Chronicling India’s Environment Ministry's Resistance to Democracy in the Forest

Ever since the enactment of the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act in 2006, the Environment Ministry relentlessly resisted this law, its substance and implementation, and its nodal ministry, the Tribal Affairs Ministry. This law is to operationalise the transition of forest governancefromacolonialrepressiveforestregimetoademocratic regime, realigning the power relationship at the national, state and the local levels, if not in all of the forests, at least in a substantial part of the forest. The Environment Ministry and its forest bureaucracy perceive this law as debilitating their inherited hegemonic power which they have grown to believe as their exclusive domain over vast areas designated as “forest”. The paper chronicles this resistance, the methods adopted and the intended outcome. The Forest Rights Act, an enabling law, could finally give the forests the much needed democracy, security and nurturing

Winter monsoon phytoplankton community in the coastal waters of Northeastern Arabian Sea, with emphasis on harmful and non-indigenous species

989-999Phytoplankton community structure along the coastal waters of the Northeastern Arabian Sea (NEAS) was analysed for three years (2009, 2011 and 2012) during the winter monsoon season. The coastal waters of NEAS, especially Saurashtra coast are a region of high fishery potential. A total of 137 species of phytoplankton were identified. The community structure of phytoplankton showed significant inter-annual variability. The study highlights the persistence of certain non-indigenous phytoplankton species such as Scrippsiella trochoidea, Karenia mikimotoi and potentially harmful dinoflagellates mainly Gonyaulax polygramma, Dinophysis acuminata, D. miles and Tripos furca in the region that can raise probable threats towards the indigenous species and can cause harmful or toxic events. The increased abundance of diatom, Pseudo-nitzschia spp. that can produce toxins at certain threshold levels was also observed. The possible reason for the increased abundance of such groups can be suggestively due to the increased anthropogenic inputs into the coastal waters and intense fishing and maritime activity in the area

Coherently Controlled Nanoscale Molecular Deposition

Quantum interference effects are shown to provide a means of controlling and enhancing the focusing a collimated neutral molecular beam onto a surface. The nature of the aperiodic pattern formed can be altered by varying laser field characteristics and the system geometry.Comment: 13 pages (inculding 4 figures), LaTeX (Phys. Rev. Lett., 2000, in Press

Optimal Control of Molecular Motion Expressed Through Quantum Fluid Dynamics

A quantum fluid dynamic control formulation is presented for optimally manipulating atomic and molecular systems. In quantum fluid dynamic the control quantum system is expressed in terms of the probability density and the quantum current. This choice of variables is motivated by the generally expected slowly varying spatial-temporal dependence of the fluid dynamical variables. The quantum fluid dynamic approach is illustrated for manipulation of the ground electronic state dynamics of HCl induced by an external electric field.Comment: 18 pages, latex, 3 figure

Coherent Control of Atomic Beam Diffraction by Standing Light

Quantum interference is shown to deliver a means of regulating the diffraction pattern of a thermal atomic beam interacting with two standing wave electric fields. Parameters have been identified to enhance the diffraction probability of one momentum component over the others, with specific application to Rb atoms.Comment: 5 figure