Trade barriers: Implications for Indian Fisheries Sector

The fisheries sector of Indian economy provides livelihood to millions of poor households located in the coastal belt of the country. These households generate income through harvest, marketing and export of marine fishes and fish products. From the point of view of employment and income generation, international trade plays significant role. In many ways, fish as a food commodity is treated as a poor sister to agriculture. In many developing countries including India, prosperity of the fisheries sector relies largely on the international trade. It is the trade aspect of the sector that would be the focus of this paper. Even though India’s trade share in this sector is only 2.64 per cent in 2006–07 to the total global trade (with total global trade amounting to about US$ 70 billion1), in rupee terms it constitute a non trivial amount of Rs 83630 million. The country faces both tariff and non-tariff barriers in fish trade and is imposing high tariff in case of imports. India till now has a restrictive stand as far as fish import is concerned, while countries open up their markets for India. Given such varied economic and political dimensions, it is necessary to take a stock of the present situation. This assumes all the more importance in the light of the proposed trade agreement with many countries and trade blocks. This article makes an attempt to analyse the aspects of international trade in Indian fisheries sector in the light of World Trade Organization (WTO)

The hidden mystery of a lustrous pearl unraveled The Hindu dated 19th October 2012

People believe that pearl is conceived by oyster when it receives a drop of rain or dew. Natural pearls form under a set of accidental conditions when a microscopic intruder or grain of sand enters an oyster (mollusk) and settles inside the shell. The oyster, being irritated by the intruder, secretes a substance called nacre to soothe its irritation. This process is repeated for many years, thus producing a real pearl which may or may not be found by man. For a natural pearl forming with a nice round or oval shape, and free of any flaws, is actually a real-life “miracle.” The chances of a perfect natural pearl are one in a million. Nacre is a combination of crystalline and organic substances

Economics of fishing operations, financial feasibility and sensitivity analysis

Economics is the basis for life. Every one of us is a practicing economist in himself/herself in life

Two Modes of Solid State Nucleation - Ferrites, Martensites and Isothermal Transformation Curves

When a crystalline solid such as iron is cooled across a structural transition, its final microstructure depends sensitively on the cooling rate. For instance, an adiabatic cooling across the transition results in an equilibrium `ferrite', while a rapid cooling gives rise to a metastable twinned `martensite'. There exists no theoretical framework to understand the dynamics and conditions under which both these microstructures obtain. Existing theories of martensite dynamics describe this transformation in terms of elastic strain, without any explanation for the occurence of the ferrite. Here we provide evidence for the crucial role played by non-elastic variables, {\it viz.}, dynamically generated interfacial defects. A molecular dynamics (MD) simulation of a model 2-dimensional (2d) solid-state transformation reveals two distinct modes of nucleation depending on the temperature of quench. At high temperatures, defects generated at the nucleation front relax quickly giving rise to an isotropically growing `ferrite'. At low temperatures, the defects relax extremely slowly, forcing a coordinated motion of atoms along specific directions. This results in a twinned critical nucleus which grows rapidly at speeds comparable to that of sound. Based on our MD results, we propose a solid-state nucleation theory involving the elastic strain and non-elastic defects, which successfully describes the transformation to both a ferrite and a martensite. Our work provides useful insights on how to formulate a general dynamics of solid state transformations.Comment: 3 pages, 4 B/W + 2 color figure

Measurement of technical efficiency in marine fishing

Measurement of technical efficiency in marine fishin

Effect of elevated CO2 and high temperature on seed-set and grain quality of rice

Hybrid vigour may help overcome the negative effects of climate change in rice. A popular rice hybrid (IR75217H), a heat-tolerant check (N22), and a mega-variety (IR64) were tested for tolerance of seed-set and grain quality to high-temperature stress at anthesis at ambient and elevated [CO2]. Under an ambient air temperature of 29 °C (tissue temperature 28.3 °C), elevated [CO2] increased vegetative and reproductive growth, including seed yield in all three genotypes. Seed-set was reduced by high temperature in all three genotypes, with the hybrid and IR64 equally affected and twice as sensitive as the tolerant cultivar N22. No interaction occurred between temperature and [CO2] for seed-set. The hybrid had significantly more anthesed spikelets at all temperatures than IR64 and at 29 °C this resulted in a large yield advantage. At 35 °C (tissue temperature 32.9 °C) the hybrid had a higher seed yield than IR64 due to the higher spikelet number, but at 38 °C (tissue temperature 34–35 °C) there was no yield advantage. Grain gel consistency in the hybrid and IR64 was reduced by high temperatures only at elevated [CO2], while the percentage of broken grains increased from 10% at 29 °C to 35% at 38 °C in the hybrid. It is concluded that seed-set of hybrids is susceptible to short episodes of high temperature during anthesis, but that at intermediate tissue temperatures of 32.9 °C higher spikelet number (yield potential) of the hybrid can compensate to some extent. If the heat tolerance from N22 or other tolerant donors could be transferred into hybrids, yield could be maintained under the higher temperatures predicted with climate change

Microwave Gaseous Discharges

Contains reports on two research projects

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