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Prahalad Chunnilal Vaidya was an eminent general relativist, gravitation theorist, physicist, mathematician, educationist and a follower of Gandhian philosophy in post-independence India. Apart from his scientific career, Vaidya is renowned for his Vaidya metric. Though he has contributed significantly to the scientific community, very few people are aware about him or his contributions. As 23 May 2019 was the 101st birth anniversary of Vaidya, here we present his contributions and their impact through a bibliometric study. This study presents an analysis of published research works of Vaidya. During his active career, he had contributed 102 publications, including 90 journal articles, 5 conference papers, 4 book chapters, 2 review articles and 1 report. His publications have received 2004 citations, h-index of 18 and i10-index of 29 from 1979 to 2018. We analysed Vaidya's publications by type, country, journals, publishers, citations, year-wise growth, collaborated authors, top cited papers, etc. This bibliometric study is an effort to draw the attention of the younger generation of scientists to Vaidya and his contributions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research papers published by Chinese and Indian researchers during 1998-2007 and cited at least 100 times by end of 2009 are analysed. There were 776 papers with at least one author from India (amounting to 0.32% of all papers from India) and 2260 papers with at least one author from China (0.4% of all papers from China) that have gone on to be cited at least 100 times. We have identified prominent authors and institutions, journals used and fields of research. Although highly cited Chinese papers were cited on average less often than the highly cited papers from India, Chinese authors have been able to place their papers in high impact journals such as Nature and Science far more often than Indian authors. The Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai and Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research, Bangalore are the prominent Indian institutions, whereas universities in Hong Kong, Peking University, Tshing Hua University and several institutions under the Chinese Academy of Science dominate in China. In terms of citations, Chinese National Human Genome Centre Shanghai, Shanghai, tops the list. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A review of the article "Agricultural biotechnology and crop productivity: macro-level evidences on contribution of Bt cotton in India" by S.K. Srivastava and D. Kolady, is presented.

BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) together accounted for about 17.3% of total research papers in science and engineering published in 2011 compared to 7.6% in 1995, whereas their contribution to total doctorates produced in science and engineering in 2010 was 31.2% of the world total. India held second position in 1995 amongst BRICS countries and was behind Russia, whereas in 2011, China not only replaced Russia but also attained second position in publishing science and engineering research papers in the world, next only to USA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Digitalization has brought a revolutionary change in every walk of human life, giving the average person many digital options for payment and settlement. Information communication technology enabled the transformation of our banking system from paper to virtual mode, facilitating speedy and secure fund transfers. Post-demonetization (8 November 2016), the cashless economy got a boost, and about 98% of transactions have become cashless. A cashless policy empowers industries, leading to an increase in employment opportunities and reducing cash-oriented fraud. The Reserve Bank of India- Digital Payments Index was recorded at 349.30 as of March 2022 against 304.06 for September 2021, indicating significant growth, rapid adoption and deepening of digital payment across the nation. During the financial year 2021–22, digital transactions surged to 7195 crores, with the value increasing to Rs 17.44 billion. There is a strong need to make policies for protection against cyberattacks, encourage digital literacy, and ensure adequate rural penetration of internet connectivity and banking infrastructure, with awareness among rural masses to strengthen organized indigenous markets. This article provides an insight into the cashless economy and the impact of digital innovation on India’s financial system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Compensation serves as a post-conflict management tool for human-wildlife conflicts. In the Bannerghatta National Park (BNP) region, Karnataka, India, around 57.4% and 95% of the farmers received compensation for crop loss and cattle kill respectively. Compensation claims incurred transportation and paper costs of 60-70% and 30-40% respectively, and it took 7.6-12.3 months on average to receive compensation. Crop loss applications had the lion's share of the total applications, while the compensation paid share was relatively less in the total compensation paid. Inadequacy of compensation was a major constraint. Separate advance fund provisions for crop loss, livestock depredation, property damage and human-related losses in proportion to annual cases can prevent the delay and inadequacy of compensation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Long-term experiments are essential in understanding the ecological consequences of global land use and climate change. Further, it is well established that longterm data sets are prerequisites for effective management of forest resources and biodiversity conservation. In view of this, the present study attempts to contribute to major global long-term ecological monitoring (LTEM) networks and the status of LTEM studies in India with a special focus on Indian Himalayan Region. Over the last 40 years, around 103 countries from the America, Europe, Africa, Asia and Australia have been engaged in LTEM studies on various aspects of biodiversity, monitoring and predicting climate change impacts in a range of ecosystems, including the mountains. The temporal distribution of past studies on the subject shows a gradual increasing pattern (3 papers in 1992) with a peak during 2021 (105 papers). The established LTEM networks across the globe provide a significant empirical basis for understanding ecosystem structure and dynamics. Literature indicates plenty of permanent monitoring plots from India, mostly from southern India, and their significant contribution to ecosystem understanding. Himalayan regions are important sites for monitoring biological and socio-ecological responses to environmental perturbations, including climate change. LTEM studies are lacking in the IHR; only a few sites have been established, mostly in alpine ecosystems. This review identifies research gaps, opportunities with respect to LTEM studies, and the possibilities for strengthening long-term research and observation in India in general and the Himalaya in particular. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explores the research output of India compared to Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS) countries in publishing pharmacology, toxicology and pharmaceutics research papers. Topics discussed include information on the second position of India in terms of publishing research papers in science and engineering; and the efforts for developing innovation based research, establishing science parks and bolstering training of technology transfer by the BRICS countries.

