“Building from bottom” a success story

Rajkot Municipal Corporation (RMC) is a local government committed to provide basic infrastructure facilities including entertainment facilities to the people of the city. RMC is very well known for managing the city by using private sector participation as well as introduction of innovative mechanisms in management to serve people efficiently. City has prepared different plans for improving services and to nullify the gap between services and demands. The sole responsibility of Solid Waste Management (SWM) in the city lies with the Soild Wate Management department of Rajkot Muncipal Corporation (RMC)

Awareness of farmers about social forestry programme - an analysis

A study was conducted to assess the awareness level of farmers on various components of Social forestry Programme, implemented by the Social Forestry Department in Ke rala State, India. It could be inferred/rom the study that the awareness level on /arm/oreslry lVas very high. On the other hand the awareness level on coastal area plantations and fodder plantations was relatively lesser. Variables such as education, material possession, media participation, contact with extension agency and economic motivation had a positive relationship with the awarelIess level of marginal farmers whereas variables like age, occupation, social participation and risk orientation had a negative influence on awareness. It was also observed that exceptfor education and risk orientation, all the other variables had a positive relationship with the awareness level of small farmers

Determinants of Fisherwomens’ Economic Status in Fisheries

India’s vast coastline provides food, stability, and income-producing opportunities for many of India’s economically disadvantaged sections of the population. Fisheries in India account for 2.5 per cent of the gross domestic product and generate powerful income and employment opportunities for many of the country’s rural poor. Women, who constitute approximately half of India’s population, play a vital role in the operation of the fisheries and their continuing growth as a component of the agriculture sector of the economy. The contributions of the fisherwomen penetrate every aspect of postharvest handling, preservation, processing, and marketing of seafood products, and provide an integral link between producers and consumers. The study was conducted on a sample of 50 fisherwomen drawn from the 2 coastal districts of Tamilnadu namely, Kancheepuram and Chennai. The findings revealed that, most of the fisherwomen had a high level of livelihood index (Score of < 50), and also had a high level of aspiration (Score <13). The step wise regression analysis revealed that the variables influencing the livelihood index of fisherwomen, in order of importance, were annual level of savings and annual level of debt. The annual level of expenditure and annual level of savings had a positive and significant influence on the level of aspiration of fisherwomen

Monitoring edge-geodetic sets in graphs

We introduce a new graph-theoretic concept in the area of network monitoring. In this area, one wishes to monitor the vertices and/or the edges of a network (viewed as a graph) in order to detect and prevent failures. Inspired by two notions studied in the literature (edge-geodetic sets and distance-edge-monitoring sets), we define the notion of a monitoring edge-geodetic set (MEG-set for short) of a graph $G$ as an edge-geodetic set $S\subseteq V(G)$ of $G$ (that is, every edge of $G$ lies on some shortest path between two vertices of $S$) with the additional property that for every edge $e$ of $G$, there is a vertex pair $x, y$ of $S$ such that $e$ lies on \emph{all} shortest paths between $x$ and $y$. The motivation is that, if some edge $e$ is removed from the network (for example if it ceases to function), the monitoring probes $x$ and $y$ will detect the failure since the distance between them will increase. We explore the notion of MEG-sets by deriving the minimum size of a MEG-set for some basic graph classes (trees, cycles, unicyclic graphs, complete graphs, grids, hypercubes,...) and we prove an upper bound using the feedback edge set of the graph

