Women empowerment and micro finance : Case study from Kerala

The subject of micro-finance is considered as significant and emerging trend in the present scenario for the empowerment of women. Micro finance programmes are promoted as an important strategy for women’s empowerment. Micro finance builds mutual trust and confidence between bankers and rural poor to encourage banking in a segment of population where formal financial institutions usually find difficult to reach. The present paper examines the economic impact of micro finance beneficiaries and whether the economic empowerment has resulted in the generation of a set of self reliant women. The Thiruvananthapuram district of Kerala State was selected for the case study. The survey shows about the positive impact of the development programme of Kudumbashree, a micro financial institution in Kerala, India.women empowerment micro finance poverty.

A Survey on Adaptation Strategies for Mutation and Crossover Rates of Differential Evolution Algorithm

Differential Evolution (DE), the well-known optimization algorithm, is a tool under the roof of Evolutionary Algorithms (EAs) for solving non-linear and non-differential optimization problems. DE has many qualities in its hand, which are attributing to its popularity. DE also is known for its simplicity in solving the given problem with few control parameters: the population size (NP), the mutation rate (F) and the crossover rate (Cr). To avoid the difficulty involved in setting of suitable values for NP, F and Cr many parameter adaptation strategies are proposed in the literature. This paper is to present the working principle of the parameter adaptation strategies of F and Cr. The adaptation strategies are categorized based on the logic used by the authors, and clear insights about all the categories are presented

Women empowerment and micro finance : Case study from Kerala

The subject of micro-finance is considered as significant and emerging trend in the present scenario for the empowerment of women. Micro finance programmes are promoted as an important strategy for women’s empowerment. Micro finance builds mutual trust and confidence between bankers and rural poor to encourage banking in a segment of population where formal financial institutions usually find difficult to reach. The present paper examines the economic impact of micro finance beneficiaries and whether the economic empowerment has resulted in the generation of a set of self reliant women. The Thiruvananthapuram district of Kerala State was selected for the case study. The survey shows about the positive impact of the development programme of Kudumbashree, a micro financial institution in Kerala, India

Women empowerment and micro finance : Case study from Kerala

The subject of micro-finance is considered as significant and emerging trend in the present scenario for the empowerment of women. Micro finance programmes are promoted as an important strategy for women’s empowerment. Micro finance builds mutual trust and confidence between bankers and rural poor to encourage banking in a segment of population where formal financial institutions usually find difficult to reach. The present paper examines the economic impact of micro finance beneficiaries and whether the economic empowerment has resulted in the generation of a set of self reliant women. The Thiruvananthapuram district of Kerala State was selected for the case study. The survey shows about the positive impact of the development programme of Kudumbashree, a micro financial institution in Kerala, India

Unleashing the Power of Dynamic Mode Decomposition and Deep Learning for Rainfall Prediction in North-East India

Accurate rainfall forecasting is crucial for effective disaster preparedness and mitigation in the North-East region of India, which is prone to extreme weather events such as floods and landslides. In this study, we investigated the use of two data-driven methods, Dynamic Mode Decomposition (DMD) and Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM), for rainfall forecasting using daily rainfall data collected from India Meteorological Department in northeast region over a period of 118 years. We conducted a comparative analysis of these methods to determine their relative effectiveness in predicting rainfall patterns. Using historical rainfall data from multiple weather stations, we trained and validated our models to forecast future rainfall patterns. Our results indicate that both DMD and LSTM are effective in forecasting rainfall, with LSTM outperforming DMD in terms of accuracy, revealing that LSTM has the ability to capture complex nonlinear relationships in the data, making it a powerful tool for rainfall forecasting. Our findings suggest that data-driven methods such as DMD and deep learning approaches like LSTM can significantly improve rainfall forecasting accuracy in the North-East region of India, helping to mitigate the impact of extreme weather events and enhance the region's resilience to climate change.Comment: Paper is under review at ICMC 202

Protons in the near-lunar wake observed by the Sub-keV Atom Reflection Analyzer on board Chandrayaan-1

Significant proton fluxes were detected in the near wake region of the Moon by an ion mass spectrometer on board Chandrayaan-1. The energy of these nightside protons is slightly higher than the energy of the solar wind protons. The protons are detected close to the lunar equatorial plane at a $140^{\circ}$ solar zenith angle, i.e., ~50$^{\circ}$ behind the terminator at a height of 100 km. The protons come from just above the local horizon, and move along the magnetic field in the solar wind reference frame. We compared the observed proton flux with the predictions from analytical models of an electrostatic plasma expansion into a vacuum. The observed velocity was higher than the velocity predicted by analytical models by a factor of 2 to 3. The simple analytical models cannot explain the observed ion dynamics along the magnetic field in the vicinity of the Moon.Comment: 28 pages, 7 figure

Two instances of gonadal abnormalities in Indian mackerel

The Indian mackerel Rastrelliger kanagurta is known to be dioecious with male and female gonads in separate individuals. However, gonadal abnormalities such as hermaphroditism and other aberrations have been observed in a few instances. Gonadal abnormalities in mackerel observed during regular biological sampling from fish samples collected from the landing centre is reported here. For the histological analysis, the gonads were fixed in 10% neutral buffered formalin, dehydrated in ethanol series and the cleared samples were embedded in paraffin wax and made into blocks

Oyster farm management advisory: spacing between farms

The edible oyster Crassostrea madrasensis commonly known as the backwater oyster is farmed in the estuarine regions of Kerala by setting up wooden rack farms from which rens are suspended. Proximity to the homesteads is one of the reasons for this technology to become popular among women self help groups. The farming season is from November/December to June, but may extend to July also depending on the onset of monsoon. At present, the farm structures are near to the shore line in a linear manner, providing space for navigation in the inner part of the estuarine channels. Initially when commercial farming started in Sattar Island in the year 2002, there were only few farms, hence, spacing of farms was not a problem