The article presents a study on the use of lime sludge waste from the paper industry. It adopts the situation at the Nagaon Paper Mill, a public sector pulp and paper mill which is a unit of the Hindustan Paper Corporation Ltd. in Assam, India wherein it generates 448 tonnes of lime sludge per day as solid waste. It notes that Assam's agricultural soil is acidic and that liming is important to maintain the potential hydrogen of the soil through lime sludge waste instead of marketed lime.

A scientometric analysis was conducted to study the productivity and trend dynamics of organic farming research in India covering a period of 20 years (2002-21). The present study aims at science mapping to summarize research activity and its essential aspects. The scientometric analysis outlines the year-wise research growth pattern, prolific authors and their productivity, major contributing journals, major contributing institutions and countries along with keyword occurrences for trend dynamics of organic farming research in India. The data have been sourced from the Web of Science Core Collection database. The most productive period was 2017-21 (44.76% of the total papers published). The growth pattern showed a gradual increase in research during the two decades. Research articles were the most common document type. About 20.11% of international co-authorship was observed in organic farming research. ICAR-based Indian Journal of Agricultural Science was the major contributing source to organic farming research. This study has the potential to benchmark organic farming research in India and play a significant catalytic role in further research in the field of organic farming. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reports that researchers from the North East Institute of Science and Technology (NEIST) at Jorhat in Assam, India have discovered a new use of banana in making greaseproof paper. It discusses the study which depicts that banana offers an alternative resource to the fibre industry. The study further revealed that banana pulp obtained from its pseudostem shows greaseproof properties. It notes that M. paradisica L. was selected among banana species due to its chemical composition.

Rural and remote regions of developing economies face a serious scarcity of reliable energy supply. Focus on providing electricity through renewable and off grid energy resources is becoming increasingly popular. Off the grid or decentralized renewable energy typically considers either solar or small hydro power to fill the supply deficit and increase in demand with time is generally ignored. This paper proposes a hybrid technology mix of various renewable energy options for two remote villages located in Darma valley of Uttarakhand state in the Indian Himalayan Region. Since the villages are at an average height of 3500 m amsl, they are inaccessible during winters due to heavy snowfall. Therefore, decentralized energy could be the most cost effective solution to provide electricity. This paper estimates the energy demand of these villages and identifies the most optimum off the grid solutions, and compares it with grid connected electricity supply using hybrid optimization model for electric renewables. Micro hydro energy generation was found to be the most cost effective and techno-economically viable solution. This paper also evaluates the barriers faced by remote Himalayan villages so as to achieve reliable application of the results of this study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I enumerate some of the narratives about the electricity sector in India and examine them in detail. Coal is a major source for energy in India and forms a significant part of India's present electricity mix, while the share of renewable energy sources is increasing. Share of hydro has declined over the years, and the share of nuclear is set to rise as several reactors are under construction and more have been approved. The paper comments on limitations of using levelized cost of electricity generation as a metric for comparing different technology options and suggests replacing it by an approach based on system modelling. Electricity demand is rising, and renewable energy sources and large hydro cannot meet the total projected demand. Switching over to a mix that addresses environment concerns has a cost attached to it and these costs need to be recognized and paid. After an examination of narratives, the paper ends with detailed observations about the electricity sector with the objective of providing evidence-supported perspective to public and also inputs for the formulation of policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 'publish or perish' race among researchers force at least some of them to opt for quick outlets for publication, making them fall into the trap of predatory journals. With a strong base and history of research institutions and journals, the present study explores grooming a reasonable number of quality journals in India to tackle the menace of predatory publishing. The data presented are collected from different sources to work out the approximate minimum number of quality journals that can be strengthened using state-of-the-art technology solutions as well as internationally competitive journal editorial, review and publishing procedures. It is difficult to deal with the commercial interests of predatory publishers through academic safeguards alone. However, their negative impact can be contained through a set of action plans by various stakeholders, such as sensitizing authors about the perils of predatory publishing, training new authors about the nuances of academic publishing to facilitate their manuscripts getting accepted in good journals, strengthening Indian journals to publish more quality papers, etc. