Women Education in India and Economic Development Linkages: A Conceptual Study

Women have been recognised as a crucial force in economic development of any nation. However, it is imperative to mention that traditionally their lives were confined to the four walls of the house. They were mainly engaged in household chores, bearing and rearing of children and were treated on different footings. Their existence was deeply influenced by the prevailing patriarchal system which often results into deprivation of their basic rights as enjoyed by their male counterparts including their right to education. But, with the advent of various legislations, social reforms and women’s movement worldwide, there was a major shift in the socio-cultural set up and women’s entitlement to education begun to be recognised as pivotal for nations’ economic development. On the other hand, history has revealed that in Indian sub-continent, there was a worst scenario of women education. Women were denied their basic right to education and such bias was deeply rooted in prevailing socio-cultural set up where females were treated inferior to men. But, in the backdrop of various social reform movements, women movements, Christian missionaries and new economic reforms of 1991 popularly called as LPG concept (Liberalization, Privatization and Globalization), women education in India witnessed a drastic change. Further, research has noted a strong positive linkage between women education and economic development of any nation. Thus, keeping in view the importance of women education for an economic development of a nation, the present study is an endeavour towards identifying, reviewing and analysing the prior work with respect to above linkages. Moreover, the study has also identified the various issues pertaining to women education in India which has remained unaddressed and demands utmost attention. At the end of the study, various valuable suggestions have also been drawn in order to fill the identifiable gaps in women education structure so as to change its state and enhance its contribution towards achieving robust economic development

Scientific validation of cardioprotective attribute by standardized extract of Bombyx mori against doxorubicin-induced cardiotoxicity in murine model

Doxorubicin (DOX) is an excellent antineoplastic agent used for the treatment of hematological and solid malignancies. The aqueous extract of Bombyx mori (BMAE) contains amino acids and some flavonoids with obvious cardioprot ective effect. The aim of this study was to investigate the possible protective effect of BMAE against DOX-induced cardiotoxicity and its underlying mechanisms on murine model. The metabolic profiling of BMAE was carried out by Ultra Performance Liquid Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry (UPLC-MS) and the amino acid profiling by HPLC method using fluorescence detector (HPLC-FLD). The biochemical parameter like caspase-3, tumor necrosis factor–alpha (TNF—α), interleukin -6 (IL-6), creatine kinase-MB (CK-MB), lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) and malondialdehyde (MDA) were studied. Tissue damage was further evaluated by histopathological studies. The metabolic profiling of BMAE exhibited presence of quercetin 7-O-β-D-glucoside, kaempferol7-O-β-D-glucopyranoside, coumaric acid glucoside, 2-hydroxy-nonadecanoic acid and 9,12-dihydroxy stearic acid as important constituents. The amino acid profile by HPLC-FLD showed presence of 17 amino acids. The BMAE showed prominent free radical scavenging activity when assessed by the H2O2 and super-oxide method. The results of present investigation showed protection against DOX-induced oxid ative stress (lipid peroxidation), by reverting activities of apoptotic markers (caspase-3 and TNF-α), cardiac markers (CK-MB and LDH activities) as well as pro-inflammatory marker IL-6 followed by oral administration of BMAE. In addition, results of histopathology also supported well the above results. It was observed that BMAE protects DOX-induced cardiotoxicity by virtue of its antioxidants possibly by flavonoids and amino acids

Insect pest resistance: an alternative approach for crop protection

From experience with insect resistance caused by synthetic chemical insecticides, it is clear that no single management tactic can provide lasting solutions to the insect pest problem. Biological control is a component of integrated pest management strategies that minimize insecticide spray applications and move towards ecofriendly systems of pest management. Successful utilization of host plant resistance, phytochemical products, pheromones, biological control agents such as predators, parasitoids, entomopathogenic bacteria, virus, nematodes, and fungi can help to control many destructive pests to achieve sustainable crop protection

