Rural indebtedness : concept, correlates and consequences: a study of four tribal villages in the North Lakhimpur subdivision, Assam

Indebtedness has been acknowledged as one of the most infamous stumbling blocks in the way of rural prosperity. It is cancerous, self-perpetuating, malignant and maleficent. It abates agricultural production, abashes social psyche, aggravates inequalities in the distribution of socioeconomic opportunities and benefits, arrests social progress and misdirects social efforts. In the Indian rural context, indebtedness characterizes: (i). unproductive usage of loan, (ii). usurious ensnaring of the borrower, (iii). captivation of productive resources, (iv). exercise of coercive and exploitative economic and social powers by the lender, (v). compulsion, plight, misery and feeling of guilt and helplessness, and (vi). erosion of social status of the borrower. In this study we propose an empirical study to measure indebtedness, identify its correlates and to assess the consequences of indebtedness on the productive and distributive performance on the rural economy. We have collected primary data from four tribal villages. The selection of these villages has been made purposively. We hold the opinion that the tribal population in the rural areas of Assam has been least exposed to the credit programmes launched by the public agencies and hence a study of indebtedness provides us with a deeper insight in the problem. We have observed that in the Indian context rural indebtedness is resonant with the overtones of unproductive usage, usurious ensnaring and deplorable condition of the poor farmers and agricultural labourers. We have surveyed four tribal villages and based on the data thus collected identified some measures of indebtedness that can help us operationally in analyzing the incidence, process and impacts of rural indebtedness. These measures are per capita loan and per capita loan per agricultural asset held by the households and these measures are good representatives of the degree of indebtedness. We have analyzed the productive and distributive effects of indebtedness and found that it leads to decline in agricultural productivity, captivation of productive resources and aggravation of inequalities in the rural community. Further, our finding is that indebtedness is initiated by unproductive expenditure. This in turn captivates agricultural assets, abates productivity and reduces the repaying capacity of the borrower. Our study may suggest that in order to ameliorate the conditions of the indebted rural mass we have to motivate them to minimize conspicuous consumption, especially if the households cannot afford it without borrowing. Educational planning may help us to attain this goal of making the rural mass aware of the merits of prudence and the demerits of conspicuous consumption. Further, to stop the captivation of productive assets, institutional loan should be provided on easy terms. This objective may be attained by making the cooperative and bank loans easily available.Rural indebtedness; correlates; consequences; measures of incidence; distributive effects; causal chain; Assam; primary data; tribal villages; poverty

Mesoscale objective analysis of daily rainfall with satellite and conventional data over Indian summer monsoon region

A mesoscale objective analysis scheme for producing daily rainfall analysis on a regular latitude/longitude grid over the Indian monsoon region is described. The Barnes scheme is applied to interpolate irregularly distributed daily rainfall data on to a regular grid. The spatial resolution of the interpolated arrays is 0.25 degrees of latitude by 0.25 degrees of longitude. Daily rainfall derived from INSAT IR radiances and raingauge observations are combined to produce this analysis. Some objectively determined constraints are employed in this study: (i) weights are determined as a function of data spacing, (ii) in order to achieve convergence of the analysed values three passes through the data are considered and there is automatic elimination of wavelengths smaller than twice the average data spacing. The case of a typical westward moving monsoon depression during the 1994 monsoon season is selected to represent the characteristics of the analysed rainfall. Objective analyses of six days (16 to 21 August 1994) have been carried out using Barnes three pass scheme. The weighting function scale length parameter (c, denominator in the exponential Gaussian weight function) is varied from over a range of values and the root mean square (rms) errors are computed to select the appropriate value of c. The value of c depends on the number of correction passes being performed and on the density of the observations. The characteristics of the output field from this analysis system have been examined by comparing the analysed rainfall with the observed values. The heavy rainfall over the Western Ghat of India has been clearly brought out in this analysis

A Study Into The Design Of A Soft-Computing Based Unsupervised Translator That Deals With Ambiguities