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents a scientometric analysis of Current Science. The publications of the journal have been analysed for a 28-year period (1990-2017). Several different parameters such as output pattern, collaboration trend, citation pattern, contributing countries and organizations, highly cited papers, etc. have been analysed. Graphs of keyword co-occurrences have also been generated to analyse the important themes of research and their trends over the years. The journal has been in existence for more than 85 years and, according to our knowledge there have been no earlier attempts towards its scientometric characterization. We find that the journal output has increased over the years. The authorship trend is found to be towards multi-authored papers. A fair percentage of the publications in the journal is cited. The rate of international collaboration is, however, not very high and most of the publications in the journal are from India. Major change is observed in the themes and trends of content published in Current Science during the study period, although the journal has remained India-focused. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the discourse of 'women in science' in India, its tendencies to focus on the linear relation between women, science and development and its emphasis on 'increasing the number of women in science'. By doing so, the paper argues that this emphasis produces two predominant experiences - exhaustion and skepticism - among the scientific work-force in India. It offers an ethnographic account of these two affects and argues that closer attention to such experiences can contribute to the discourse of 'women in science', which is caught between failures and achievements of women scientists in India. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The efficient and effective management of climate risks is dependent on the availability of reliable climate information and services. To make health system resilient towards the impacts of climate variability and change, climate-related data and information need to be routinely integrated into health science, practice and policy making. The present paper studies the policy congruence at international, regional, national and sub-national levels for climate services for public health, with specific focus on India; to identify the gaps in understanding and possibly suggest a roadmap for co-developing climate services for the public health sector in India. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

India and China have made sizeable growth in publishing science and engineering research papers in co-authorship with international institutions and patents granted in collaboration with foreign inventors during the period 1997-2012. However, the growth in case of China is much higher in comparison to India. The pace of growth in publishing research papers in co-authorship with international and domestic institutions is more or less the same in case of China, whereas India has shown higher growth in publishing research papers in co-authorship with international institutions in comparison to those with domestic institutions. The share of India and China to research papers published in co-authorship with international institutions increased from 1.8% and 4.1% respectively, in 1997 to 3.5% and 14.7% respectively in 2012. China's share to patents granted in collaboration with foreign inventors increased from 0.94% in 1997 to 13.68% in 2012, compared to an increase of 0.56% to 7.39% in case of India. The analysis shows that China has harnessed the fruit of its international cooperation in S&T to its advantage, as reflected by significant increase in research papers co-authored with international institutions and patents granted in collaboration with foreign inventors in comparison to India. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reports on the contribution of India and China in the publications of research articles in "Nature," an international journal of science. It includes a table and a chart depicting the number of publications by India and China from 1945 to 2012 which shows the contribution of China to be slightly higher than that of India. Also included is the Nature Publishing Index Asia-Pacific that tracks the number of research journals from the Asia Pacific region.

The article presents information on qualitative and quantitative data which reports the foraging shift of honey bees and reduction in the population of honey bees. As stated, colony collapse disaster is considered as the main cause for decline in bee population and agricultural productivity. It is further mentioned that urbanization has resulted in excessive use of disposable cups which may lead to bee collapse in India and in rest of the world.

Despite the emphasis on publishing in high-impact-factor journals, researchers in India have few opportunities to learn the technique of writing research papers, especially for the more prestigious journals. An effort to create such opportunities is described, drawing upon the experience of conducting training programmes on publishing skills for researchers in more than 30 institutes and universities in India and the Middle East over the past 15 years. Suggestions are also offered on participants, ideal faculty, and contents of such programmes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Trees outside forests, including agroforestry, are the major source of wood produced in India. Keeping in view their direct benefits, inter alia livelihood security, climate-resilient agriculture for small and marginal farmers, and sustained supply of quality feedstock to the industry, a multidisciplinary approach in a mission mode is suggested for optimizing the impact of various programmes initiated by the Government and private sector. This would reduce import dependency on basics like paper pulp, newsprint and timber. A natural spin-off is conservation of germplasm in the forests and increased carbon sequestration by the trees and that locked in wood products, thereby contributing to India’s international climate and land restoration commitments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A letter to the editor is presented in response to the article "Uncitedness of Indian scientific output" by K. C. Garg and S. Kumar.

