Ensuring Rural Infrastructure in India: Role of Rural Infrastructure Development fund

Inclusive economic growth is the most talked about issue in India. This is due to the fact that the impacts of the recent spectacular growth have not been able to percolate down to various segments of population, most importantly to the rural population. Rural infrastructure in India have still remained far from satisfactory and amongst others, lack of funds is one critical reason for this. In order to ensure smooth flow of funds for the development of infrastructure in rural India, rural infrastructure development fund (RIDF) was introduced in the budget of 1995-’96. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) governs this fund through NABARD with corpus from the commercial banks. This paper is an attempt to critically examine some of the issues that arise in the context of utilization of the fund by different states of India. The study finds that many projects remain incomplete even after receiving funds under RIDF and certain measures are necessary to ensure proper utilization of funds as well as to reduce intra rural disparity in India.Key Words: Rural Infrastructure Development Fund, Corpus, RIDF Tranche

A Deviant or a Victim of Pervasive Stigmatization: Wicked Women in Kavita Kané’s Lanka’s Princess

Building on the foundational theories of Judith Butler and Edwin Schur, this paper scrutinises the traditional myth of the Hindu epic the Ramayana and argues: (1) how socially constructed gender performance is naturalised by cultural ideology and (2) how infringement of this performance leads to labelling individuals as deviant. Women who transgress these cultural ideologies are defined as deviant and subjected to various punishments, from public humiliation to genital mutilation. Through an exploration of the novelist Kavita Kané’s mythology inspired novel Lanka’s Princess (2017), this paper focuses on the mythical figure known as Surpankha whose character embodies masculine attributes and vilified qualities that contradict the archetypal image of women in India, as prescribed by Hindu scriptures. This paper highlights the consequences of resistance and deviance when it comes to gender performance and examines mutilation from a feminist point of view. We also simultaneously remove Surpankha from her archetypal villainous image to the image of a ‘wronged’ woman. Hence, this study creates a lens for examining femininity, deviance, and ancient gender roles, particularly, when it comes to the performance of gender and the social construction of deviance. In doing so, this paper deconstructs the male-dominated structure of deviance and constructs a new understanding of the Ramayana

Strong Decay widths and Coupling Constant of Recent Charm Meson States

Using an effective Lagrangian approach based on heavy quark symmetry and chiral dynamics, we explore the strong decay widths and branching ratios of various resonances and suggest their JP find the coupling constants involved in the strong decays through pseudoscalar mesons. The present work also discusses about the possible spin-parity assignments of recently observed states by LHCb collaboration.Comment: 13 pages, 3 tables and 6 plots, 2015(EPJC: Communicated

BIMing the architectural curricula: integrating Building Information Modelling (BIM) in architectural education

Building Information Modelling (BIM) reflects the current heightened transformation within the Architectural, Engineering and Construction (AEC) Industry and the Facilities and Management (FM) sector, offering a host of benefits from increased efficiency, accuracy, speed, co-ordination, consistency, energy analysis, project cost reduction etc to various stake holders from owners to architects, engineers, contractors and other built environment professionals. Many countries around the world are responding to this paradigm shift including the United Kingdom (UK). The Cabinet office took the decision in 2011 to make the use of collaborative 3D BIM technology mandatory for all public sector construction contracts by 2016 (Cabinet Office, 2011). According to Smith and Tardif, despite certain myths and misconceptions surrounding BIM, its rate of implementation has been much faster in comparison to the availability of professionals skilled in use of BIM, thus creating a skill gap in the design and construction industry (Smith and Tardif, cited in Barison and Santos, 2010a). This article aims at bridging the gap between the graduate skill sets and the changing needs of the profession. The research methodology adopted consists of thoroughly reviewing the existing literature in this subject area coupled with carrying out a survey of accredited Schools of Architecture in the UK. The analysis of the survey questionnaire results shows the extent to which BIM is currently being taught and identifies the barriers where its implementation has either been slow or not yet started. The paper highlights the fact that there has been considerable delay in the successful integration of BIM in the Schools of Architecture in the UK, thus emphasising the need for expeditiously training and preparing students in the use of BIM making them ready to effectively perform in a BIM enabled work arena

