Financial crisis: The incrediable hulk in Indian economic growth and external sector

This paper empirically examines the impact of current world-wide recession on India’s growth. The data for this study were compiled from RBI and Central Statistical Organisation (CSO). The paper has applied regression technique with GDP as dependent variable, while exports, imports, FDI and FII were taken as independent variables. Prior to regression analysis, all the variables are tested for stationarity, applying Augmented Dickey-Fuller (ADF) test. The data sets were also tested for seasonality by applying auxiliary regression. Because of the problem of multicolinearity among the independent variables, three models, dropping one of the highly collinear variables, were estimated. The results suggest that financial crisis has adversely impacted India’s GDP although imports, exports and FDI were found to have exercised stimulating influence through technological spillovers and other externalities. The paper suggests that recovery of global economy is extremely important for Indian economic growth although the effects of global slow down could be minimized through the use of stimulant fiscal and monetary measures.The impact on the world economy; Impact on Indian Economy; Impact on External Sector; Data Sources and Methodology; Regression Analysis: Discussion and Interpretation; Seasonality test; Regression Results and discussion; Conclusions

Globalisation and sustainable exports of Indian medicinal and aromatic plants: A protection study

India has a rich heritage of traditional systems of medicine viz. Ayurveda, Unani, Siddha, Tibetan which are mostly based on botanical formulations. Although biologically, the region is extremely rich in medicinal plants, due to years of unwise use, the availability of raw materials in desired quality and quantity has become difficult to obtain raising serious doubt about the safety and efficacy of the medicines currently in use. There is unprecedented demand for natural medicines, green health products, pharmaceuticals, food supplements, cosmetics, and herbal pesticides to bring about this alarming loss of plant biodiversity. The sustainable production, conservation and use of medicinal plants are influenced by a number of factors, largely of socio-economic, technical, institutional and policy nature. Unsustainable harvesting of the raw materials from the wild by untrained and poor collectors mostly using primitive methods and lack of awareness about the real value of the resources are other two important factors leading to resource depletion. Rural people derive a substantial portion of their income and products for their basic health care needs from medicinal plants gathered from the nature. Medicinal plants-based drug industries and enterprises which run into thousands presently source more than 85% of their raw materials from the wild as they are cheap and believed to be of higher potency. There is a great need to reduce pressure on the in-situ sources by diversifying the production sites of these important plants. Domestication is one of the alternatives being attempted but given the large population of developing countries living below poverty line and growing need for economic and environmental security, it is unlikely that the current lands devoted to pure or mixed agriculture or forestry can be diverted to grow medicinal plants in a significant amount. Besides, domestication has to be carried out in similar habitats since some of the cultivated plants are known to give different chemical constituents than their natural counterparts due to environmental factors. As a large number of private sectors investment is possible in this sector, medicinal plants can be developed as a potential bridge between sustainable economic developments, safe & affordable health care and conservation of vital biodiversity. The paper suggests that a long-term and sustainable bio-partnerships between industry and rural communities should be formed which is in the interest of both the producers/collectors and drug industries as both stand to gain. The former will have regular, reliable and quality supply sources of raw materials and later will have assured market, increased income and fair price for their products. Necessary support and facilitation by the GOs, NGOs and academia in terms of technology transfer, Policy and legal support and extension may build and strengthen the partnership evolution process. There is an immediate need to initiate pilot case studies and model buy back arrangements between collectors/growers and industry representatives to start this process. This paper analyses the social, economic and institutional implications of such relationships based on various examples of evolving partnership concepts focusing on their efficiency, equity, and feasibility.Medicinal Plants and Livelihood Security; Holistic Rocource Management Approach; Partnership Ventures; Sustainable Commercialisation

International Trade Modeling Indices and Measurement Issues

Trade indices are used to measure different aspects of a country’s participation in world trade. Such indices range from Trade Openness Index (TOI) measuring the degree of openness of a country, to Commodity Concentration Index (CCI) and Revealed Comparative Advantage (RCA) measuring diversity and competitiveness of a country’s export basket. However, each index being a summary measure has its own limitation and specific use. One must, therefore, be extremely careful in drawing policy conclusions from the values of these indices obtained in the context of a given data set at hand.Internationa Trade, RCA, CCI

Forecasting model of small scale industrial sector of West Bengal

This study seeks to generate the forecasts for the small scale industrial sector of West Bengal for the ensuing decade till 2019-20. Forecasts have been generated for production, direct employment, capital formation and number of units in this sector. Auto Regressive Integrated Moving Average (ARIMA) model has been used taking the lead time of 13 years. The analysis of forecasted figures has revealed that the fixed capital investment and production would experience significant growth during the lead time of thirteen years. Number of units and employment are expected to observe meager growth during this period indicating low possibility of absorption of labor force in this sector. In the light of the forecasts, it is required on the part of the state government to take all concerted efforts and initiatives to strengthen the industrial base in West Bengal. In this regard catastrophic changes are required so far as industrial policy of West Bengal is concerned.Stationarity, ARIMA models, Forecasts

Antipsychotic medication for childhood-onset schizophrenia

We review the development of several new approaches for extending the performance of Brillouin based slow light systems. In particular we describe the use of cavity effects to enhance the achievable delays, gain saturation to decouple the delay and associated signal gain, and the use of tailored pump beams to effect reshaping and retiming of periodic signals

Probing CPT Violation in B Systems

We discuss how a possible violation of the combined symmetry CPT in the B meson system can be investigated at the LHC. We show how a tagged and an untagged analysis of the decay modes of both B(d) and B(s) mesons can lead not only to a possible detection of a CPT-violating new physics but also to an understanding of its precise nature. The implication of CPT violation to a large mixing phase in the B(s) system is also discussed.Comment: 14 pages, 5 encapsulated postscript figures. Some typographical errors correcte