We increased public awareness and reduced load in the OPD using different strategies. We postponed all elective cases; focusing our logistics and resources only on the patients in urgent need of surgical management. A minimum number of doctors and OTAs were allocated on each list. Inwards, the patient stay was reduced. As a standard PCR test for COVID-19 was expensive, we devised our screening through history, examination, and routine investigations. Results:  The average stay inwards was reduced from 6.4±4.6 days in May 2019 to 2.7±3.6 days in May 2020. The decrease in the stay was statistically significant (p=.0206) and was associated with a 24.4% increase in the number of total patient admissions in May 2020 (n=56) as compared to May 2019 (n=45). The number of surgeries performed month to month was very similar in normal and pandemic periods. Our OPD patient attendance dropped from 200-250 patients per day in 2019 to 60-70 during the ongoing pandemic phase. Conclusion: We believe that sharing experiences between health care actors allows us to develop an effective strategy to provide the very best care to our patients during the COVID-19 pandemic

Antivenom production in chicken against Sind krait (Bungarus sindanus) venom and its efficacy assessment using different immunoassays

ABSTRACT: Present study aimed for detection, purification, quantification of Sind Krait (Bungarus sindanus) antivenom from chicken eggs and to determine extracted antivenom efficacy in mice. Hens’ three groups were immunized by sub-lethal doses of Sind Krait venom with adjuvant paraffin oil+lecithin. Booster doses were injected subcutaneously on pectorals muscles at multiple sites after every two weeks upto eight weeks. Antibodies-IgY produced against Sind Krait venom was purified form eggs’ yolk by precipitation method with PEG-6000. Purified antivenom-IgY protein contents were quantified by Nanodrop-photometer, purity accessed by SDS-PAGE, specificity checked by Ochterloneys method and titer estimated by indirect ELISA. Antivenom efficacy was assessed in albino mice. Purified antivnom-IgY exhibited single protein band 180-190 kDa on SDS-PAGE under non-reduced condition and two-bands 63 - 65 kDa and 22 - 25 kDa correspondingly under-reduced condition. Immunodiffusion exhibited sharp precipitation lines of immune-complex (venom and extracted-IgY). In all groups (G1, G2 and G3) antivenom level sharply increase from 3rd to 4th week and maintained thereafter. G2 and G3 presented high titer upto 1:2048 dilutions, while G1 showed upto 1:1024 dilutions, as tested by indirect ELISA. In neutralization assay ED50 dose of G2 and G3 obtained antivenom was 400.23 µg/mice for more than twofold LD50 dose of venom and 100% protection was at 508.84 µg/mice that completely neutralized highly lethal dose of venom. But G1 ED50 was 405.66 µg/mice and provides 100% protection at 554.21 µg/mice. Extracted antivenom, against Sind Krait venom were highly pure, and with high neutralization capacity were produced successfully from eggs yolk first time in Pakistan

Agricultural Terms of Trade in Pakistan

The government in Pakistan is designing new policies to cope up with the requirements of free trade regime. Agriculture apart from being the largest sector is also one of the most affected sectors of the economy. Changes in the tariffs and subsidies structure have largely affected the domestic input and output prices and the consumer prices. The question now is that whether the prospects for the people depending on crop income have improved in terms of profitability and standard of living or not