ENVIRONMENTAL PROBLEMS OF MANIPUR

The issue of environment versus human activity has become one of the most common global topics. Global warming, greenhouse effect, air pollution, land and water pollution are all results of human activity. Human behaviour lies at the root of both conservation and environmental damage. The rapid growth of population and economic development are some of the greatest threats to the environment through the expansion and intensification of agriculture, uncontrolled growth of urbanization and industrialization, and the destruction of natural habitats. The paper seeks to study the unique features of Manipur, a pristine land situated in the North-East corner of India which is noted for its rich biodiversity, abundance of medicinal plants with various healing properties and yet it is facing the threat of environmental degradation and pollution. It is mainly rapid population growth, unplanned urbanization in urban areas, lack of awareness about environmental issues, poverty and Jhuming cultivation practices in the hills that have led to environmental damage, with its concomitant effects on human development, for it is ultimately the people of the state who have to suffer the effects of environmental damage. The paper gives a broad picture of the abundant green resources and unique fauna of Manipur and the environmental problems that threaten its biodiversity

Inter Group Perception and Experience Exploration in the Lives of Northeasterners NE in India

Over the years, the importance of historically neglected North East (NE) India has gained momentum. Previous studies in Psychology have focused either on identity of NE people, migration, acculturation or prejudice. Research on perception of NE (Indian) people by non-NE people (Indian) and vice-versa has been scanty. The present study attempts to understand perception of Northeast (NE) students of India by non-NE students (primarily North Indian/NI students staying in Delhi) using a sentence completion task. Participants consisted of female college students and research scholars; (N=30, mean age = 20.8 years). The study also takes into account the rising cases of racism against NE people in India during the COVID-19 pandemic. Results from the empirical study indicate a general and superficial understanding of NE by non-NE participants. Findings are overall positive, showing that educated and aware student community do not explicitly view NE through the lens of stereotype and prejudice. Yet subtle biases were present. On the contrary, a number of news reports point towards the incidences of prejudice and discrimination against NE people during the COVID-19 pandemic. The secondary data analysis clearly indicates the level of dehumanisation and discrimination that NE people are experiencing. Thus the study calls for more attention of researchers to dive deeper into these opposite trends and bring out the subtle forms of misperceptions to bridge the gulf between NE people and non-NE people. Results indicate that perhaps positive changes are happening only at explicit level, and at implicit level people still harbour negative perceptions and attitudes, which manifests during times of crisis. The findings have been explained with the help of Terror Management Theory

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Estimation of genetic variability, GCA and SCA effects for development of early and high yielding bell pepper hybrids suitable for protected cultivation

The present investigation involves 29 diverse bell pepper genotypes for variability studies and 14 promising lines (11 lines and 3 testers), 33 F1 and 1 standard check for combining ability studies. The objective of the study was to assess the nature and magnitude of genetic variability among the bell pepper genotypes for yield and other horticultural traits and to identify the potential parental lines and cross combinations suitable for the protected environment based on the estimation of general combining ability and specific combining ability. A wide range of variability was observed for most of the characters studied. The genotypes viz., Kashmir Sel-1 (L2), DARL-10 (L9) and UHFSP(Y)-11 (L11) for marketable fruit yield per plant and Kashmir Sel-1 (L2), UHFSP(Y)-11 (L11) and DARL-01 (L5) for earliness were good general combiners and these may be included for exploiting hybrid vigour or development of purelines. On the basis of specific combining ability effects and per se performance, the crosses viz., ARCH-19 (L1) × Solan Bharpur (T1), DARL-10 (L9) × California Wonder (T2) and UHFSP(Y)-11 (L11) × Yolo Wonder (T3) were the best cross combinations for marketable fruit yield per plant and number of marketable fruits per plant under protected environment. The cross combinations viz., DARL-10 (L9) × California Wonder (T2), DARL-01 (L5) × California Wonder (T2), LC (L10) × Solan Bharpur (T1) and Kandaghat Sel-9 (L7) × Solan Bharpur (T1) shows significant negative SCA for earliness and could be used for development of early hybrids

COMPARATIVE STUDY OF ANTIDEPRESSANT-LIKE EFFECT OF THE LEAVES OF SAPINDUS EMARGINATUS AND ACORUS CALAMUS IN EXPERIMENTAL ANIMAL MODELS

Objective: Depression is an affective disorder characterized by a change in mood, lack of confidence, lack of interest in surroundings and many natural products that have been tried to treat the disease. The study was aimed to evaluate and compare the antidepressant activity of methanol leave extract of SapindusemarginatusVahl. (MESE) and Acoruscalamus Linn. (MEAC) in experimental models in albino mice. Methods: Methanol Extracts of the plants were prepared by soxhlet extraction method. Forced swimming test (FST) and Tail suspension test (TST) models were chosen to evaluate antidepressant activity.Albino mice were selected and divided into six groups of six animals for each experimental model. Group I received 1% gum acacia in distilled water (DW) at a dose of 1 ml/100 g orally. Group II received sertraline-10 mg/kg orally. Group III and IV were administered 200 and 400 mg/kg of MESE respectively. Group V and VI were treated with 200 and 400 mg/kg of MEAC, respectively. Results: Methanol extracts of Sapindusemarginatus and Acoruscalamus at the two different doses of 200 and 400 mg/kg demonstrated a significant decrease in immobility time when compared with the control in both animal models. The extracts at the higher dose of 400 mg/kg revealed a significant reduction in immobility time compared to 200 mg/kg of the same extract. Conclusion: The results suggest that the methanol extracts of SapindusemarginatusVahl. andAcoruscalamus Linn. possessthe anticonvulsant activityand justify their use in folk medicine