Millions of rural households in India lack access to clean basic lighting which hampers the ability of children to study during dark hours. Over 81 million students are likely to be dependent on kerosene lamps for basic lighting. Despite programmes focusing on disseminating solar lanterns since the last three decades, penetration is limited owing to three main barriers: affordability, absence of after-sales services and unavailability in rural markets. This paper presents the localization-affordability-saturation (LAS) model that addresses these main barriers by bringing together three institutional spheres - government, corporate and NGOs for speedy upscaling. This paper illustrates experiences and challenges that have emerged from field testing of the model through Million Solar Urja Lamp Programme while disseminating 1,000,000 solar study lamps to rural school children residing in more than 10,000 villages in India. Though implemented successfully, applicability of LAS model can be hindered due to dependence on subsidies, bottlenecks in local manufacturing infrastructure, absence of market mechanism and its relevance in providing complete lighting solutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An analysis of 17,344 papers published by Indian scientists and indexed by Web of Science in the discipline of organic chemistry during 2004-2013 indicates that collaborative coefficient has increased during the later years (2011-2013). Of the total published papers, 6312 (36.4%) were due to domestic and international collaboration. The share of papers in domestic collaboration was 77.3% (4882) and international collaboration was 22.7% (1430). Among the international collaborating countries, India had published highest number of papers with the USA followed by Germany. Academic institutions followed by Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) contributed the highest number of papers in domestic as well as in international collaboration. However, the value of domestic collaborative index and international collaborative index was less than 100 for both the sectors. The labs funded by CSIR also topped the list of institutions having domestic and international collaborative papers. The compound annual growth rate in domestic and international collaborative papers was 4.7 and 5.3 respectively. The value of domestic collaborative index was highest for CSIR-CDRI, Lucknow and international collaborative index for Madurai Kamaraj University, Madurai. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A palynological assay of the studies carried out from the Western and the Eastern Himalaya (India) during the Late Pleistocene and Holocene is presented here. The Western Himalaya is affected by both the Indian Summer Monsoon (ISM) and Western Disturbances, whereas the Eastern Himalaya receives precipitation only from the ISM. During the Late Pleistocene (~77 ka), a cold and arid climate supported steppe vegetation in the Western Himalaya. In the Eastern Himalaya, around 66 ka, a cool and dry climate supported the savannah vegetation with few scattered trees of Pinus and Tsuga. A number of warm-moist fluctuations are also perceptible during the Late Pleistocene. The impacts of Last Glacial Maximum, Holocene Climatic Optimum, Medieval Warm Period and Little Ice Age are well discernible in the vegetation in both the regions. Within a broad similarity, the climate change and associated vegetation succession varied from region to region; as the palynological records are characterized by the evidences of prolonged humid phases in the eastern sector, whereas the arid events are better marked in the western part. The similarities and incompatibilities in the climate and vegetation between the Western and Eastern Himalaya during the Late Pleistocene and Holocene are discussed in the present paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the use of litmus test in the evaluation of research performance in universities in India. It cites the Science Citation Index (SCI), an international criterion that determines the quality of research papers before the journals can be placed under a high profile. It notes that the litmus test for achieving top rank by any university is the overall qualitative performance, which has a high impact factor.

