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The aim of this article is to initiate a discussion based on a new reading of field data I collected in Nepal and South India that was triggered by the notion of irrigated land tenure. The first part deals with the way of applying this notion to rice fields. In South Asia, rice fields occupy a discriminating position in administrative and vernacular classifications, which has been turned upside-down by the surge in groundwater irrigation. Moreover, some rice fields may be cultivated without irrigation thanks to monsoon rains. However, this is not reflected in the traditionally used visual representations of irrigation systems (aerial photos, satellite images, maps of irrigation networks) that overlook farmers' difficulties to access to water. The notion of irrigated land tenure, hence, has some limitation in the case of rice cultivation, if non-irrigated rice fields are not clearly identified. However, this notion has the advantage of making explicit the interest to analyse the links between water rights and land rights, which is the purpose of the second part of this paper. In a context of legal pluralism, the examples discussed show the diversity of these interactions: in some cases water rights are modified so as to increase the size of the irrigated land; in others the use of water is instrumental in obtaining a legitimate land right. In contrast, in the case of tenancy situations, the status of land tenure continues to jeopardize access to water. The tenure status of an irrigated or potentially irrigable land is important to consider in order to understand the dynamics of water management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This short paper offers an original look at the fertility transition in India through the lens of the period parity progression ratios (PPPRs). Taking advantage of nearly 300,000 birth history data collected in three nationally representative surveys (National Family Health Survey, NFHS) conducted in 1992-1993, 1998-1999 and 2005-2006, fertility changes by parity are described from 1977 to 2004. The data indicate that the decline of fertility in India over the last 25 years has been primarily caused by a reduction of third and higher-order births and that a two-child family model is therefore emerging in the country. To assess the parity-based analysis, lifetime average parities are computed and compared to independently derived total fertility estimates from the Sample Registration System (SRS). The results show that the use of the parity progression ratios in the analysis of Indian survey data yields fairly consistent fertility levels and trends in comparison with traditional total fertility estimates obtained from the SRS and that the PPPRs present thus an alternative tool to estimate the consistency and quality of total fertility estimates derived from other data sources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The cross-border cooperation in the BIHOR-HAJDU-BIHAR euro region, around the Hungary and Romania's frontier needs to be reinforced for the new 2007-2013 EU Program. This target can be achieved with the support from the specialists in the cross border cooperation development projects. Unfortunately, those specialists are not available yet. How to solve this problem? So this paper focuses to underline the importance to cover this gap by using the educational institutions already based in that euro region, for example, the Institute for Euro Regional Studies and by getting expertise from the other Euro region in the Western side of Europe as the MOT , Mission Opérationnelle Transfrontalière, in France. In this way, it will be possible to involve more people in the euro region initiatives in the coming years and to cover several fields of the cross -border cooperation issues: environment, infrastructure, SME, SMI, Tourism, etc…issues [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]