Farm credit its sources and pattern of Utilisation - An empirical analysis

The present study is based on the Ninety borrower farmers who were selected randomly from five villages of Manihari block of Ghazipur district. The study aims to find out the socio-economic profile of the sample borrower farmers, pattern of utilization of credit, its sources, productive and unproductive uses of credit etc. The study revealed that on an average 15.54 and 84.46 percent credit was made available from cooperative and commercial bank respectively. The major finance was made available to purchase tractor, which is used to perform various farm operations. The term and cooperative loan was reported 81 and 19 percent respectively and least misutilisation of credit was found among sample borrower farmers.Farm Management,

Demand Versus Supply of Foodgrains in India: Implications to Food Security

The present paper addresses the issues namely (i) the present food supply and the trend for future, (ii) shift in food consumption pattern over years and (iii) food demand projection for the next three decades in the context of food security. The analysis reveals that increase in cereal production (mainly rice and wheat) but decline in the percentage share of coarse grains and pulses in total foodgrains production is witnessed since 1960s. India’s total foodgrain production has increased at an annual growth rate of 2.68 per cent since 1960-61. The increase in foodgrain production is mainly due to increase in yield (growth rate being 2.44 per cent as against growth rate of area being 0.17 per cent per annum during 1960-61 to 1998-99). To project the future foodgrains supply, past growth trend has been extrapolated. Based on this assumption, the foodgrain supply is expected to be about 245, 291 and 342 million tonnes by 2010, 2020 and 2030 AD, respectively. Shift in consumption pattern and future demand for food is analyzed for both rural and urban India. Per capita cereal consumption exhibited a declining trend over years in both rural and urban India. This decline is larger in rural India (12.19 %) than in urban India (5.43%) during the period under study. Increase in per capita income and urbanization has led to changes in the composition of the food basket, with consumers moving from coarse cereals to superior cereals (rice and wheat). The allocation of monthly per capita expenditure on food items showed structural shift in dietary pattern in favour of non-cereal food items such as fruits, vegetables, milk, meat, eggs and fish in both the areas. Future food demand is also projected which is based on factors such as growth in population, growth in per capita income, urbanization and consumption behaviour. For projecting population, it is assumed that the growth in population will decline by 0.05 per cent per year in future and urbanization will increase by 0.3 per cent per annum. However, production at the assumed growth rate may not increase in future because the past production growth factors in future may not work well in future also. Hence, in the absence of favorable past growth factors, the food supply to match the demand in future may be a matter of great concern for food security. To meet the demand, the increased production will have to be brought about mainly through increases in productivity as the possibility of area expansion is very minimal.Food Security and Poverty, Productivity Analysis,

Glycan-Lectin duet, Novel strategies for DC-targeting

Kooyk, Y. van [Promotor]Saeland, E.S. [Copromotor

Extent of Groundwater Extraction and Irrigation Efficiency on Farms under Different Water-market Regimes in Central Uttar Pradesh

Tube-well irrigation, through modern water extraction mechanisms (WEMs), has been vital to food security and sustainable livelihoods in India. However, due to skewed distribution of WEMs towards large farmers on account of huge investment needs, small and marginal farmers have to rely on owners of WEMs for irrigation water. This has resulted in the emergence of informal water-markets. The present study has examined the groundwater extraction and water-use efficiency under different water-market regimes in the Central Plain Zone (CPZ) of Uttar Pradesh, where water-intensive cropping pattern is followed. The study is based on the primary data collected from 100 farmer-households of Central Plain Zone in the year 2007. Most of the farmers in the study domain are small and marginal, having less than 2 ha land. These resource-poor farmers buy water from the WEM–owners. Thus, groundwater market has been found to provide them easy accessibility to irrigation water and helps them in realizing better yields. The popularity of water-intensive crops, such as paddy, wheat and sugarcane, is responsible for the depleting groundwater tables in the region. Estimates of Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) have shown that both buyers and owners of WEMs are technically inefficient in water–use, as the actual use of irrigation water has been found much higher than the optimum level. However, ‘Buyers have been found comparatively more efficient than ‘Owners’ in water utilization. Overexploitation of groundwater resources raises concerns about the future sustainability of agriculture. It is, therefore, becoming increasingly important that groundwater is used efficiently and groundwater market can emerge as a better tool for improving the efficiency of irrigation water across farm-sizes and crops. Based on the results, the study has made some policy suggestions also for an equitable and sustainable development of agriculture in the region.Agricultural and Food Policy,