Indian researchers have published more than 43,400 papers in over 4,600 journals in 2009 as seen from Science Citation Index (SCI) - Expanded. Of these, over 6,900 (or one in six) papers were published in 445 open access (OA) journals. The proportion of papers published by Indian researchers in OA journals is considerably higher than the world average, which is estimated to be 8.5-10.0%. Although India publishes well over a thousand journals, including about 360 OA journals, SCI Expanded indexed in 2009 only 101 Indian S&T journals including 46 OA journals. It is likely that the percentage of Indian papers in OA journals as seen from SCI will be higher if more Indian journals are indexed in SCI Expanded. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research evaluation based on citation data identifies excellence using quantity and quality proxies as the main orthogonal dimensions. Citation data are readily available from aggregators such as the Web of Science or Scopus in the form of number of papers P, number of citations C and h-index. However, most of the prestigious award-giving bodies, e.g. for the Nobel Prizes or for the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar (SSB) Prize in India, rely on rigorous peer evaluation rather than on citationbased performance. While peer-review judgements are holistic but also subjective, citation-based evaluations tend to be reductive and quantitative. In this study, we look at three of the most prestigious premier peer-review decision-making exercises in India, the SSB Prize, and election Fellowship of the Indian National Science Academy, New Delhi and the Indian Academy of Sciences, Bengaluru. By comparing the awardees and successfully elected Fellows against a list of outstanding citation-based top performers in the world, we report a marked field dependence with citation data predicting 0% to less than 40% of the peer-review selections depending on the field. This study highlights two mixed dangers: one of compressing performance to numbers in an essentially reductive process, and the other of the possible bias and prejudices involved in what is often a subjective peer-review process. Thus, type I and type II errors cannot be avoided in any peer-review or citation evaluation taken in isolation, and vary from as much as 100% to 63%, depending on the field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The higher rate of sedimentation in reservoirs is one of the main concerns in sustainable reservoir management, which impairs the functional capacity of reservoirs that may lead to various environmental risks. Estimation of sedimentation rate and useful life of a reservoir using appropriate methods is imperative for sustainable management. This paper deals with the computation of sedimentation rate and useful life of Tehri reservoir of Bhagirathi river, in India, using hydrographic survey analysis, Hydrologic Engineering Center's River Analysis System (HEC-RAS) modelling, satellite remote sensing (SRS) technique, and trap efficiency based empirical curve methods. The rate of sedimentation was found as 5.33 million cubic metres (MCM)/year based on hydrographic survey analysis from the data obtained for the years 2005, 2008 and 2013. Likewise, the mean annual rate of sedimentation was estimated to be 5.07 MCM/year and 5.75 MCM/year based on the HEC-RAS model and SRS techniques respectively. Brune's method and Churchill's method of trap efficiency were found to be inconsistent with the hydrographic survey results. The reservoir can be classified as Type III reservoir with respect to the sediment vertical distribution analysis. Changes in bathymetry obtained in the simulation studies showed that the Bhagirathi river's 28-30 km reach would be most vulnerable to sedimentation problems. The estimated useful life of Tehri reservoir was found to be in the range of 160-180 years. The SRS technique and hydrodynamic model provided a better fit with the observed data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When a test is conducted in several sessions using distinct question papers, normalization of scores is required to have a fair assessment of the candidates. Several selection tests nowadays are conducted in multiple sessions (using multiple choice questions). In this article we discuss various normalization schemes used in India when an examination involving multiple choice questions is conducted across various sessions. We illustrate through simulation, that the percentile-based normalization scheme outperforms all the other schemes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Open access (OA) has emerged as an important movement worldwide during the last decade. There are several calls now that not only persuade researchers to publish in OA journals, to archive their pre- or post-print versions of papers in repositories, but also institutions and funding agencies to promote OA of research publications. This article examines OA levels and patterns in research output by computationally analysing research publication data obtained from the Web of Science for India during the last five years (2014-2018). Results obtained show that about 24% of research output from India, during the last five years, is available in OA compared to world average of about 30%. More articles are available in gold OA compared to green and bronze OA. Furthermore, OA levels vary in different disciplines, with medical science, physics and biology having higher percentage of their articles available as OA as compared to those like arts and humanities, social science and (surprisingly) information science. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

SCATSAT-1 measures the backscattering coefficient over land surfaces, which is a function of vegetation structure, surface roughness, soil moisture content, incidence angle and dielectric properties of vegetation. Scatterometer image reconstruction techniques provide fine resolution data to explore the emerging applications over land by using ambiguous backscatter from land. In this paper, 2 km resolution products of ISRO's scatterometer SCATSAT-1 are exploited for land target detection, rice crop phenology stages detection for kharif and rabi seasons and estimation of relative soil moisture over parts of India. Temporal and spatial backscatter changes are due to seasonal and changes in Land Use Land Cover. Crop phenology stages such as transplanting, maximum tillering, panicle emergence and physiological maturity stages are identified by analysing SCATSAT-1 time series along with NDVI and findings are supported by appropriate ground truth observations and crop cutting experiment (CCE) data. The relative soil moisture change detection is validated with in situ ground truth measurements using Hydraprobe, carried for SCATSAT-1 ascending and descending passes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is widespread use of poplar in pulp and paper, match splints, pencil and plywood industries, in northern India. The practice of closer spacing geometry with compact block in poplar cultivation does not permit intercropping from the third year onwards, which discourages small landholders. In 2008, poplar was planted at the Chaudhary Charan Singh Haryana Agricultural