Marine Finfish Resources of India: Distribution, Commercial Exploitation, Utilization Pattern and Trade

Seafood is high on the global trade agenda and has become particularly relevant in the light of the entry of fisheries into the WTO process (following WTO Doha Ministerial Conference in December 2002). International trading regimes are changing, with more open market access but with EU, US and other developed countries taking increasingly stringent measures for seafood safety. Changes in market access are likely to have significant implications for poor producers, and costs of implementation of international fisheries agreements, such as WTO sanitary and Phytosanitary (SPS) measures, HACCP standards, and market-driven labeling schemes may reduce livelihood options through barriers for participation of poor people. Liberalization of economies coupled with increasing demand for value added products and other product diversifications has resulted in structural changes of seafood industry in the last decade. Indian seafood exports declined to $1.89 billion from 2.10 billion dollars during 2007-08. The global financial meltdown seems to have taken its toll on the export of marine products from India with the business recording a 10 per cent slump to$1.9 billion for the year 2007-08. The country may even fall short of its target of $2 billion set for 2009, reports which was hit mainly due to economic recession in Europe and America, which are the major importers of marine products from India. The provisions under the various WTO agreements are expected to have an impact on the different dimensions on the Fisheries sector

Diversity and exploitation status of demersal fishery resources in India

Fisheries are an important source of income and means of livelihood in developing countries, particularly in rural areas. Estimates by the Food and Agricultural Organisation indicates that capture fisheries employ over 27 million people worldwide, of which 85% live in Asia. Marine fisheries play an important role in food security and nutrition in developing countries. There is serious concern about the state of marine fisheries worldwide. While over-fishing is likely to have been the major cause of the serious setbacks, these have probably been exacerbated by habitat degradation. Fisheries sector plays an important role in the overall socio-economic development of India. The fisheries sector contributed 76,913 crores to the GDP during 2009-10 which is 0.96 per cent of the total GDP at factor cost and 5.4 per cent of the GDP at factor cost from agriculture forestry and fishing (Zacharia and Najmudeen, 2013). During 2015-16, the export of marine products from India reached over 9.45 lakh tonnes valued at Rs.30,421 crores and US$ 4.688 billion (MPEDA, 2017). India is one of major fish producing countries in the world contributing over 3 per cent of both marine and freshwater fishes to the world production (Srinath and Pillai, 2006) with third position in capture fisheries and second in aquaculture. India has an Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) covering a total area of 2.02 million sq. km, i.e., 0.86 million sq. km on the west coast including the Lakshadweep Islands and 1.16 million sq. km on the east coast, including the Andaman and Nicobar Islands and a continental shelf of half a million sq. km (Vivekananadan et al., 2003)

Taxonomy of Exploited Demersal Finfishes of India: Lizardfishes, Pigface breams, Eels, Guitar fishes and Pomfrets

Demersal fishes are those fishes which live and feed on or near the bottom of seas. They occupy the sea floors, which usually consist of mud, sand, gravel or rocks. In coastal waters they are found on or near the continental shelf, and in deep waters they are found on or near the continental slope or along the continental rise. In India, demersal finfishes contribute about 26% to the total marine fish landings of the country, which is dominated by perches, croakers, catfishes, silverbellies, elasmobranchs, lizardfishes, flat fishes, pomfrets, etc., in order of abundance. Most of the demersal finfishes in India are exploited by mechanised trawlers

Intra-Pelvic Migration of Sliding Hip Screw During Osteosynthesis of Hip Fracture: A Rare Avoidable Intraoperative Complication.

Hip fractures, which are common among old patients, are classified into two groups: intracapsular and extracapsular fractures. Extracapsular fractures can be treated with extramedullary implants [e.g. dynamic hip screw (DHS)] or intramedullary nails. Dynamic hip screw is the treatment of choice in stable pertrochanteric fractures. Intrapelvic migration of the sliding screw is a very rare complication

Climate Change Impacts on Indian Marine Fisheries and adaptation strategies

Increase in greenhouse gases (GHGs) in the atmosphere has resulted in warming of climate systems or global warming. Global warming is a long-term rise in the average temperature of the earth's climate system, an aspect of climate change shown by temperature measurements and by multiple effects of the warming. The term commonly refers to the mainly human-caused observed warming since pre-industrial times and its projected continuation, though there were also much earlier periods of global warming. In the modern context the terms are commonly used interchangeably, but global warming more specifically relates to worldwide surface temperature increases; while climate change is any regional or global statistically identifiable persistent change in the state of climate which lasts for decades or longer, including warming or cooling. Many of the observed warming changes since the 1950s are unprecedented in the instrumental temperature record and in historical and paleoclimate proxy records of climate change over thousands to millions of years