A key area of work, and indeed of challenges, in Machine Translation (MT) is dealing withambiguity. While in MT we aim to reduce the gap between human perception and machinesolution, we have repeatedly failed to show perfect results regarding this, and we continue tofailing getting human like translations from our machines. This conceptual paper reviews a fewof the commonly faced problems in ambiguity resolution when translating from English toBengali and vice versa, and, on the basis of this, aims to propose a soft-computing based methodin designing an English to Bengali and vice versa translator which may yield better results in thefuture. The implementation and hence the corresponding analytical studies thereafter are left asfuture work

Burning a binary tree and its generalization

Graph burning is a graph process that models the spread of social contagion. Initially, all the vertices of a graph $G$ are unburnt. At each step, an unburnt vertex is put on fire and the fire from burnt vertices of the previous step spreads to their adjacent unburnt vertices. This process continues till all the vertices are burnt. The burning number $b(G)$ of the graph $G$ is the minimum number of steps required to burn all the vertices in the graph. The burning number conjecture by Bonato et al. states that for a connected graph $G$ of order $n$, its burning number $b(G) \leq \lceil \sqrt{n} \rceil$. It is easy to observe that in order to burn a graph it is enough to burn its spanning tree. Hence it suffices to prove that for any tree $T$ of order $n$, its burning number $b(T) \leq \lceil \sqrt{n} \rceil$ where $T$ is the spanning tree of $G$. It was proved in 2018 that $b(T) \leq \lceil \sqrt{n + n_2 + 1/4} +1/2 \rceil$ for a tree $T$ where $n_2$ is the number of degree $2$ vertices in $T$. In this paper, we provide an algorithm to burn a tree and we improve the existing bound using this algorithm. We prove that $b(T)\leq \lceil \sqrt{n + n_2 + 8}\rceil -1$ which is an improved bound for $n\geq 50$. We also provide an algorithm to burn some subclasses of the binary tree and prove the burning number conjecture for the same

Experimental and numerical investigation of capillary flow in SU8 and PDMS microchannels with integrated pillars

Microfluidic channels with integrated pillars are fabricated on SU8 and PDMS substrates to understand the capillary flow. Microscope in conjunction with highspeed camera is used to capture the meniscus front movement through these channels for ethanol and isopropyl alcohol, respectively. In parallel, numerical simulations are conducted, using volume of fluid method, to predict the capillary flow through the microchannels with different pillar diameter to height ratio, ranging from 2.19 to 8.75 and pillar diameter to pitch ratio, ranging from 1.44 to 2.6. The pillar size (diameter, pitch and height) and the physical properties of the fluid (surface tension and viscosity) are found to have significant influence on the capillary phenomena in the microchannel. The meniscus displacement is non-uniform due to the presence of pillars and the non-uniformity in meniscus displacement is observed to increase with decrease in pitch to diameter ratio. The surface area to volume ratio is observed to play major roles in the velocity of the capillary meniscus of the devices. The filling speed is observed to change more dramatically under different pillar heights upto 120 mu m and the change is slow with further increase in the pillar height. The details pertaining to the fluid distribution (meniscus front shapes) are obtained from the numerical results as well as from experiments. Numerical predictions for meniscus front shapes agree well with the experimental observations for both SU8 and PDMS microchannels. It is observed that the filling time obtained experimentally matches very well with the simulated filling time. The presence of pillars creates uniform meniscus front in the microchannel for both ethanol and isopropyl alcohol. Generalized plots in terms of dimensionless variables are also presented to predict the performance parameters for the design of these microfluidic devices. The flow is observed to have a very low Capillary number, which signifies the relative importance of surface tension to viscous effects in the present study