Mathematical Modelling of Damage of Aircraft Skin Panels Subjected to Blast Loading

A mathematical model for assessing the damage to an aircraft due to blast from conventional ammunition has been developed. The minimum distance of the point of explosion from the aircraft for its permanent damage for a reference explosion has been obtained depending upon the dimensions (thin plate or thin cylindrical shell) of the structural elements

Extended near field modelling and droplet size distribution for fuel air explosive warhead

"A theoretical model is developed for the prediction of the mean-mass diameter of droplets produced by the fragmentation of liquid fuel sheet and film in a fuel-air explosive (FAE) device after the detonation of the central burster charge. This model does not contain arbitrarily assumed values for the instabilities as in presently available models. Also, a distribution model for the initial distribution of the droplet diameter, which depends on the design parameters of the FAE device, is presented.

Interaction of Explosive Shocks with Airborne Cylindrical Targets of Elliptical

A theoretical model to find pressure-space history around a cylindrical target of elliptical cross-section has been presented for assessing the damage by warheads exploding in the vicinity of an airborne vehicle. The energy hypothesis has been used to find the attenuation law from a point explosion. The Whitham-Bryson and Gross theory for shock interaction has been modified to take into account the finite strength of incident shock. The theoretical results have also been compared with Heilig's experimental results

A Note on the New Theory of Shock Dynamics

The new theory of shock dynamics proposed by Ravindran and Prasad has been considered with initial values taken from the similarity solution for a single conservation equation and the results have been compared with those obtained by Lax-Wendroff finite difference method

Multi-environment analysis of grain quality traits in recombinant inbred lines of a biparental cross in bread wheat (Triticum aestivum L.)

A set of 286 recombinant inbred lines (RILs) along with the parents and a popular wheat variety in India were grown for two consecutive years at three locations belonging to the two major wheat growing zones of India and evaluated for four grain quality traits. Rare recombinants with high trait value appeared for protein content (PC), thousand-kernel weight (TKW), sedimentation value (SV), and kernel hardness (KH). The magnitude of environmental effects was more pronounced than genotypic effects and genotype-environment interaction (GEI). The cumulative contribution of environment and GEI components to the total variance was highest in the expression of PC followed by TKW, SV, and KH. The top five percent (14 RILs) of genotypes with high trait value were subjected to Eberhart and Russell (1966) (ER), genotype and genotype-environment (GGE) and additive main effects and multiplicative interaction (AMMI) stability models. Five RILs were identified as stable in all the three stability models. RIL61 with 38.8%, RIL101 with 8.9%, RIL226 with 26.1% superiority over check variety were the most stable genotypes in all the three stability models for PC, TKW and KH, respectively. RIL113 was found to be stable genotype in ER and GGE models, whereas, RIL231 was the most stable genotype in AMMI and GGE models in the expression of SV. These common stable genotypes with high trait value identified through ER, AMMI and GGE models could be potential donors in active breeding programs to develop high yielding wheat varieties with improved PC, TKW, SV and KH

Inclusive Muon Capture in Light Nuclei

We study total muon capture rates in light nuclei, taking into account renormalizations of the nuclear vector and axial vector strengths. We estimate the influence in the results of uncertainties of the spin-isospin interaction parameter and nuclear densities. A few of these reactions are theoretical benchmarks for physics involving searches for neutrino oscillations. New experiments in muon capture in several targets are suggested, in the light of some discrepancies with theory, crudeness of some experimental results and relevance to neutrino physics.Comment: 11 pages, Latex, no figures. Submitted to Phys.Lett.