A Study on the Performance of National Agricultural Insurance Scheme and Suggestions to Make it More Effective

Agricultural production and farm income in India involve several risks. Crop insurance is the only mechanism available to safeguard against production risks. Against this background, this paper has examined the features and performance of National Agricultural Insurance Scheme (NAIS) operating in the country and has suggested some modifications to make it more effective. NAIS coverage in terms of crop area, number of farmers and value of agricultural output is very small. If crop insurance programme is to be made an important tool in agricultural risk management, the present level of coverage will have to be improved, at least by 3-4 fold. Such an expansion can occur only with improvements in and broad-basing of the insurance scheme. Every suggested improvement has financial implications and affect the concerned insurance practices. It requires renewed efforts by the government in terms of designing appropriate mechanisms and providing financial support to agricultural insurance. Providing of similar support to the private sector insurers would help in increasing the insurance coverage and improving the viability of insurance schemes over time. The study has also suggested that different general insurance companies in the country may be assigned some reasonable targets to cover agricultural insurance, and to begin with, it could be equal to the share of agriculture in the national income.Risk and Uncertainty,

Instability in Andhra Pradesh Agriculture — A Disaggregate Analysis

Instability in farm production is causing serious shocks to supply and farm income and there is a growing concern about increased volatility in farm production, prices and farm income. The study has estimated instability in three major crops before (1981-93) and after (1993-04) the initiation of economic reforms at the state and district levels in Andhra Pradesh. It has revealed that in a large state like Andhra Pradesh, and which is the case for most states of India, the instability status as perceived through the state level data may be vastly different from that experienced at the disaggregate level. The study has concluded that the state level analysis does not reflect complete picture of shocks in agriculture production, and, further, shocks in production underestimates shocks in farm income. It has suggested the need for addressing risks in farm income by devising area-specific crop insurance or other suitable mechanisms.Farm Management,

Robustness Study of Fractional Order PID Controller Optimized by Particle Swarm Optimization in AVR System

In this paper a novel design method for determining fractional order PID (PIλDµ) controller parameters of an AVR system using particle swarm optimization algorithm is presented. This paper presents how to employ the particle swarm optimization to seek efficiently the optimal parameters of PIλDµ controller. The robustness study is made for this controller against parameter variation of AVR system. This work has been simulated in MATLAB environment with FOMCON (Fractional Order Modeling and Control) tool box.The proposed PSOPIλDµ controller has superior performance and robust compared to GA tuned PIλDµ controller. The results are also compared with PSO tuned PID controller

Electro-Mechanical Actuator: A Simulation Study

Electro-Mechanical Actuator (EMA) modeling and simulation using Simulink block set has been implemented and tested with input step and repeated sequences. The results obtained from this simulation are satisfactory. This simulation model can be used for developing EMA health condition monitoring techniques and educational purpose. Basically a simplified and complete Simulink based approach is presented

Political Economy of International Climate Finance: Navigating Decisions in PPCR and SREP

This working paper explores how countries can build their own 'climate finance readiness' by understanding their internal political economy and use that understanding to steer consensus-based decisions on climate finance investments. For climate finance to be effective, national leaders must build shared commitments. This involves considering the arguments, incentives and power dynamics at play to ensure priorities are more equitable and representative of a broader group of stakeholders. Doing so will also help to reduce the risk of implementation delays. This paper uses case studies from Bangladesh, Ethiopia and Nepal to explore how narratives and incentives within the political economy drive climate investment outcomes under the Pilot Programme for Climate Resilience (PPCR) and the Scaling up Renewable Energy Programme (SREP). It draws from broader analysis of the discourses around these investments, including 80 interviews with government; multilateral development banks (MDBs) and other stakeholders

A Validated HPTLC Densitometric Method for The Quantitative Determination of Ubidecarenone in Bulk and in Capsule Formulation