A New Computational Schema for Euphonic Conjunctions in Sanskrit Processing

Automated language processing is central to the drive to enable facilitated referencing of increasingly available Sanskrit E-texts. The first step towards processing Sanskrit text involves the handling of Sanskrit compound words that are an integral part of Sanskrit texts. This firstly necessitates the processing of euphonic conjunctions or sandhi-s, which are points in words or between words, at which adjacent letters coalesce and transform. The ancient Sanskrit grammarian P??ini’s codification of the Sanskrit grammar is the accepted authority in the subject. His famed s?tra-s or aphorisms, numbering approximately four thousand, tersely, precisely and comprehensively codify the rules of the grammar, including all the rules pertaining to sandhi-s. This work presents a fresh new approach to processing sandhi-s in terms of a computational schema. This new computational model is based on P??ini’s complex codification of the rules of grammar. The model has simple beginnings and is yet powerful, comprehensive and computationally lean

Optical Absorption in B13_{13} Cluster: A Time-Dependent Density Functional Approach

The linear optical absorption spectra of three isomers of planar boron cluster B$_{13}$ are calculated using time-dependent spin-polarized density functional approach. The geometries of these cluster are optimized at the B3LYP/6-311+G* level of theory. Even though the isomers are almost degenerate, the calculated spectra are quite different, indicating a strong structure-property relationship. Therefore, these computed spectra can be used in the photo-absorption experiments to distinguish between different isomers of a cluster.Comment: Version2: Latex and hyperref enabled. Minor typos corrected. 4 figures, 2 pages. Accepted manuscript. To appear in AIP Conference Proceeding

Remarkable Hydrogen Storage on Beryllium Oxide Clusters: First Principles Calculations

Since the current transportation sector is the largest consumer of oil, and subsequently responsible for major air pollutants, it is inevitable to use alternative renewable sources of energies for vehicular applications. The hydrogen energy seems to be a promising candidate. To explore the possibility of achieving a solid-state high-capacity storage of hydrogen for onboard applications, we have performed first principles density functional theoretical calculations of hydrogen storage properties of beryllium oxide clusters (BeO)$_{n}$ (n=2 -- 8). We observed that polar BeO bond is responsible for H$_{2}$ adsorption. The problem of cohesion of beryllium atoms does not arise, as they are an integral part of BeO clusters. The (BeO)$_{n}$ (n=2 -- 8) adsorbs 8--12 H$_{2}$ molecules with an adsorption energy in the desirable range of reversible hydrogen storage. The gravimetric density of H$_{2}$ adsorbed on BeO clusters meets the ultimate 7.5 wt% limit, recommended for onboard practical applications. In conclusion, beryllium oxide clusters exhibit a remarkable solid-state hydrogen storage.Comment: This document is the Accepted Manuscript version of a Published Work that appeared in final form in JPCC, copyright American Chemical Society after peer review and technical editing by the publisher. To access the final edited and published work see , see http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/jp410994

Competition and Collusion in Grain Markets: Basmati Auctions in North India

Many small wholesale grain markets in India are characterized by large numbers of sellers, and a relatively small number of buyers, thereby lending the price formation process open to manipulation through collusion. Government intervention limits the extent of such manipulation by instituting regulated markets where the rules of exchange are clearly spelled out. The key institutional features of these markets are (a) sales through open ascending auctions; (b) the presence of "commission agents" representing both buyers and sellers. We present simple models of noncooperative and collusive behavior in auctions incorporating the above, and some more market specific, assumptions. We exploit data from a primary survey of a market for basmati paddy in North India. The main findings are (i) the collusive model explains the data better; (ii) the incentives of sellers and a subset of the large buyers are aligned; (iii) this, along with a Principal-Agent slack between millers and commission agents who buy for them, facilitates the form that collusion takes, and (iv) due to (ii) and (iii), the impact of collusion on market prices is not necessarily adverse. Insofar as the features of the market we study are common to grain markets in North India, we believe that these findings may be of much wider significance.

The Changing Pattern of Undernutrition in India: A Comparative Analysis across Regions

calories, consumption, poverty, India