Performance of Indian commercial banks (1995-2002): an application of data envelopment analysis and Malmquist productivity index

This paper investigates efficiency using data envelopment analysis (DEA) and productivity growth using Malmquist index in a sample of Indian commercial banks over the period 1995-2002. Using total deposits and operating expenses as input and loans and other earning assets as output in the DEA analysis we observe no significant growth in productivity during the sampled period. The rate of increase in technical efficiency though small is likely to be due to scale efficiency compared to managerial efficiency. In general, smaller banks are less efficient and highly DEA-efficient banks have a high equity to assets and high return to average equity ratios. There has been no growth in productivity in private sector banks where as the public sector banks appears to demonstrate a modest positive change through 1995-2002. Technological change in the public sector banks reveals a growth while the private sector banks experienced a negative growth of almost the same magnitude.Indian banks, productivity change, DEA, Malmquist index

Enhancing People’s Capabilities and Entitlements in Asia: The Experience of an Export Production Village Project in Sri Lanka

It is common knowledge that most developing countries in Asia have failed to channel the benefits of their rapid economic growth to make any significant progress in the movement of reducing rural poor. This is because the rural sector is isolated from the modern sector or the so-called industrial sector in the national development process. As a result, people in the rural sector do not get equal opportunities to participate in the development process of the modern sector and thereby do not receive growth benefits equally. The present study based on the Export Production Village (EPV) project aims to rectify this weakness to some extent by providing equal opportunities for rural people to participate in modern development activities, while equitably distributing the growth benefits of national development among rural stakeholders. Thus, it aims to enhance people`s capabilities and entitlements, by creating production and marketing linkages between the two sectors. The main aim of the present study is to investigate how far this EPV project is able to improve people`s Capabilities and Entitlements through transferring growth benefits of the modern sector to the rural economy while providing productive opportunities to use their own resource endowments to participate in the national development process

A Constant-Momentum/Energy-Selector Time-of-Flight Mass Spectrometer

A matrix assisted laser desorption/ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometer has been built with an ion source that can be operated in either constant-energy or constant-momentum acceleration modes. A decreasing electric field distribution in the ion-accelerating region makes it possible to direct ions onto a space-focal plane in either modes of operation. Ions produced in the constant-momentum mode have velocities and, thus, flight times that are linearly dependent on mass and kinetic energies that are inversely dependent on mass. The linear mass dispersion doubles mass resolving power of ions accelerated with space-focusing conditions in constant-momentum mode. The mass-dependent kinetic energy is exploited to disperse ions according to mass in a simple kinetic energy filter constructed from two closely spaced, oblique ion reflectors. Focusing velocity of ions of the same mass can substantially improve ion selection for subsequent post source decay or tandem time-of-flight analyses

Upper Part of the Maha Oya Catchment Area Water Quality Distribution

Water quality of the Maha Oya stream that runs across the Dolosbage, Rahala and Aranayakawas determined using water samples collected from twenty selected locations. Dug wells inthe catchment of the stream were also selected to to identify groundwater quality changes dueto water pollution in the river. These locations were selected from systematic sampling pointswere selected based on 800m grid a dug well was selected from the centre of the point oraround the centre point in each plot. Geographical Information System (GIS) packageArcGIS10 (Spatial Analysis Tool) was used to identify the spatial changes of water quality inthe river and surrounded groundwater pollution area. Water samples were assessed forselected parameter such as Temperature, pH and Electric Conductivity during the period of 5month in year 2013. In the all 20 river locations pH varies from 5.5 to 8. EC varies from17μs/cm to 70μs/cm. The counts of pH value were significantly lower in the populated areaand tea plantation areas than in other locations. A sociological survey was conductedconcurrently to study the impact of two communities (Tea state settlement and agricultural)living along the stream bank on water quality and social aspect. The results indicate that pHnear the populated area (Tea state settlement area) is probably due to the large amount ofhousehold waste that is discharged directly to the stream. The concluded that decompositionof organic matter produces CO2, which dissolves in water as carbonic acid, thereby loweringthe pH

Determination of Climate Change Impact to the Coastal Community in the Northern Indian Ocean

Climate change is a causative factor of profound series of changers including sea level rising, increasing of sea surface temperature, storm surge condition during a cyclone and, extreme tide event along the coastal area around the world. Sea level rising is a major threat to the living right of 200 million of coastal communities in low lying coastal areas and Island state countries. The sea level observation was collected from Bay of Bengal (BOB), Arabian Sea and around Sri Lankan waters using global sea level monitoring network conducted by Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC). High frequency sea level data was used from Sittwe: Myanmar, Visakhapatnam: India Chittagong: Bangladesh representing Bay of Bengal, Karachi: Pakistan, Omara: Pakistan, Marmagao: Indian, and Male: Maldives representing Arabian Sea. The satellite observations were used same location of permanent sea level station from Achieving, Validation and Interpretation of Satellite Oceanography (AVISO). T_TIDE harmonic analysis function was computed to quantification of tidal constituents using one minute frequency tide gauge data obtained based on availability of non-missing reading more than one year. The residual sea level change was obtained by the difference of observed variation and predicted tidal constituents derived by harmonic analysis. The quantified tidal constituents were used to manipulate of spring and neap tidal rangers according to the criterion introduced by Hicks in 2006. The resulted sea level variation of both tide gauge and satellite were superposition with 2-3 mm per year positive trend and 80-90 cm of seasonal variation in Northern Indian Ocean. Tsunami like waves were recorded without seismic events and inter-annual variability were recorded related to the El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO) events with a frequency of 4-6 years. The irreversible gradual rising of sea level enhance the intensity and the frequency of ocean based disaster events such as storm surge, Meteotsunami and coastal flood challenging to the breathing right of coastal community.Keyword: Sea level, Disaster, Bay of Bengal, Arabian sea, Climate chang

Saline Water Intrusion Along the River Benthera and its Impact on Irrigation Water

Saline water intrusion is a major issue in the present era, and Benthara River has beenaffected with serious saline water intrusion along the river. The present study was conductedto identify sea water intrusion and its impact on irrigation system in the Benthera waterscheme. In addition to that study objectives were to assess salinity levels in surface waterwith precipitation and tidal waves. The study area along the river is covered with mangrovesand paddy. The research was conducted in the Ambalangoda irrigation area, Galle district inthe southern province of Sri Lanka. Study area was located in the river Bentota and the leftbank of the Benthara river basin irrigation scheme. Continuous monitoring was conductedover six months from January to June 2012. Five sampling points along the river from sea toten kilometers (10 km) upstream were identified, based on two kilometers (2 km) interval inbetweensampling points. Further, three samples from three levels that is surface, mid streamand deeper level were taken from each collecting point. Laboratory analyses of chemicalwater quality parameters were observed.The results revealed the pH and Electrical Conductivity (EC) of the river water are affectedby sea water intrusion and other anthropogenic influences. Throughout the monitoring periodEC values had not changed due to precipitation except with heavy rain. The study helped toprepare maps depicting salinity levels in the river using GIS software. It shows that most ofthe saline water goes through the river bed. Sea water intrusion occurs during afternoons ofthe time and EC values in February remained at the highest level of 32,900 micro Siemensper centimeter (μs/cm). The pH range varies from 6 to 7.5 in the morning and from 6 to 8 inthe afternoon. Electrical Conductivity values of surface water in the study area were up to32,900 μs/cm in the morning and 37,300 μs/cm in the afternoon. Chloride levels hadsignificantly differed between the collecting point near the mouth of the river and theconcluding point. Highest value of Chloride was 19,800 milligrams per liter (mg/l) in themorning and 20,692 mg/l in the afternoon.