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Scab disease caused by Venturiaspp. is a major threat to pome and stone fruit crops which are grown extensively under the temperate climate of Jammu and Kashmir in India, affecting economy of commercial growers. To gain insights into the establishment and spread of the pathogen, it is essential to have a clear understanding of its life cycle, in which the presence or absence of the sexual stage holds considerable importance. The in-vivoand in-vitromorphological differentiation of three Venturiaspecies viz.; Venturia inaequalis, Venturia pyrina, Venturia carpophilarevealed that there were significant differences within their morpho-cultural characteristics. However, Venturia carpophilainfecting both almond and peach showed insignificant variations in both in vivo and in vitro conditions. Importantly, the teleomorph was only observed in V. inaequalis, which emphasizes that there might be high genetic variation in the pathogen population. Surprisingly, no teleomorph of V. pyrinaand V. carpophilawas found, which may be related to the fact that both of these pathogen species overwinter as dormant mycelia and conidia under temperate conditions of North Western Himalayas.

AbstractRepurposing of antivirals is an attractive therapeutic option for the treatment of COVID-19. Main protease (Mpro), also called 3 C-like protease (3CLpro) is a key protease of SARS-CoV-2 involved in viral replication, and is a promising drug target for antivirals. A major challenge to test the efficacy of antivirals is the conformational plasticity of Mproand its future mutation prone flexibility. Suitable choice of drugs in catalytic and allosteric pockets appear to be essential for combination therapy. Current study, based on docking and extensive set of MD simulations, finds the combination of Elbasvir, Glecaprevir and Ritonavir to be a viable candidate for further experimental drug testing/pharmacophore design for Mpro.Communicated by Ramaswamy H. Sarma

The study examined and compared various demographic and human developmental indicators, especially education and its allied aspects such as literacy, enrolment, promotion, repetition, retention, dropout and transition rates of tribal children at various school education stages. And to assess these indicators, data have been collected from secondary sources. Census reports of India, Jammu and Kashmir and Ganderbal, 2001 and 2011 have been reviewed to obtain the data related to demography and literacy. The information related to various educational indicators has been collected from Unified District Information System for Education 2017–2018. Thus, the present study is a desk research. The data have been expressed in tabular and graphical forms. The study concluded that the tribals figure significantly below the overall population on educational parameters such as literacy, enrolment, gross enrolment ratio, promotion, retention, dropout and transition rates. Moreover, variations and gaps have been found among trials of India, Jammu and Kashmir and Ganderbal district. Gender disparities/gaps, prominent among females, raise question marks on the efficiency and management of the educational system as well as affirmative action and intervention policies of the government in mitigating disparities based either on gender, social category or location.

Didymella blight of lily is a major fungal disease and is one of the main factors that limit the lily cultivation and production. It appeared as a new disease on crop lily from May to August (2018–2019) in both the mentioned years causing death of leaves. The pathogen was consistently isolated on Mathur’s media from infected leaves and was identified as Didymella americanabased on morphological characteristics of isolate in pure culture as well as on host and molecular characteristics.