A new, simple, precise, accurate and rapid high performance thin layer chromatographic method has been developed and validated for the estimation of ubidecarenone in bulk and in capsule formulation. The chromatographic separation was performed on aluminium TLC plates precoated with silica gel 60F254 as a stationary phase and methanol:water (7:3) as a mobile phase. Detection was performed densitometrically in the absorbance mode at 280nm for the evaluation of chromatograms. The system has given well sharp peak of ubidecarenone (Rf=0.51±0.02). The linearity of the method was established in the range of 1-6 ng/µL with correlation coefficient (r2) of 0.9995. The method was validated for precision, accuracy, robustness, ruggedness, LOD, and LOQ as per ICH guidelines. The limit of detection was found to be 0.0392 ng/µL, whereas the limit of quantitation was found to be 0.1189 ng/µL. The percentage label claim for ubidecarenone in the capsule formulation was found to be 99.96±0.4703. The accuracy of the method was confirmed by recovery studies. The percentage recovery was found to be in the range of 100.10-101.45% for ubidecarenone. The % RSD value was found to be less than 2. The low %RSD value indicates that there is no interference due to excipients used in the formulation. Hence, the developed method was found to be simple, precise, accurate, and rapid for the analysis of ubidecarenone in bulk and pharmaceutical formulation and it can be effectively applied for the quality control analysis of ubidecarenone in bulk and pharmaceutical formulation

Molecular authentication of green algae Caulerpa (Caulerpales, Chlorophyta) based on ITS and tufA genes from Andaman Islands, India

109-114Indigenous and non-indigenous invasive algal species introduction or prevalence is one of the major concerns to protect the native coastal environment. Globally, several studies have reported the effect of invasive alga Caulerpa on coral reefs. To establish the genetic variation between indigenous and non-indigenous invasive species, attempts have been made to develop molecular identification of Caulerpa algal species available at the Andaman Islands. In this study, 7 visually and morphologically different species belonging to the genus Caulerpa (Chlorophyta) were collected from the intertidal regions of South and Little Andaman Islands, India. The specimens were preliminarily identified based on the morphological characters and genetically mapped using ITS2 and chloroplast tufA gene markers. Six species of the Caulerpa viz. Caulerpa racemosa, C. racemosa var lamourouxii, C. racemosa var macrophysa, C. serrulata, C. fergusonii and C. microphysa were identified using ITS2 gene, and. C. mexicana var pluriseriata was identified using tufA gene. Two varieties, C. mexicana var. pluriseriata and C. racemosa var lamourouxii were found to be invasive to Indian waters. These were earlier reported in Red sea and in Phillipine waters in the pacific ocean. Further studies are needed to elucidate the genetic divergence of the Caulerpa species present in Andaman waters using different molecular markers

Histogenesis of Peyer’s patches in Ovine foetus (Ovis aries)

Tissue pieces of jejunum and ileum from different prenatal age groups of sheep were collected from Corporation slaughter house, Perambur, Chennai. By three months of foetal age in sheep, the Peyer’s patches appeared as an aggregation of lymphocytes in the propria submucosa of the jejunum and ileum. The lymphocytic aggregation appeared only in the antimesenteric part of the jejunum and ileum. By four months of foetal age, the circumscribed nodular aggregations of lymphocytes were found enlarged giving a follicle-like appearance. The capsular connective tissue was predominated by reticular fibres and a few collagen fibres. The dome area of the follicle consisted of closely packed small-sized lymphocytes which appeared darker than the basal area. The smooth muscle fibres of muscularis mucosae were not continuous throughout and were absent in the follicle having domes. In five months-old foetuses, the jejunal and ileal Peyer’s patches were distinctly observed as follicles. The follicle showed a distinct outer cortex and an inner lighter medulla. Numerous small-sized lymphocytes were observed in the outer cortex and few lymphoblasts, medium sized lymphocytes and reticular cells were observed in the medulla. Keywords: Histogenesis; Peyer’s patches; Ovine foetus

A Broadband Meta surface Based MIMO Antenna with High Gain and Isolation For 5G Millimeter Wave Applications

This paper proposes a Broadband Meta surface-based MIMO Antenna with High Gain and Isolation For 5G Millimeter applications. A single antenna is transformed into an array configuration to improve gain. As a result, each MIMO antenna is made up of a 1x2 element array supplied by a concurrent feedline. A 9x6 Split Ring Resonator (SRR) elongated cell is stacked above the antenna to improve gain and eliminate the coupling effects between the MIMO components. The substrate Rogers 5880 with a thickness of 0.787mm and 1.6mm is used for the antenna and meta surface. Furthermore, antenna performance is assessed using S-parameters, MIMO characteristics, and radiation patterns. The final designed antenna supports 5G applications by embracing the mm-wave frequency spectrum at Ka-band, there is a noticeable increase in gain. In addition, once the meta surface is introduced, there is an improvement in isolation.&nbsp