Policy Perspective for Grassland Based Integrated Farming System: Innovation & Challenges in Indian Context

Indian agriculture is increasingly getting influenced more and more by economic factors. This needs not be surprising because irrigation expansion, infrastructure development, penetration of rural markets, development and spread of short duration and drought resistant crop technologies have all contributed to minimizing the role of non-economic factors in crop choice for even small farmers. Both at micro and macro level, the picture of livestock sector is very much disintegrated where growth is mainly from fishery and meat production and not from milk production. The common perception that animal rearing is not as remunerative as poultry or fishery seems to be a metaphor if not in true sense, as animals or livestock are not as sensitive to concentrate feed like poultry or fishery. One can directly measure the output in poultry and fishery in terms of growth due to concentrate feeding in a short time frame while in livestock , the effect is not only subtle but also depends on a myriad of other factors like breed, management and the like. In light of these drawbacks the effort for the growth of livestock sector is imperative for long term sustainable growth of agriculture sector as a whole. It is more a misnomer than reality that the increase in concentrate in feed for livestock will increase its milk and associated yields. On the flip side to get optimum yield from our animals they should be provided with a balanced feed consisting of dry fodder, green fodder and concentrate containing right proportions of vitamins and minerals. With the increase in the proportion of animal products in the consumption basket in relation to plant product driven by changing food habit, income, consciousness towards animal protein there is more prevalence of intensive animal rearing in farming system mode. In Indian scenario pasture feeding is not new but the glitch is in the practices adopted to maintain this pasture. Use of new technologies to improve old pasture lands should be given priority. One of the beneficial effects of allocating the degraded land to forage and pasture domain, is its development. The fertility status of marginal lands will be upgraded with the production of legumes by the nitrogen fixation process. Moreover silvipastoral system can also be incorporated. Fodder and forage should be the basis for cattle food security and further concentrate should be used to provide balanced ration to livestock for their optimum performance. A fixed rangeland comprising of marginal land, degraded land, problem soils has the capacity to sustain a specific number of animals which is optimum for that area. Common property resources can be best identified as pastures but at the same time community should also has to take care of its quality. With enhanced consumerism in rural areas, farmers’ requirements for cash have also increased to improve their standard of living. The previously inferior cereals like jowar, bajra, ragi which are meant for animal consumption are now upgraded for human consumption due to increased awareness of their nutritional potential and other health benefits. So with time, a new trade off is emerging between animal and human consumption of these cereals especially maize, jowar, bajra, etc. This is especially true in case of small and marginal farmers. Therefore, farmers’ income and food requirements would have to be augmented and supplemented by adoption of efficient secondary/tertiary enterprises like animal husbandry, horticulture (vegetables/fruits/flowers/medicinal and aromatic plants), apiary, mushroom cultivation, fisheries etc. However, these integrated farming systems will be required to be tailor-made and designed in such a manner that they lead to substantial improvement in energy efficiencies at the farm and help in maximum exploitation of synergies. Since, technological challenges are becoming more complex than before as demand for food is increasing, land holding size is decreasing and natural resource base is shrinking and/or deteriorating. For this, a change in mindset towards farming systems research is needed. The prevailing farming situation in India calls for an integrated effort to address the emerging issues/problems

GaAs based long-wavelength microring resonator optical switches utilising bias assisted carrier-injection induced refractive index change

We propose and analyse a GaAs-based optical switch having a ring resonator configuration which can switch optical telecommunication signals over the 1300 nm and 1500 nm bands, using bias assisted carrier injection as the switching mechanism. The switching is achieved through variation in the refractive index of the ring resonator produced by changing the injected carrier density through the application of bias voltage. Detail analysis of the switching characteristics reveals that the amount of switching depends on the refractive index change, which indeed is a strong function of injected carrier density and applied bias voltage. An isolation of 25 dB can be achieved during the ON state, while more than 40 dB isolation is realised during the OFF state. More importantly, our analysis shows that the proposed GaAs-based switch can operate over the 1300 nm and 1500 nm optical telecommunication bands, that are much farther from the bandgap of the GaAs material, without the need for conventional Indium based ternary and quaternary semiconductor materials. It therefore extends the usable wavelength of GaAs based optoelectronic devices. Furthermore, we have presented detail calculations to quantify power-delay metric of the proposed device. The proposed optical switch maintains a smaller footprint as when compared to Mach-Zehnder Interferometer or Directional Coupler based switches therefore, making it suitable for large scale integration and implementing next generation optical interconnects, optical communication and computing

Importance of Socio-Economic and Institutional Factors in the Use of Veterinary Services by the Smallholder Dairy Farmers in Punjab

The study has shown the importance of identifying factors that determined the likelihood of using veterinary services in Punjab. Secondary data were used for analysis with the sample size of 1137 dairy households. Estimates of factors influencing the use of veterinary services are reasonably consistent with the farmer decision to use it. The proportional relationship between veterinary services available within the village and use of veterinary services revealed that, distance of veterinary service availability positively influenced the farmer decision to use the veterinary services. There was a positive relationship between herd size and use of veterinary services. More educated farmers are in a better position to use the veterinary services. The principal source of income from agricultural activities was positively influenced by the likelihood to use veterinary services in study area. The model from empirical point of view is very important to predict whether household will be using the veterinary services or not after incorporating the value of the explanatory variables

