Modern energy access to all in rural India: An integrated implementation strategy

Expanding energy access to the rural population of India presents a critical challenge for its government. The presence of 364 million people without access to electricity and 726 million who rely on biomass for cooking indicate both the failure of past policies and programs, and the need for a radical redesign of the current system. We propose an integrated implementation framework with recommendations for adopting business principles with innovative institutional, regulatory, financing and delivery mechanisms. The framework entails establishment of rural energy access authorities and energy access funds, both at the national and regional levels, to be empowered with enabling regulatory policies, capital resources and the support of multi-stakeholder partnership. These institutions are expected to design, lead, manage and monitor the rural energy interventions. At the other end, trained entrepreneurs would be expected to establish bioenergy-based micro-enterprises that will produce and distribute energy carriers to rural households at an affordable cost. The ESCOs will function as intermediaries between these enterprises and the international carbon market both in aggregating carbon credits and in trading them under CDM. If implemented, such a program could address the challenges of rural energy empowerment by creating access to modern energy carriers and climate change mitigation. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Integrating biodiversity and conservation with modern agricultural landscapes

To achieve food security and meet the demands of the ever-growing human populations, farming systems have assumed unsustainable practices to produce more from a finite land area. This has been cause for concern mainly due to the often-irreversible damage done to the otherwise productive agricultural landscapes. Agro-ecology is proclaimed to be deteriorating due to eroding integrity of connected ecological mosaics and vulnerability to climate change. This has contributed to declining species diversity, loss of buffer vegetation, fragmentation of habitats, and loss of natural pollinators or predators, which eventually leads to decline in ecosystem services. Currently, a hierarchy of conservation initiatives is being considered to restore ecological integrity of agricultural landscapes. However, the challenge of identifying a suitable conservation strategy is a daunting task in view of socio-ecological factors that may constrain the choice of available strategies. One way to mitigate this situation and integrate biodiversity with agricultural landscapes is to implement offset mechanisms, which are compensatory and balancing approaches to restore the ecological health and function of an ecosystem. This needs to be tailored to the history of location specific agricultural practices, and the social, ecological and environmental conditions. The offset mechanisms can complement other initiatives through which farmers are insured against landscape-level risks such as droughts, fire and floods. For countries in the developing world with significant biodiversity and extensive agriculture, we should promote a comprehensive model of sustainable agricultural landscapes and ecosystem services, replicable at landscape to regional scales. Arguably, the model can be a potential option to sustain the integrity of biodiversity mosaic in agricultural landscapes.

Impacts of modern transitions on thermal comfort in vernacular dwellings in warm-humid climate of Sugganahalli (India)

Sugganahalli, a rural vernacular community in a warm-humid region in South India, is under transition towards adopting modern construction practices. Vernacular local building elements like rubble walls and mud roofs are given way to burnt brick walls and reinforced cement concrete (RCC)/tin roofs. Over 60% of Indian population is rural, and implications of such transitions on thermal comfort and energy in buildings are crucial to understand. Vernacular architecture evolves adopting local resources in response to the local climate adopting passive solar designs. This paper investigates the effectiveness of passive solar elements on the indoor thermal comfort by adopting modern climate-responsive design strategies. Dynamic simulation models validated by measured data have also been adopted to determine the impact of the transition from vernacular to modern material-configurations. Age-old traditional design considerations were found to concur with modern understanding into bio-climatic response and climate-responsiveness. Modern transitions were found to increase the average indoor temperatures in excess of 7 degrees C. Such transformations tend to shift the indoor conditions to a psychrometric zone that is likely to require active air-conditioning. Also, the surveyed thermal sensation votes were found to lie outside the extended thermal comfort boundary for hot developing countries provided by Givoni in the bio-climatic chart.

Mercury exposure Aasessment in fish and humans from Sundarban Mangrove Wetland of India

Present study had documented total mercury levels in six commonly consumed fish species, and performed across-sectional study on local residents to gauge their intake of fish (via dietary survey) and mercury exposure (via hair biomarker analyses). Mean total mercury content in edible composites of locally-caught fishes (topse, hilsa, mackerel, topse, sardinella, khoira) was low and ranged from 0.01 to 0.11 mu g g(-1) mercury, dry weight. In a cross-sectional study of 58 area residents, the mercury content in hair ranged from 0.25 to 1.23 mu g g(-1), with a mean of 0.65 +/- 0.23 mu g g(-1), Flair mercury level was not influenced by gender, age, or occupation. Mean number of meals consumed per week was 3.1 +/- 1.1, and all participants consumed at least one fish meal per week. When related to fish consumption, a significant positive association was found between number of fish meals consumed per week and hair mercury levels.

Graph Modification Problems: A Modern Perspective

We give an overview of recent results and techniques in parameterized algorithms for graph modification problems.

Phytomedicinal importance of Saraca asoca (Ashoka): an exciting past, an emerging present and a promising future

Since the dawn of civilization, natural resources have remained the mainstay of various remedial approaches of humans vis-a-vis a large number of illnesses. Saraca asoca (Roxb.) de Wilde (Saraca indica L.) belonging to the family Caesalpiniaceae has been regarded as a universal panacea in old Indian Ayurvedic texts and has especially been used to manage gynaecological complications and infections besides treating haemmorhagic dysentery, uterine pain, bacterial infections, skin problems, tumours, worm infestations, cardiac and circulatory problems. Almost all parts of the plant are considered pharmacologically valuable. Extensive folkloric practices and ethnobotanical applications of this plant have even lead to the availability of several commercial S. asoca formulations recommended for different indications though adulteration of these remains a pressing concern. Though a wealth of knowledge on this plant is available in both the classical and modern literature, extensive research on its phytomedicinal worth using state-of-the-art tools and methodologies is lacking. Recent reports on bioprospecting of S. asoca endophytic fungi for industrial bioproducts and useful pharmacologically relevant metabolites provide a silver lining to uncover single molecular bio-effectors from its endophytes. Here, we describe socio-ethnobotanical usage, present the current pharmacological status and discuss potential bottlenecks in harnessing the proclaimed phytomedicinal worth of this prescribed Ayurvedic medicinal plant. Finally, we also look into the possible future of the drug discovery and pharmaceutical R&D efforts directed at exploring its pharma legacy.