University, Hisar, India in three spacing geometries of 5 × 4 m, 10 × 2 m and 18 × 2 × 2 m (paired row) at a constant density of 500 trees ha-1. In the present study, two cropping rotations (sorghum-berseem and cowpea-wheat) were intercropped in all three spacing geometries of poplar (up to eight years of rotation), and compared with sole cropping as a control. The results showed that yield of annual crops reduced considerably over the years due to enhancing competition for light, moisture and nutrients. The overall yields of annual crops in various spacing geometries of poplar were reduced by 5.67% in the second year to 45.59% in eight years of plantation. The study resulted in 10 × 2 m spacing of poplar with sorghum-berseem crop rotation exhibiting the highest net returns (Rs 1,191,241 ha-1), NPV @ 12% discounting (Rs 409,673 ha-1), B : C ratio (1 : 2.22), IRR (70%), highest land equivalent ratio (2.28) and land expectation value (Rs 2,242,372 ha-1). In the study, LER and LEV calculated to increase the efficiency and adoptability of agroforestry systems. Therefore, on the basis of economics, the present study concludes that the intercropping of sorghum-berseem and cowpea-wheat in poplar planted at a spacing of 10 × 2 m is more profitable and helpful in doubling farmers' income over traditional agriculture in northwestern India. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, flash floods took place in various parts of the country that are not under floodplains due to high rainfall events, causing damage to rail, road and urban infrastructure. There is a need to develop a flood vulnerable index map of the country for precautionary measures in such vulnerable areas. Developing flood vulnerability index (FVI) at country level in India is a multifaceted job due to huge variations in topographic, meteorological and hydrological conditions over space and time. The paper focuses on developing a scientific approach in preparing FVI map of the country in a spatial decision support system environment by using space-based inputs, topographic data and long-term meteorological data. Probable maximum precipitation (PMP) and high rainfall frequency were computed using 100 years daily rainfall data of the country. Runoff potential of the country was prepared using high resolution landuse, soils, and digital elevation model grids. Probable maximum run-off was further computed at national level using PMP and run-off potential grids. Morphometric analysis was done using topographic and drainage information. All these layers were normalized and integrated in SDSS environment to compute the flood vulnerability index of the country. Suitable weights were given for all layers using the knowledge base reviewed across the globe. Sensitivity analysis and validation were done using the previous flood incidents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Against the backdrop of comments on chemistry research in India made in three recent reports prepared by Nature Index, Elsevier and Thomson Reuters, we have made a scientometric analysis of contributions from India in leading multidisciplinary chemistry journals over the 25-year period 1991-2015. We have compared India's performance with that of China as a benchmark. Overall, the number of chemistry papers from India increased steadily between 2007 and 2014. The three- year moving average of number of papers during the period grew at a compound annual growth rate of 8.9%, and the overall increase in papers was accompanied by a more than proportionate increase in the leading journals. Also, the average number of cites received by papers with at least one author from India in Angewandte Chemie International Edition (Angew. Chem. Int. Ed.) and Accounts of Chemical Research was higher than the world average. Despite its huge share of the world's population (~17%), India continues to be poorly represented in the top journals: the country 's share of papers in the Journal of the American Chemical Society is 0. 7% compared to 58.4% for USA, 7.6% for Germany and 5.1% for China, and its share in Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. is 1.2% compared to 28% for Germany, 25.3% for USA and 9.9% for China. This could be due to the fact that till recently Indian universities did not encourage mobility across disciplines. That only a small number of Indian researchers and institutions publish in leading journals is also a matter for concern. India accounts for only a small number of papers in the top one percentile of the most highly cited chemistry papers, whereas China leads the world. Only 2.3% of the 2234 papers published in 2014 that are in the top one percentile is from India compared to 38% from China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper evaluates Digital Accessible Knowledge on occurrence of Indian bird species. More than 2 million primary occurrence records from across India were obtained from the Global Biodiversity Information Facility and eBird. These were processed into maps of inventory completeness across the country both prior to 1980 and after 2000, in an attempt to develop evaluations of faunal change resulting from global climate change. We found good coverage of the country by well-inventoried areas after 2000, but almost no coverage prior to 1980. As such, in before-and-after comparisons documenting effects of global change on Indian birds, the 'after' is well documented, but the 'before' is lacking. This significant information gap points to the need for digital capture and open sharing of historical information regarding Indian bird species' occurrences; this information will derive in large part from natural history museum specimens, particularly in India and Great Britain, and potentially from older observational data sources and the literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study attempts to analyse the growth and development of rare earths research in India based on the publication output as reflected in Web of Science (WoS) during 1987-2013. A total of 1,88,877 papers are seen as global research output on rare earths. India secures 7th position with 9457 papers. Indian rare earths papers are analysed bibliometrically to indicate the authorship, collaboration pattern, to identify the major institutions and most relevant journals; apart from identifying the research field or application area of research in rare earths. Recently developed three-dimensional performance indicators are used to rank the productivity of Indian institutions and authors in the field of rare earths research. These studies can help researchers to comprehend the magnitude of rare earths research in India and establish future research directions. The study found that papers having international collaborations are cited more often. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author discusses issues when it comes to copy-editing of scientific research papers in India. He notes that poorly written research papers in the country continue to be a perennial problem as researchers failed to write in a coherent and lucid manner. He stresses that readers will continue to bemoan poorly written and presented research articles until the research community in the country accepts copy-editing as a legitimate expense.

