Elite dominance and under-investment in mass education: Disparity in the social development of the Indian states, 1960-92

Literacy rates continue to be strikingly low among women and low caste population compared to the general population not only in any Indian state, but more so in the worst performing ones. The present paper offers an explanation of this disparate development in terms of the hypothesis of elite dominance that discriminates against women and low-caste people and systematically under-invests in mass education. We experiment with various indirect economic and political measures of elite dominance. Results based on the Indian state-level data for the period 1960-92 suggest that higher share of land held by the top 5% of the population (a) lowers spending on education as well as total developmental spending and (b) increases total non-developmental spending. (c) Greater proportion of minority representations (female and low caste members) in the ruling government however fails to have any perceptible impact on both development (including education) and non-development spending in our sample. (d) While underinvestment in education by the elite is supported by the lack of demand for education from the poorer population (who are often the marginalised people), greater initiatives of the state to enact land reform legislations enhance the spending on education

Poverty, heterogeneous elite, and allocation of public spending: Panel evidence from the Indian States

In this paper, we explore how in the world’s largest democracy, India, the presence of different elite groups – the dominant landed and capitalist elite and the minority elite (who are the elected representatives of the marginalised women and low caste population) – could affect the nature and extent of public spending on various accounts, especially education. Our results suggest that the dominant landed elite tends to be unresponsive to the underlying poverty rate while the capitalist elite respond to the poverty rate by increasing the share of education spending. After controlling for all other factors, presence of the minority elite has a limited impact, if at all. Results are robust to alternative specifications

Image segmentation using a neural network

An object extraction problem based on the Gibbs Random Field model is discussed. The Maximum a'posteriori probability (MAP) estimate of a scene based on a noise-corrupted realization is found to be computationally exponential in nature. A neural network, which is a modified version of that of Hopfield, is suggested for solving the problem. A single neuron is assigned to every pixel. Each neuron is supposed to be connected only to all of its nearest neighbours. The energy function of the network is designed in such a way that its minimum value corresponds to the MAP estimate of the scene. The dynamics of the network are described. A possible hardware realization of a neuron is also suggested. The technique is implemented on a set of noisy images and found to be highly robust and immune to noise

Effect of Basin Versus Drip Irrigation on Quality Production in Mosambi Sweet Orange

An investigation was undertaken to find out the effect of basin and drip irrigation on growth, production, fruit quality, foliar N, P, K values and soil moisture status in Mosambi sweet orange grown in laterite soil. Treatments included drip irrigation at 0.6, 0.8 and 1.0 Epan with and without black polythene mulching, basin irrigation @ 30 liter/plant at 18 days interval + black polythene mulching and control (No watering + black polythene mulching). The plants receiving irrigation at 0.8 Epan + polythene mulching resulted 136 fruits per plant with superior in fruit quality in terms of highest TSS (11.2°B), sugar (8.5%) and vitamin C (47.8 mg/100ml) content. Maximum fruit weight of 166 g and diameter of 7.0 cm were recorded in the fruits of the plants which received irrigation at 1.0 Epan + polythene mulching. Foliar nitrogen content was highest (2.65%) in plants with drip irrigation at 0.8 Epan + polythene mulching while phosphorus and potassium content were non-significant among the treatments. Irrigation (drip or basin) of the plants during dry months resulted lower shoot drying as compared to no irrigation