Field Identification of Major Elasmobranchs along the Indian Coast

Elasmobranchs are an important group of demersal fishes which are represented by sharks, skates and rays. India is the world’s second biggest shark fishing nation next to Indonesia. They belong to the Class Elasmobranchii under the Phylum Chordata. Sharks are caught with various gears like drift gillnets, longlines, hooks and line units and are landed throughout the year. They feed on bony fishes, other sharks, rays, crustaceans and squids

Network-aware Evaluation Environment for Reputation Systems

Parties of reputation systems rate each other and use ratings to compute reputation scores that drive their interactions. When deciding which reputation model to deploy in a network environment, it is important to find the most suitable model and to determine its right initial configuration. This calls for an engineering approach for describing, implementing and evaluating reputation systems while taking into account specific aspects of both the reputation systems and the networked environment where they will run. We present a software tool (NEVER) for network-aware evaluation of reputation systems and their rapid prototyping through experiments performed according to user-specified parameters. To demonstrate effectiveness of NEVER, we analyse reputation models based on the beta distribution and the maximum likelihood estimation

Decadal Trends of Indian Demersal Fisheries

Fisheries sector plays an important role in the overall socio-economic development of India. India is one of the major fish producing countries in the world contributing over 3% of both marine and freshwater fishes of the world production. Marine fishes, based on their depth-wise distribution are grouped mainly as pelagic and demersal, the former occupying surface and subsurface waters and the latter the neritic areas in the continental shelf. Demersal fishes are those fishes which can either rest on the sea floor or which can float in the water column just above the sea floor. The demersal fish resources of India include the elasmobranchs, eels, major perches, threadfin breams, silverbellies, sciaenids, lizardfishes, pomfrets, bulls eye, catfishes, flatfishes, goatfish and white fish. There is a significant contribution by the demersal fishes to the total Indian marine fish landings. When compared to the pelagic resources, proper exploitation of the demersal finfishes in India has been initiated since 1960-62 period. With the introduction of mechanized bottom trawling the exploitation of demersal finfishes attained a 2.7 fold increase reaching 0.52 million tonnes in the late eighties from 0.08million tonnes during the late fifties. In 2017, the demersal fish production of India reached new heights with a peak annual average landing of 1 million tonne which is almost an increase of 12.5 fold from the late fifties. The annual average landings of demersal finfishes along the Indian coast during 2010-2015 was accounted to 0.95 million tonnes contributing 26.32% to the total landings. However, the catch share of demersal finfishes during the last 35 years indicates that the contribution of demersal finfishes to the total Indian marine landings is decreasing over the years. The maximum share was reported in 1983 with 33% contribution and the lowest share was in 1989

Field Identification of Major Demersal Teleost Fish Species along the Indian Coast

Based on their vertical distribution, fishes are broadly classified as pelagic or demersal. Species those are distributed from the seafloor to a 5 m depth above, are called demersal and those distributed from a depth of 5 m above the seafloor to the sea surface are called pelagic. The term demersal originates from the Latin word demergere, which means to sink. The demersal fish resources include the elasmobranchs, major perches, catfishes, threadfin breams, silverbellies, sciaenids, lizardfishes, pomfrets, bulls eye, flatfishes, goatfish and white fish. This chapter deals with identification of the major demersal teleost fish species

Fishery and population dynamics of the obtuse barracuda Sphyraena obtusata (Cuvier) landed by trawlers at Cochin, south-west coast of India

Fishery and population characteristics of the obtuse barracuda Sphyraena obtusata (Cuvier) landed by mechanised trawlers off Cochin were studied for the period 2010-2012. The average annual landings of barracuda was 184 t of which S. obtusata formed 65%. Seasonal peak in catch and catch rate was recorded during August, followed by February and May. The von Bertalanffy growth parameters (VBGF) estimated using ELEFAN were L∞ = 34.2 cm, K = 0.71 year-1 and t0 = -0.0000000025. The lengths attained at the end of 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 years were 17.4, 25.9, 30.1, 32.2 and 33.2 cm, respectively. Recruitment was almost round the year with a major peak during February-May and a minor peak during July, together accounting 80% of the total recruitment. Natural mortality (M), fishing mortality (F) and total mortality (Z) were 1.35, 1.54 and 2.89 respectively. The length at first capture was 23.5 cm (age 1.64 years). The optimum length for exploitation (Lopt) was 20.9 cm at the age of (topt) of 1.3 years. Mean size in the catch (25.1 cm) was higher than Lopt. The resource is being exploited at a level marginally higher than E50 (E = 0.53), indicating optimal exploitation. Though the annual average yield is only marginally (6%) higher than the MSY estimated, there is no need for reducing the fishing effort from the prevailing rate. Instead, as the yield and biomass per recruit and yield and biomass curves showed that the maximum yield and yield per recruit could be obtained by increasing the present level of fishing, marginal increase in the effort is prescribed to sustain the fishery