An attempt to analyse the pattern of organic chemistry papers in national and international journals was made in this article. We have reviewed the papers published in various subject areas and presented our findings. There is a growing interest in publishing papers in heterocyclic compared to other areas. There is a need for publishing more review papers in fundamental areas in the frontier research segment particularly to benefit the university teachers. We also have analysed the trend of the researchers and their papers. It was found that there is more enthusiasm to publish papers in higher ranking international journals than the premier journals like IJC(B). The neglect of national journals would hurt the research in the country. Effective uses of new synthetic methodologies involving metal catalysed reactions are found in international publications. However, development of new methodologies, new reagents and serious structure-activity relationship in medicinal chemistry were not visible in the research papers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An analysis of 35,640 papers published by Indian scientists as journal articles and reviews in journals indexed by Science Citation Index-Expanded (SCI-E) in 2008 revealed that 6231 (17.5%) papers remained uncited during 2008-2013. Most of the uncited papers were published by State Agricultural Universities and the Indian Council of Agricultural Research. The highest proportion of uncited papers was in the discipline of agricultural sciences followed by multidisciplinary and mathematical sciences. These uncited papers appeared in journals published from India, Singapore, Romania and Japan with low impact factor (IF). Lowest number of uncited papers was published by the Department of Biotechnology. It was also found that a small fraction of papers published in journals with IF more than 5 also remained uncited. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

India submitted its second Biennial Update Report (BUR II) to the UNFCCC on 31 December 2018, which builds upon the information presented in the Second National Communication (SNC). Being a non-Annex I party to the Convention, India like many other developing nations has to fulfil its reporting obligation of furnishing BURs every two years to intimate its climate mitigation efforts. Biennial reporting is aimed at highlighting trends in the national greenhouse gas inventory, mitigation actions, need for climate-friendly technologies, finance, capacity-building and lastly existing domestic Monitoring, Reporting and Verification (MRV) mechanisms. The comprehensiveness and depth of information present in BUR II, have increased considerably in comparison to its earlier version (BUR I). This paper suggests points relevant for improvizing on key aspects related to energy demands, MRV and the technology transfer process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, the author discusses a rational procedure to rank the research performance of universities in India, through identification of correlated indicators. It cites an approach for ranking of research performance based on quantum of output as well as quality from different Indian universities with a procedure that uses a composite indicator combining quality and quantity. The author says that there is a reasonably high correlation between the quality and quantity of a research paper.