Agricultural adaptation and climate change policy for crop production in Africa

Africa is considered among the most highly vulnerable regions to climate change because of extremes of drought, flooding, inappropriate land tenure systems, overdependence on rainfed agriculture, and widespread poverty. The impact of climate change is moderated by several factors such as access to land, inputs, credit, and markets. Thus, there is a critical need for decision makers at different levels in Africa to develop matching response strategies and policies to reduce vulnerability and foster resilient livelihood systems on a sustainable basis. The smallholder farming communities are inherently the most vulnerable to the negative impacts of climate change, and are always away from the advantage of any emerging opportunities due to resource constraints. About 65 % of national agricultural earnings in this continent is derived from the crop production of staple cereals, particularly maize. Due to shrinkage in cultivated area, production is also about 5–25 %, and the region’s need is more chronic for food and feed. The climate change challenge is aggravated by diminishing soil productivity and the decline in natural resources has affected the livelihood of rural and peri-urban communities. The communities have drawn on their indigenous knowledge systems with the support of local institutions and traditional social safety nets to adopt the various multiple stress factors related to climate change and variability. However, there is still limited empirical evidence on the robustness of these systems in support of social collaborations and resolving conflicts arising from the resource scarcity in the wake of climate change. Comprehensive policy frameworks are therefore required to expand the climate change adaptation horizons beyond the boundaries of current farming systems. For instance, the risk of crop-based enterprises has increased by deteriorating climatic conditions. There is much evidence of multiple stresses characterising the existing poverty traps for the predominantly rural communities, and challenges of chronic food insecurity, but no evidence on how current agriculture and climate change policy frameworks are able to address these multiple stress factors against the increasing risk and uncertainty of agriculture as a source of climate change adaptation. Currently, the majority of the farmers lives beyond the reach of markets, yet agricultural development policies are hinged on the principles of market participation. Transformation of these subsistence farms into commercially oriented and market-driven production systems will effectively call for structural and process changes in knowledge systems, technology development and delivery, institutions, and policies. The empirical research shows evidence of current and future impacts of climate change and variability on agricultural production systems, and their implications on the resilience of smallholder farming systems currently supporting the poorer and more vulnerable communities. Over the past decade, there has been a remarkable increase in awareness about climate change issues with diverse stakeholders, including policy makers. The lack of knowledge on the nature, magnitude, and direction of impacts at the indigenous community and national scales will likely continue to haunt decision-making processes regarding the development of robust strategies and policies to support adaptation. However, the regional agricultural sector has to undergo major transformation processes in order to meet emerging demands for adaptation. This may entail changes in the types and forms of information, knowledge, technologies, resource regimes, and institutions driving current production systems. There are still major knowledge gaps across disciplines on how local-level changes in climatic factors influence the socioecological processes that underpin agricultural production systems across spatial and temporal scales. Thus, it has been concluded that the policy making on climate change in Africa is not necessarily constrained by the lack of empirical evidence, but instead by the failure of policy makers to use available empirical evidence. The current failures in linking research to policy could be a major barrier to further research and development innovations for climate change adaptation. Evidence from limited climate change adaptation studies conducted with communities in the region revealed the importance of policy dialogue platforms as an integral part of research and development initiatives

Physicochemical and antimicrobial properties of Trichosanthes anguina and Swietenia mahagoni seeds

The core objective of this research was to determine the characteristics of oils, nutritional composition and antimicrobial activities of T. anguina and S. mahagoni seeds. Physicochemical characteristics of oils implied higher degree of unsaturation in T. anguina whereas, S. mahagoni oil contained appreciable level of unsaturation. Tri-acyl-glycerols and neutral lipids were found to be most abounded components recorded to 86.2 and 91.3% for T. anguina and 87.0 and 89.4% for S. mahagoni, respectively. GLC analysis showed the presence of fatty acids from series C16:0 to C18:3 for T. anguina and C16:0 to C20:0 for S. mahagoni in which principal fatty acids accounted as punicic (45.1%) in T. anguina and linoleic (30.1%) in S. mahagoni seed oils. Of the major energy producing nutrients, the seed samples contained large amounts of lipid (36.1% in T. anguina and 57.9% in S. mahagoni) and protein (20.9% in T. anguina and 13.0% in S. mahagoni) and potentially useful amounts of other nutrients. The knowledge from the nutritional analysis could be important to its appropriate industrial use and for improvement in the nutritional value. Assessment of the anti-microbial studies reported herein revealed the crude extracts of T. anguina and S. mahagoni seeds were not significantly inhibition against most of the tested bacteria and fungi. This study may lead to further ethno-pharmacognostic investigations to identify new compounds with therapeutic promise.KEY WORDS: Seed oil, Fatty acids, Nutritional composition, Antimicrobial activities Bull. Chem. Soc. Ethiop. 2011, 25(3), 427-436

A roadmap to developing energy-efficient MAC protocol in wireless sensor networks: a case of ADP-MAC development and implementation

Over the past two decades, hundreds of protocols have been developed for diversified applications of WSN corresponding to different layers in the communication stack. Among these, Media Access Control (MAC) layer protocols are of great interest due to providing possibility of optimizing performance parameters. Despite availability of a large number of survey articles, there remains a gap for a tutorial that offers guidelines about the development process of MAC protocol. In this paper, we present a detailed tutorial for developing a MAC protocol starting from the stage of research gap identification and ending at the performance evaluation. We described the journey of development and implementation of a novel asynchronous MAC protocol ADP-MAC (Adaptive and Dynamic Polling MAC) as a case study. ADP-MAC was developed by deploying a novel concept of channel polling interval distributions, and was compared against Synchronized Channel Polling- MAC (SCP-MAC) and lightweight Traffic Auto-Adaptation based MAC (T-AAD). Finally, we proposed major milestones of protocol development along with recommendations about publishing the research