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India is the largest democracy in the world. The revolution of the Internet has brought a new agenda for the government. With the help of information and communication technology, it is possible that we can provide facilities to people sitting away without much physical effort. E-services have been operating for better efficiency and transparency proving to be digital innovation for the hilly areas. This study makes an effort to understand the citizens’ perception to welcome e-district practices in online service delivery. It is based on the field survey of 30 Common Service Centres of Kangra district in Himachal Pradesh. The results of this study show that Common Service Centres practice are a popular medium in service delivery in rural and hilly areas, but there is still a lack of proper infrastructure and Internet connectivity. The study finds that eliminating the digital divide in the system is necessary in a developing nation like India to implement e-governance services properly.

Endophytic fungi are known to be treasure trove of bioactive metabolites. A total of 13 fungal endophytes were isolated from leaves and stem of nine medicinal plants on different growth media. All the 13 isolates were screened for the production of secondary metabolites and antimicrobial activities against pathogenic organisms: Bacillus cereus(MTCC-430), E. coli (MTCC-1687), and Yersinia sp. (MTCC-4912). On the basis of 18S rRNA gene sequencing, strains belonged to Aspergillus, Cladosporium, and Penicillium. Hence, finding new, inexpensive, and non-toxic natural bioactive chemicals from endophytic fungi is crucial for new medications with multifunctional mechanisms to fulfill human demands.

•Biotic stress leads to reduced crop yield and quality.•Induced systemic response (ISR) is one of the major mechanisms employed by the microbes in biocontrol.•Microbial elicitors such as volatiles, siderophores, rhamnolipids and lipopeptides play a major role in induce systemic response.•Molecular mechanisms of immunization in plants by microbial elicitors.

Delhi and its surrounding region are among the important intraplate seismically active regions of India. According to the Bureau of Indian Standards, it lies in seismic zone IV and is capable of generating small to moderate earthquakes. This region has also experienced moderate to large earthquakes in the past due to its proximity to the Himalayan arc and its own tectonics. There is an urgent need to assess the source characteristics of earthquakes and their scaling relationships for a reliable and accurate estimation of seismic hazard. Source parameters and their scaling relations have been estimated for this region using well-located small to moderate earthquakes (Mw2.3–5.1) that occurred during the period from 2000 to 2020. For this purpose, we investigated three components of earthquake waveform data using the ω−2source model. The outcomes show the occurrence of low static stress drop (0.5–52.87 bars) in the Delhi region indicating approximately 57% of the events exhibit a stress drop < 10 bars, 27 % of events fall in the range of 10–20 bars, and only 16 % events exhibit stress drop > 20 bars. This observation suggests that the shallow subsurface of the study region may have low-strength material characteristics and a heterogeneous nature. In addition, the Zuniga parameter (ε) is estimated less than 1.0 by analyzing static and apparent stress drops, which infers the partial stress drop model fits very well in the study region. The seismic moment varies from 1.02×1012to 1.03×1016 N.m. for P-wave and 6.46×1011Nm to 7.54×1015Nm for S-wave. The average seismic source radius lies in the range of 0.1–3.05 km with a ratio {r(p)/r(s)}of 1.5 km in the study region. The estimated values of corner frequency are comparatively lower for the S-wave (1.5–18.2 Hz) than for the P-wave (1.88–19.3 Hz) suggesting the ‘shifting properties’ of the corner frequency corroborated with the theoretical agreement. The seismic energy (E) is estimated using both P- and S-wave separately and its average value varies from 4.28×106to 6.22×1011 J. The estimated stress drop and seismic moment demonstrate no correlation with each other. Therefore small to moderate-size earthquakes inherently follow the self-similarity behavior. The obtained scaling relationship between Seismic Moment and Corner Frequency is Mo=7.94*1015fc−2.97. The derived scaling relations and source parameters are expected to provide a priori information for the assessment of seismic hazards and are useful in the simulation of strong ground motion characteristics in the region.

Agriculture is the backbone of developing countries, which plays an essential role in primary drivers of economy. The increasing use of chemical fertilizers and toxic insecticides endangers the health of human, plant soils, and the environment. Microbial insecticides have been implemented in current scenario for crop protection. Biological agents for pest control have gained more attention in recent year as substitutes for management of pests and pathogens. It provides a sustainable approach to plant health management and assists to minimize the excessive applications of toxic substances. The antagonistic microbes belong to six different phylaincluding Bacillota, Actinomycetota, Pseudomonadota, Bacteroidota and Mucoromycota. Microbial pesticides have been developed through a number of processes, including extraction of pure culture and screening using effectiveness bioassays under controlled and natural conditions. Biological control agents (BCAs) are recognized to be the most sophisticated technology for environmentally friendly agriculture. The various beneficial BCAs have been reported for the management of plant health, but they required effective acceptance together with the standardization of bioformulation. The present review deals with the recent development of microbial control agents, mechanisms of actions, development of microbial pesticides and their potential applications for agricultural productivity.