ANTICONVULSANT ACTIVITY OF PORTULACA OLERACEA LINN. AND EUPATORIUM BRIMANICUM DC IN MES INDUCED SEIZURE: A COMPARATIVE STUDY

Objective: The study was aimed to evaluate and compare the anticonvulsant activity of aqueous leave extract of Portulaca oleracea Linn. and Eupatorium brimanicum DC in MES model in albino mice. Methods: Aqueous Extracts were prepared by the soxhlet extraction method. MES model was chosen to evaluate anticonvulsant activity. 36 albino mice were selected and divided into 6 groups for this model. Group I received 2% gum acacia 1 ml/100 g orally. Group II received phenytoin-20 mg/kg orally. Group III and IV received 200 and 400 mg/kg of Portulaca oleracea Linn. Respectively. Group V and VI received 200 and 400 mg/kg of Eupatorium brimanicum DC respectively. Results: The extracts didn’t show any toxicity and significantly reduced hind limb tonic extension (HLTE) duration in MES model (50 mA, 0.2 sec) at higher doses. Conclusion: The results suggest Portulaca oleracea Linn. and Eupatorium brimanicum DC extract possess anticonvulsant activity and justify their use in folk medicine

Traditional rice-husking technology of the Kukis of Manipur, India

The traditional method of rice husking remains one of the indispensable household activities of the indigenous Kuki people living in the remote areas of Northeast India in general and Manipur in particular. Their husking technologies include hand-operated mortar and pestle (sum leh suh-tum), leg-operated husking lever (chot-lep) and water-operated husking lever (tui-sum). They have been using these technologies for pounding different kinds of foodgrains since time immemorial. However, with the introduction of modern rice mills, traditional methods of husking have been drastically reduced. Currently, traditional husking technologies remain in use only in those remote areas where there is no modern rice mill facility. Mortar-pestle is the most common traditional husking technology when compared to leg-operated and water-operated husking technologies. The present ethnographic study was conducted in four hill districts of Manipur, namely- Kangpokpi, Noney, Churachandpur, and Kamjong. This paper studies the age-old traditional rice-husking technologies of the Kukis by mainly focusing on the raw material procurement, manufacturing process, use, maintenance, and discard patterns.

Effect of aqueous extract of Ardisia colorata Roxb. leaves on blood sugar in Albino rats

Background: Diabetes is a group of common metabolic disorders that share the characteristic features of hyperglycemia. Ardisia colorata Roxb. leaf extract (AEAC) is reported to be used for the treatment of diabetes. So, the present study is undertaken to evaluate the effect of Ardisia colorata Roxb. leaves on blood sugar by using different hyperglycemic models in Albino rats. Methods: In both the glucose induced hyperglycemia model and streptozotocin induced hyperglycemia model, animals were divided into 4 groups of 6 animals each. 2% gum acacia were taken as control (group 1) and glimepiride 0.2 mg/kg were taken as standard (group 2). Hyperglycemic activity was checked at two different doses i.e., 200 mg/kg (test 1) and 400 mg/kg (test 2) of AEAC (given at group 3 and group 4 respectively) by assessing the decreased in blood sugar level using glucometer by following methods of these two models. The results were analyzed using one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) followed by Bonferroni test. P value <0.05 was considered significant. Results: Test 2 showed significant reduction in blood sugar level when compared to control after 1 hour and 2 hours of drug administration in both the models whereas test 1 showed significant reduction only in glucose induced hyperglycemia model. There was significant difference when test 2 was compared to test 1 after 1 hour and 2 hours in both the models. Conclusions: The present studies showed that AEAC leaves produced significant reduction in blood sugar level. It might be suggested that flavonoids, alkaloids, tannins and terpenoids were responsible for the hypoglycemic activity of AEAC leaves

Clustering-Based Outlier Detection Technique Using PSO-KNN

In this work, we present an unsupervised machine learning algorithm for outlier detection by integrating Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) and the K-nearest neighbor (KNN) technique. Initially, the data clustering of the considered datasets was carried out using PSO to obtain optimized clusters. In the optimization process, we have adopted Davies-Bouldin (DB) index as a fitness function. The optimized clusters were pruned to exclude densely packed inliers data. Thereafter, the KNN method was employed to detect outliers present in the datasets. Our proposed algorithm was tested for outlier detection on eight different datasets and compared its performance with PSO+K-means, K-means, Local Outlier Factor (LOF), and Local Distance-based Outlier Factor (LDOF) methods. Our results show that the outlier detection efficiency of the proposed method outperforms than other four techniques. We believe that our proposed technique simple and efficient in finding the outliers in various types of datasets and it could be a promising tool for outlier detection in data mining