Septic Abortion Managed in a Tertiary Hospital in West Bengal

Background: Septic abortion is still a challenging problem and a major cause of maternal mortality and morbidity in developing countries.Aim: The present study was conducted to estimate incidence, causes, risk factors, associated microorganisms, and treatment modalities of cases of septic abortion managed in a tertiary health care in West Bengal.Subjects and Methods: It was a cross‑sectional study carried out in Burdwan Medical College and Hospital in West Bengal between July 2011 and June 2012. On admission a thorough history was taken, examination was done, and investigations were carried. Depending on the examination findings the cases were grouped into three grades‑grade I: The infection localized in the uterus; grade II: The infection spread beyond the uterus to the parametrium, tubes, and ovaries or pelvic peritoneum; grade III: Generalized peritonitis and/or endotoxic shock or jaundice or acute renal failure. Statistical analysis was done by using Epi Info™ software (Version 3.5.1, CDC) after proper arrangement of all the data in tabular form and presented as simple percentage.Results: During the period, 1297 cases of abortion were admitted among which 107 were septic abortions, thus giving the incidence of the latter as 8.2% (107/1297). Forty‑three percent cases of septic abortion (46/107) were in grade I, 21.5% (23/107) in grade II, and 35.5% (38/107) in grade III. The modal age group of the patients was 15‑25 years (49.5%). Majority of the subjects were married (77.6%; 83/107) and multiparous (60.7%; 65/107). Similarly, most of them (71%; 76/107) were from low socioeconomic class. Ninety percent of the patients (96/107) had induced abortion. The common clinical features at presentation were pallor (88.8%; 95/107) and fever (86.0%; 92/107). Escherichia coli (62.6%; 67/107) and Klebsiella pneumonia (32.75%; 35/107) were the most common organism isolated. The case fatality from septic abortion in this study was 13.1% and the condition accounted for 15.4% of total maternal mortality within the period reviewed.Conclusion: The incidence of septic abortion in this study is relatively high, and majority of the cases resulted from attempted termination of pregnancy. It is a significant contributor to maternal mortality. Promotion of family planning and legalization of abortion services will go a long way in reducing the incidence of septic abortion and itsassociated complications. Keywords: Asia, management, maternal mortality, outcome, septic abortio

Rural indebtedness : concept, correlates and consequences: a study of four tribal villages in the North Lakhimpur subdivision, Assam

Indebtedness has been acknowledged as one of the most infamous stumbling blocks in the way of rural prosperity. It is cancerous, self-perpetuating, malignant and maleficent. It abates agricultural production, abashes social psyche, aggravates inequalities in the distribution of socioeconomic opportunities and benefits, arrests social progress and misdirects social efforts. In the Indian rural context, indebtedness characterizes: (i). unproductive usage of loan, (ii). usurious ensnaring of the borrower, (iii). captivation of productive resources, (iv). exercise of coercive and exploitative economic and social powers by the lender, (v). compulsion, plight, misery and feeling of guilt and helplessness, and (vi). erosion of social status of the borrower. In this study we propose an empirical study to measure indebtedness, identify its correlates and to assess the consequences of indebtedness on the productive and distributive performance on the rural economy. We have collected primary data from four tribal villages. The selection of these villages has been made purposively. We hold the opinion that the tribal population in the rural areas of Assam has been least exposed to the credit programmes launched by the public agencies and hence a study of indebtedness provides us with a deeper insight in the problem. We have observed that in the Indian context rural indebtedness is resonant with the overtones of unproductive usage, usurious ensnaring and deplorable condition of the poor farmers and agricultural labourers. We have surveyed four tribal villages and based on the data thus collected identified some measures of indebtedness that can help us operationally in analyzing the incidence, process and impacts of rural indebtedness. These measures are per capita loan and per capita loan per agricultural asset held by the households and these measures are good representatives of the degree of indebtedness. We have analyzed the productive and distributive effects of indebtedness and found that it leads to decline in agricultural productivity, captivation of productive resources and aggravation of inequalities in the rural community. Further, our finding is that indebtedness is initiated by unproductive expenditure. This in turn captivates agricultural assets, abates productivity and reduces the repaying capacity of the borrower. Our study may suggest that in order to ameliorate the conditions of the indebted rural mass we have to motivate them to minimize conspicuous consumption, especially if the households cannot afford it without borrowing. Educational planning may help us to attain this goal of making the rural mass aware of the merits of prudence and the demerits of conspicuous consumption. Further, to stop the captivation of productive assets, institutional loan should be provided on easy terms. This objective may be attained by making the cooperative and bank loans easily available