Wheat grass, one of the members of Poaceae family, has been examined for therapeutic drugs efficiently. Wheat grass juice has become a popular beverage in various countries. Wheat grass is low in calories but high in nutrients, including antioxidants such as glutathione, vitamin C, and vitamin E. The juice is extracted from shoots of tender wheat grass and is an intensive source of minerals, vitamins, chlorophylls, antioxidants, polyphenols and active enzymes. The present investigation deals with the isolation of endophytic bacteria from wheat grass and development of probiotic formulation. A total of 25 endophytic bacteria were isolated from wheat grass and screened for pigment and hydrolytic enzyme production. The selected bacterial strains were screened for antimicrobial activity against pathogenic organisms Bacillus cereus(MTCC-430), E. coli(MTCC-1687) and Yersiniasp. (MTCC-4912). The efficient bacterial strain EU-WG-01 was identified using 16S rRNA gene sequencing as Bacillus subtilis. Bacillus subtilisEU-WG-01 was inoculated into mango juice to prepare a probiotic formulation. Bacillus subtilisEU-WG-01 at concentration of 15% was used to ferment the probiotic drink. The physiochemical (Total soluble sugars, reducing/non-reducing sugars, titratable acidity, antioxidant activity, protein content, color attributes and ascorbic acid), biomass and cell viable count were analysed. Among the physiochemical parameters a significant decrease was observed in total soluble sugar from 15.68°brix to 16.51°brix, total sugars from 13.30% to 7.50%, non-reducing sugars reduced from 10.20% to 1.30%, ascorbic acid from 21.60/100 mg mL−1to 14.90/100 mg mL−1. The antioxidant activity from 6.55% to 3.56% except for titratable acidity and reducing sugars increased significantly during 30 days storage under refrigeration. Bacillus subtilisEU-WG-01 viability was found to remain well above 2 log CFU/mL−1for 30 days. Bacillus subtilis EU-WG-01 could be used for probiotic formulation for human health.

The proximity of Delhi and the surrounding region to the active faults along with its geographical settings is a subject of discussion to comprehend the seismic resilience of the capital region of India. The region may be affected by the far-field earthquakes from the Himalayas as well as the near-field earthquakes associated with the local seismic activity. Considering the ordinary settings of this region, the present study is an insight to differentiate the damage potential of ground motion associated with near and far-field conditions to further see their consequences to understand the comprehensive seismic hazard of the region. The acceleration and velocity response analysis of recorded strong ground motions from far-field and near-field earthquakes exhibit a clear distinct behavior in the form of amplification and corresponding predominant period. The comparison of estimated normalized spectral accelerations with that of the seismic design code of the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS), shows that the current Indian building design code is within the structural limits proposed for the seismic forces of long periods, however, exceeded amplitude of the normalized Spectral Acceleration for far-field earthquakes may be attributed towards the damage potential for the high rise buildings in the capital region of India. On the other hand, near-field earthquakes do not meet the criteria with the design code of BIS at lower periods from 0.02s to 0.09s along with the amplified Spectral acceleration. It also suggests that the structural heterogeneities within the subsurface of Delhi and the surrounding region have a strong bearing in contributing to the impact of seismic waves from near-field earthquakes producing short-period waves that may be disastrous for low-rise buildings. Based on the results, the study region affected by the distinct seismicity patterns is important to understand the shaking behavior of the different kinds of infrastructures/buildings in case of near-field and far-field earthquakes to appropriately utilize the information for constructing new buildings and strengthening the existing infrastructures in Delhi and the surrounding region of India.

The present study emphasizes the seismic characteristics of earthquake swarm activity of the Palghar region that occurred in the hard strata of Deccan traps of the Indian peninsula. This activity is well monitored by National Centre for Seismology (NCS) from December 2018 to October 2020. The related data inferred that initially before the swarm activation there was a barricade to stop the entry of fluids into the permeable zone. Later the fluids are injected into the fault zone at a feasible place may be near the surface at the time of swarm initiation. Further the associated fluids percolated through several channels in many directions forming a multi-dimensional system of cracks and fissures at the level of swarm progression through two distinctive clusters during the time of present study along normal fault orientations. During this process, the heterogeneous material within the subsurface layers might have experienced a decrease in the effective stress due to the increase in the pore pressure which is the resultant of the percolation of fluids within the permeable zone. The outcome of the results shows a comparable strategic increase in the seismicity after the soil saturation during and after the rainfall in the affected zone. Also, the study of the seismicity accompanying fluid injections indicates that the fluid triggering seismicity is demonstrated by the increased slope of the magnitude frequency distribution in the form of spatial b-value which has been found reliable for a catalogue for Palghar swarm activity. The coulomb stress change is also examined to find out the consistency of stress patterns with the earthquake occurrences in the Palghar region which gives the characteristics of swarm sequence. The study emphasized the fundamental and geo-mechanical behavior of fluid migration through multi-directional cracks and fissures as the cause for the evolution and further growth of the Palghar swarm activity.