Market Efficiency Indicators in Marine Fish Marketing in Goa, India

The Indian State of Goa has a coastal length of 104 Kms and the State contributes 1.85% to the marine fish production of the country. A study was conducted to assess the market efficiency indicators such as Gross Marketing Margin, Percentage Share of Fisherman in the Consumers Rupee (PSFCR) and the Coefficient of variation. The study revealed that high value fishes such as cobia, silver Whiting, seer fishes, prawns and milk shark recorded a comparatively higher price spread. Varieties which recorded higher PSFCR were speckled prawn (72.86%), cobia (70.31%), seerfish (69.98%), Brown shrimps or ginga prawns (69.43%), pony fish (67.58%) and milk shark (65.61%). At the point of first sales, high value fishes such as cobia, seerfishes, prawns and silver biddy had a co-efficient of variation of less than 10% indicating a higher price stability. High value fishes such as ribbon fishes, seerfishes, cobia, indian white prawn, barracudas, brown prawns, speckled prawns, kadal shrimps and half beaks were among the list of fishes which recorded a low co-efficient of variation of less than 10% at the point of last sales

Sidis of Gujarat – A Historical Reminiscence

The following study documents the socio-economic profile of “Sidis” an ancient tribe inhabiting the outskirts of the Gir forest in Gujarat. The study aimed at analyzing the impact of cage culture programme on the status of livelihood of the beneficiaries of the programme. Data was collected form a sample of 135 “Sidis” using structured interview schedule. The average monthly income and skill perception was higher for the “Sidis” practicing cage culture when compared to the other two categories

Involvement of extension personnel in implementing social forestry programmes

In a country like India, where the population is high and resources are limited, social forestry is an instrument for rural development, particularly for the poor people. Thus social forestry is identified as a forestry of the people, by the people and for the people

Study on the Socio-Economic Status and level of Cognitive, Psychomotor and Affective Domains of Sidi Tribes in Open Sea Cage Culture

A study on the level of socio-economic conditions of communities/beneficiaries provides the base to formulate development plans and undertake corrective action for the posterity. The present study deals with the sociopersonal, socio-psychological and socio-economic characteristics of Sidis a primitive tribal group who are the beneficiaries of the ambitious cage culture programme of CMFRI under the Tribal Sub-Plan. A sample of 135 Sidi tribals consisting of 45 numbers of Sidis practicing cage culture, 45 numbers of non-practicing beneficiaries of the tribal society and 45 numbers of Sidis who were non practicing and non-beneficiaries of society were selected using multistage random sampling method. The findings of the study revealed that majority of the participant beneficiaries (58.33 percent) were having high school level of education, when compared to non-participant beneficiaries majority of whom were illiterates (55.55 percent). It could be inferred that, the participant beneficiaries had a higher average monthly income ie ` 1516.25 when compared to non-participant beneficiaries who earned an average monthly income of ` 854.25. Majority of the participant beneficiaries (41.67 per cent) had medium level of knowledge in cage culture followed by (50.00 per cent) who had medium level of attitude followed by 75 per cent had medium level of perceived skill towards cage culture

Livelihood analysis using wealth ranking tool of PRA

The present study was undertaken in Maroorpatti village in Namakkal district of Tamilnadu. From the results o/the livelihood analysis conducted/or the three different categories a/wealth ranking, it may be pointed out that with respect to the size of land holdings the rich farmer had double the size a/the medium and as such large as 10 times that the poor farmer. The rich farmer had an incomparably large number o/cattle with respect to his counterparts. While the rich farmer received monthly income from livestock, the medium farmer, who was thus classified solely by his agricultural land holdings, always expected his agricultural field to boost his monthly income. Furthermore, from the expenditure pal1ern observed, the rich farmer's were inclined to save nearly 35% of their monthly income, while the poor farmers were always in need of 25% loan to meet their monthly needs. As a consequence, the crises analysis indicated that the poor farmer as well as the medium farmer usually takes a loan of 40% towards meeting any calamities faced in their agricultural and livestock sectors

P R A methods for studying the impact of technology adoption in crop and poultry enterprises in a rural village

Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) methods have of late been highly successful in bridging the gap between development functionaries and target groups for whom the development straties and efforts have been focused at. PRA describes a growing family of approaches and methods to enable local people to share, enhance and analyze their knowledge of life and conditions, to plan and to act. (Chambers, 1994)