Public Expenditure Accountability of the Indian Railways

The Indian Railways (IR) is one of the chief logistics agents of the Government of India (GOI). Considering the significant GOI funding into IR, public expenditure accountability (PEA) becomes an issue of importance. This paper looks into different aspects of the expenditure and financial management of IR. The paper is divided into three portions. The first portion looks at the railway-government interface. The main areas of focus here include a brief examination of The Indian Railways Act, the financial interface between the GOI and IR (consisting of budgetary support, market sourced financing and dividend payments), evaluating the need for a separate railway budget, political interference in the activities of IR and the interaction of IR with state governments. The second portion of the paper deals with the internal financial management of IR. In this section, there is an effort to evaluate the revenue generation by IR along with suggestions for enhancing its potential. This is followed by a look at the issue of subsidies to IR. Investment decisions of IR and the Special Railway Safety Fund (SRSF) along with the issue of excess manpower and cost reduction are other topics included in this section. The paper ends with a roadmap to corporatisation as a possible solution to the problems IR is faced with. The main areas dealt with are financial issues, pensions, the need for customer focus, the importance of focus on core competencies and a need to revamp IRs administrative structure and attitude.

Public Expenditure Accounatability in the Telecom Sector

The telecom sector has seen much change during the past two decades. At first, it was the opening up of the equipment manufacturing sector, followed by the corporatisation of the government owned entities, Videsh Sanchar Nigam Limited (VSNL) and Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited (MTNL). Subsequently, the sector was opened for private participation in basic, cellular and other value added services. The most recent liberalization moves have been the corporatization of the Department of Telecom into Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) and the privatisation of VSNL.

The Indian Mackerel: IV. Bionomics and life history

Mackerel is heterosexual and two instances of hermaphroditism were recorded one in a specimen caught from Majali, near Karwar (Prabhu & Antony Raja, 1959) and the other in a specimen obtained at Ullal, near Mangalore (Rao, 1962). In the first instance, the left gonad, situated slightly anterior to the right one, showed the characteristics of an ovary and contained yolky eggs ranging in size from 0.15 mm to 0.31mm mixed with a large number of transparent immature eggs. The right gonad had the characters of a normal testis. The genital ducts (oviduct and vas deference) emerging from them appear to open outside through a common aperture. The ovary was in stage III of maturity

Indian Mackerel

The Indian mackerel Rastrelliger kanagurta (Cuvier), forms one of the two commercially important pelagic fisheries of the west coast of India, the other being the oil sardine. On an average 65,342 tonnes of this fish were landed annually during 1958-65 period and in the years 1958 and 1960 the total catch exceeded one lakh tonnes. This fish is widely distributed in the Indo-Pacific areas extending from the African coast north of Durban to the Polynesian group of Islands. Therefore, the problems facing the mackerel fishery are being tackled on an international basis as recommended by the Indo-Pacifie Fisheries council

Studies on some aspects of the biology of the common anchovy, Thrissocles mystax (Bloch & Schneider)

The anchovies form an important fishery along the Malabar Coast and contribute considerably to the fish catches during certain seasons of the year and especially during the lean years lor sardines. Of the 7 species of anchovies recorded along the west coast, i,Thrissocles mystax is the most common and is caught abundantly in the cdinmercial hauls. It has a wide distribution and is known to occur in the seas of India, Malay Archipelago and China. It attains a maximum length of 205 mm

Identifiability, reducibility, and adaptability in allosteric macromolecules

The ability of macromolecules to transduce stimulus information at one site into conformational changes at a distant site, termed “allostery,” is vital for cellular signaling. Here, we propose a link between the sensitivity of allosteric macromolecules to their underlying biophysical parameters, the interrelationships between these parameters, and macromolecular adaptability. We demonstrate that the parameters of a canonical model of the mSlo large-conductance Ca2+-activated K+ (BK) ion channel are non-identifiable with respect to the equilibrium open probability-voltage relationship, a common functional assay. We construct a reduced model with emergent parameters that are identifiable and expressed as combinations of the original mechanistic parameters. These emergent parameters indicate which coordinated changes in mechanistic parameters can leave assay output unchanged. We predict that these coordinated changes are used by allosteric macromolecules to adapt, and we demonstrate how this prediction can be tested experimentally. We show that these predicted parameter compensations are used in the first reported allosteric phenomena: the Bohr effect, by which hemoglobin adapts to varying pH

The Eta-prime and Cooling with Staggered Fermions

We present a calculation of the mass of the eta-prime meson using quenched and dynamical staggered fermions. We also discuss the effects of "cooling" and suggest its use as a quantitative tool.Comment: 4 pages, LaTeX with 7 EPS figs, contribution to Lattice 9

On a whale washed ashore at Calicut

A dead whale was washed ashore at a place called Kannanparambu, about Ix km. south of South Beach, one of the fish landing centres of Calicut on the afternoon of 25th May 1966. The whale was first noticed that morning off Vellayil fish landing centre with its ventral portion rising out of water surface. The fishermen at first mistook the same for an upturned boat, but as they observed it at close quarters, they could recognise the whale (Fig. 1). On an examination, it was found to be in a putrefied state, though not in an advanced state of decomposition

Impact of mechanised fishing on the socio-economic conditions of the fishermen of Sakthikulangara-Neendakara, Kerala

In recent years Sakthikulangara-Neendakara area has gained considerable importance as a major centre of fishing industry in Kerala state. This has been brought about by the introduction of a large number of mechanised trawlers and consequent development of infrastructure facilities like ice factories, freezing cumcold storage plants and boat building yards. Mechanised boats were first introduced in this area in the mid fifties under the auspices of the Indo-Norwegian project and over the years there has been a spectacular growth in the fishing activities of this area. In the fifties the standard of living of the fishermen of this area was very low, showing considerable improvement in the sixties consequent to the introduction of mechanisation in fishing. Great strides have since been made in the socio-economic conditions of these fishermen and it was felt desirable to carry out a study of the same in order to assess the progress made in recent years so as to form abase for further planning of developmental programmes.Accordingly a survey was carried out in this area during march-May 1980 details of which are presented here