Institutional Factors behind Effectiveness of Irrigation: A Study in the Brahmaputra Valley in Eastern India

As the adverse consequences of the policies of input subsidy and increasing food-grain procurement prices became prominent in Indian agriculture, researchers and policy makers documented the need for policy changes. For sustaining production of rice, there are now calls for shift of emphasis from large farmers in Green Revolution areas in Northwest India to small and marginal farmers in Eastern and rain-fed areas, where returns to both labor and capital are high and potentials for exploiting the existing technology are yet largely untapped. A major constraint on exploiting such potentials in parts of Eastern India such as the Brahmaputra Valley is paucity of irrigation. While investment for expanding irrigation capacity is needed, it is equally important to put necessary institutions in place to ensure that the installed capacity is effectively utilized. This study based on survey of 172 farms from three agro-climatic zones of the Brahmaputra Valley has found that farmers control over management and operation of irrigation system is crucial in determining their success in effectively using irrigation in terms of level and intensity of productivity increasing practices associated with irrigation. The study hence suggests that to improve effectiveness, and thereby reap higher social returns on public investment on irrigation, involvement of farmers in operation and management of public sector irrigation systems should be secured. In view of the effectiveness of small-scale private tube-wells and the abundance of ground water reserves in the Brahmaputra valley, facilitation of private investments in such sys tems is recommended for expanding total irrigation capacity.Effectiveness of irrigation, institutions, stake holding farmers, regulations, Brahmaputra Valley, Institutional and Behavioral Economics, Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,

Orbital physics of polar Fermi molecules

We study a system of polar dipolar fermions in a two-dimensional optical lattice and show that multi-band Fermi-Hubbard model is necessary to discuss such system. By taking into account both on-site, and long-range interactions between different bands, as well as occupation-dependent inter- and intra-band tunneling, we predict appearance of novel phases in the strongly-interacting limit

Non-equilibrium phonon dynamics in trapped ion systems

We propose a concrete experiment to probe the non-equilibrium local dynamics of the one-dimensional Bose-Hubbard model using a trapped ion system consisting of a linear chain of few Ba^+ ions prepared in a state of transverse motional mode which corresponds to a fixed number of phonons per ion. These phonons are well-known to be described by an effective Bose-Hubbard model. We propose a protocol which leads to a sudden local sign reversal of the on-site interaction strength of this Hubbard model at one of the sites and demonstrate that the subsequent non-equilibrium dynamics of the model can be experimentally probed by measuring the time-dependent phonon number in a specific motional state of the Ba+ ions. We back our experimental proposal with exact numerical calculation of the dynamics of a Bose-Hubbard model subsequent to a local quench.Comment: The submission contains 5 pages and 4 figure

Many body population trapping in ultracold dipolar gases

A system of interacting dipoles is of paramount importance for understanding of many-body physics. The interaction between dipoles is {\it anisotropic} and {\it long-range}. While the former allows to observe rich effects due to different geometries of the system, long-range ($1/r^3$) interactions lead to strong correlations between dipoles and frustration. In effect, interacting dipoles in a lattice form a paradigmatic system with strong correlations and exotic properties with possible applications in quantum information technologies, and as quantum simulators of condensed matter physics, material science, etc. Notably, such a system is extremely difficult to model due to a proliferation of interaction induced multi-band excitations for sufficiently strong dipole-dipole interactions. In this article we develop a consistent theoretical model of interacting polar molecules in a lattice by applying the concepts and ideas of ionization theory which allows us to include highly excited Bloch bands. Additionally, by involving concepts from quantum optics (population trapping), we show that one can induce frustration and engineer exotic states, such as Majumdar-Ghosh state, or vector-chiral states in such a system.Comment: many interesting page

The Retrenchment Hypothesis and the Extension of the Franchise in England and Wales

Does an extension of the voting franchise increase public spending or can it be a source of retrenchment? We study this question in the context of public spending on health-related urban amenities in a panel of 75 municipal boroughs in England and Wales in 1868, 1871 and 1886. We \u85nd evidence of a U-shaped relationship between spending on urban amenities and the extension of the local voting franchise. We argue that this retrenchment e¤ect arose because middle class taxpayers were unwilling to pay the cost of poor sanitation and the urban elites, elected on a narrow franchise, were instrumental for sanitary improvements. Our model of taxpayer democracy suggests that the retrenchment e¤ect is related to enfranchisement of the middle class through nation-wide reforms