This paper reveals the magnitude of heavy metal contamination of soil and groundwater in and around an unauthorized e-waste recycling site in Delhi. Though unsafe and unorganized and with the e-waste handling now legally banned in Delhi, the informal sector is still actively involved in dismantling, extracting and disposing of e-waste in certain places on a considerably large scale. The leachate produced by these recycling units contains a large amount of heavy metals which are likely to pollute the groundwater and soil adjoining the recycling sites. This study evaluates the e-waste contamination at such sites by monitoring the potential contaminants at a number of specific monitoring points in Krishna Vihar near Mandoli. The soil and underground water samples are tested for the presence of heavy metals around e-waste recycling and dumping sites using atomic absorption spectrometry. The standard values according to Central Ground Water Board are taken as reference values for water, and standards for agricultural soil in Britain as reference values for soil. The results show that the groundwater and soil in and around these sites have been contaminated by lead, copper, chromium and cadmium to a large extent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Siwalik foreland deposit was earlier considered as freshwater continental megafan deposit, formed by southward flowing transverse drainages, analogous to modern Kosi-like megafans. However, this analogy remained incomplete due to lack of evidence of a regionally persistent axial stream system or marginal marine depositional system, like the Ganga-Brahmaputra River and Ganga Delta, as in the present-day foreland basin. In this paper, we report the abundant wave-generated structures and marine trace fossils from the Siwalik succession of the Tista valley and infer that they represent the deltaic part of the Neogene foreland basin. This interpretation provides the link between upland fluvial deposits of the western Himalaya and deep marine sediments of the Bengal Fan and is more consistent with available data from the Siwaliks of the eastern Himalaya. It also implies that a marine embayment existed in the eastern part of the Siwalik foreland basin. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In earlier papers, an attempt was made to assess if renewable energy sources alone could meet India's future needs of electricity. With the information available then, it was concluded that this was not possible. However, over the last year, many papers/comments have been published on the subject matter and new research findings have also become available regarding the high potential of wind energy. It has therefore become necessary to make a revised assessment. India will need 3,128 TWh/yr of electrical energy in the future if it adopts a frugal policy for energy use. The present study shows that this annual need may be met through renewable energy sources alone in the form of solar power (photovoltaic and thermal), wind power and hydroelectric power. The study also points out that because of the intermittent nature of solar and wind power, there is a serious mismatch between the diurnal variation of the electricity generated by renewable sources and the diurnal variation of the demand for electricity. Many difficult technical challenges concerning transmission, distribution, control and storage of energy will have to be overcome in order to remove the mismatch. Only then will it be possible to supply power generated by renewable energy sources to match the electricity demand on a round-the-clock basis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The issue of ranking higher education institutions has drawn much attention as of late. Many ranking models are being introduced; however, only a few of them incorporate quality dimensions rather than just absolute number of published papers, awards gained, etc. As a possible remedy to the issue, we applied statistical I-distance method on a dataset presented by SCImago Institutions Rankings methodology. Results pointed out that quality indicators such as 'Excellence Rate' and 'Normalized Impact' are far more important than gross number of published papers. In addition, a comparison of scientific output between China and India is elaborated upon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We propose a framework score to see how Indian universities and research-focused institutions fare in the world of high-end research in terms of excellence and diversity of their research base. For this we use a web application available in the public domain which visualizes scientific excellence worldwide in several subject areas. Only in 15 subject areas does India have a presence among global institutions in the 22 areas in which there are at least 50 institutes globally that have published more than 500 papers. The country has no institution which can be counted globally in seven areas: arts and humanities; business, management and accounting; health professions; neuroscience; nursing; psychology, and social sciences. India's research base is completely skewed towards the physical sciences and engineering with very little for biological sciences and medicine, and virtually none in social sciences, and arts and humanities when excellence at the highest level is considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to understand the regional climate implications of aerosols over Indo-Gangetic Plains (IGP), a major Indo-US field experiment, Ganges Valley Aerosol Experiment (GVAX) was conducted during 2011-12. Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) mobile facility (AMF) was deployed at the northern Indo-Gangetic Plain over the high-altitude site, Manora Peak, Nainital (29°21'33.84"N, 79°27'29.27"E, 1980 m amsl) in Central Himalayas, for an year-round meas- urement of aerosols, clouds and other climate-relevant atmospheric parameters. One of the objectives of GVAX was examining the ability of models to simulate aerosols over Indian region and validate the simulations. In part-1 of this two-part paper, we examine use of the chemical transport model 'CHIMERE' to simulate aerosol fields over Indian region (4-37.5°N; 67-88.5°E) for multiple years (2006, 2007 and 2008) by simulating the spatial and temporal distribution of PM10, BC mass concentrations and OC/BC ratios. It is seen that the model successfully captures the broad features of the regional distribution of aerosols, including the most conspicuous IGP hotspot and its seasonality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The RAWEX-GVAX field campaign has been carried out from June 2011 to March 2012 over a high altitude site Manora Peak, Nainital (29.4°N; 79.2°E; 1958 m amsl) in the central Himalayas to assess the impacts of absorbing aerosols on atmospheric thermodynamics and clouds. This paper presents the preliminary results of the observations and data analysis of the Doppler Lidar, installed at Nainital. Strong updrafts with vertical winds in the range of ~2-4 ms-1 occurred during the daytime and throughout the season indicating thermally driven convection. On the other hand during nighttime, weak downdrafts persisted during stable conditions. Plan Position Indicator scan of Doppler Lidar showed north-northwesterly winds in the boundary layer. The mixing layer height, derived from the vertical velocity variance, showed diurnal variations, in the range ~0.7-1 km above ground level during daytime and very shallow during nighttime. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]