Development of Optical Parametric Oscillator Tunable in the Range 970-1460 nm

Optical parametric oscillator (OPO) tunable in the range 970-1460 nm has been developed using bet barium borate (BBO) crystal as the gain medium and second harmonic of Nd:YAG laser as pump source. Two sets of resonators were used to cover the range; first was nearly degenerate (970-1180 nm) and the second was nondegenerate (1240-1460 nm). The measured threshold pump pulse energy was nearly 8 mJ. Maximum signal pulse energy of about 14 mJ was obtained for pump pulse energy of nearly 31 mJ. Power scaling efficiency was about 70 per cent. The signal pulse width was ~5 ns corresponding to the pump pulse width of ~ 9 ns. OPO signal beam quality was Gaussian although the pump beam was top-hat multimode.Defence Science Journal, 2011, 61(4), pp.377-382, DOI:http://dx.doi.org/10.14429/dsj.61.56

Measuring sin 2\beta in Bs(t) -> phi K_s

We show that, unlike other pure b -> d penguin processes, the decay Bs(t) -> phi K_s is dominated by a single amplitude, that of the internal t-quark. The contributions of the u- and c-quark operators each vanish due to a cancellation between the (V-A) \otimes (V-A) and (V-A) \otimes (V+A) matrix elements. Thus, the indirect CP asymmetry in this decay probes sin 2\beta. Although this cancellation is complete only for certain values of the s- and b-quark masses, the theoretical uncertainty on sin 2\beta is still less than 10% over most (~80%) of the parameter space. By measuring the direct CP asymmetry, one can get a better idea of the probable error on sin 2\beta.Comment: 15 pages, LaTeX, 4 figure

The S-wave \Lambda\pi phase shift is not large

We study the strong interaction S-wave \Lambda\pi phase shift in the region of the \Xi mass in the framework of a relativistic chiral unitary approach based on coupled channels. All parameters have been previously determined in a fit to strangeness S= -1 S-wave kaon-nucleon data. We find 0^\circ \le \delta_0 \le 1.1^\circ in agreement with previous chiral perturbation theory calculations (or extensions thereof). We also discuss why a recent coupled channel K-matrix calculation gives a result for \delta_0 that is negative and much bigger in magnitude. We argue why that value should not be trusted.Comment: 3 pages, REVTe

Study of CP violation in D->VV decay at BESIII

In this paper, we intend to study the problem of CP violation in $D$ meson by $D\to VV$ decay mode in which the T violating triple-product correlation is examined. That would undoubtedly be another excellent probe of New Physics beyond Standard Model. For the neutral $D$, we focus on direct CP violation without considering $D^0-\bar D^0$ oscillation. Experimentally, by a full angular analysis one may obtain such CP violating signals, and particularly it is worth mentioning that the upcoming large $D$ data samples at BES-III in Beijing will provide a great opportunity to perform it.Comment: 5 pages, 2 tables and 1 figure, version to appear in Phys. Lett.

Crystallographic and Magnetic Properties of the Spinel-type Ferrites ZnxCo1-xFe2O4 (0.0 <= x <= 0.75)

Ultrahigh frequencies (UHF) have applications in signal and power electronics to minimize product sizes, increase production quantity and lower manufacturing cost. In the UHF range of 300 MHz to 3 GHz, ferrimagnetic iron oxides (ferrites) are especially useful because they combine the properties of a magnetic material with that of an electrical insulator. Ferrites have much higher electrical resistivity than metallic ferromagnetic materials, resulting in minimization of the eddy current losses, and total penetration of the electromagnetic (EM) field. Hence ferrites are frequently applied as circuit elements, magnetic storage media like read/write heads, phase shifters and Faraday rotators. The electromagnetic properties of ferrites are affected by operating conditions such as field strength, temperature and frequency. The spinel system ZnxCo1-xFe2O4 (x= 0.0, 0.25, 0.50 and 0.75) has been prepared by the standard solid state sintering method. X-ray and neutron powder diffraction measurements were performed at room temperature. Neutron diffraction data analysis confirms the cubic symmetry corresponding to the space group Fd3m. The distribution of three cations Zn2+, Co2+ and Fe3+ over the spinel lattice and other crystallographic parameters like lattice constant, oxygen position parameter, overall temperature factor and occupancies of different ions in different lattice sites for the samples have been determined from the analysis of neutron diffraction data. The lattice constant increases with increasing Zn content in the system. The magnetic structure was found to be ferrimagnetic for the samples with x <= 0.50. Magnetization measurements show that with the increase of Zn content in the system the value of saturation magnetization first increases and then decreases. The variation of the magnetic moment with Zn substitution has been discussed in terms of the distribution of magnetic and non-magnetic ions over the A and B sub-lattices and their exchange coupling