Isolation of seismomagnetic effect arising from the stress-induced modulations of magnetisation becomes difficult due to natural variations of magnetic disturbances. It has been critical to find out the precursory earthquake behaviour in any of the data including geomagnetic, for the last 50 years. To search seismomagnetic signals in the present study, we have analysed four earthquakes (Mw ≥ 4.9) during 2007–2011 related to Ghuttu MPGO situated in NW Himalayas, India. These four earthquakes were found to be eligible for which Ghuttu station is in the preparation zone and an index of magnetic variation (Imv), which quantifies anomalous variations of the magnetic field from geomagnetic data, has been estimated. For this endeavour, an assumption has been made considering the average of magnetic data for the quiet days in order to compare the analysis with respect to the magnetic storms. Using the magnetic data recorded at Ghuttu MPGO for the interval of nearly two months within the range of occurrence of four moderate earthquakes, the Imvhas been computed. As a result, it has been observed that the proposed Imvcomputed is still sensitive to global magnetic disturbances as evidenced by comparing to Dst and sum Kp for the earthquakes considered in the present study. Therefore, it is summarised that the best way to isolate seismomagnetic effect is by comparing the data of pair of stations in differential mode, one located close to the area of stress built up and the other immediately outside the seismic zone, so that the background noise can be eliminated by analysing this kind of pair stations in order to achieve the goal. However, the size of the earthquake and epicentral range are also important controlling parameters to observe the seismomagnetic effects due to an earthquake in a region.

Groundwater withdrawal at very fast rate poses threat on existing groundwater resources in different parts of the world. This reduction in groundwater levels significantly disturbed the natural aquifer flow rate and thereby different hydrogeochemical processes, which may further impair the groundwater quality. The groundwater quality in rural area of Chhattisgarh State is degraded, and the problem of saline water poses health risk to people. In this research investigation, suitability of groundwater of Bemetara District, Chhattisgarh, India, has been evaluated for drinking purpose through water quality index (WQI) method and principal component analysis (PCA). Total 116 groundwater samples were collected during the pre-monsoon (June 2019) and post-monsoon season (December 2019) and analyzed for physicochemical parameters. Total dissolved solids ranged from 250 to 10,440 mg/L and 289 to 3583 mg/L during pre-monsoon and post-monsoon, respectively, and 55% of the total samples exceeded acceptable BIS limit in pre-monsoon, while about 66% samples exceeded in post-monsoon season. SO42−concentrations varied from 3 to 5734 mg/L during pre-monsoon and 4.5 to 2002 mg/L during post-monsoon, respectively. Total 28% samples in pre-monsoon and 18% samples in post-monsoon season exceeded the maximum permissible BIS limit (400 mg/L) of SO42−ion in the study area. On the basis of WQI, the quality of groundwater varies from “Excellent water” to “Good water” category. The groundwater of northeastern part of the district is not suitable for drinking, and therefore, it is recommended to treat this groundwater before human consumption with special reference to SO42−contamination. PCA inferred that four components are sufficient to explain the variance in chemistry of groundwater that is mainly governed by dissolution of gypsum mineral, other rock–water interaction and anthropogenic activities. Further, water quality was improved in the direction of groundwater flow in the study area, establishing a direct relationship between groundwater flow and water quality of the Bemetara District. This study provides very useful database to design sustainable groundwater management plan for the district.

Antioxidants can remove damaging reactive oxygen species produced as by-products of desiccation and respiration during late embryogenesis, imbibition of dormant seeds and germination. We have expressed a protein, PER1, encoded by theBalem (barleyaleurone andembryo) transcript previously called B15C, and show it to reduce oxidative damagein vitro. PER1 shares high similarity to a novel group of thiol-requiring antioxidants, named peroxiredoxins, and represents a subgroup with only one conserved cysteine residue (1-Cys). PER1 is the first antioxidant belonging to the 1-Cys subgroup shown to be functionally active, and the first peroxiredoxin of any kind to be functionally described in plants. The steady state level of the transcript,Per1, homologous to a dormancy-related transcript (pBS128) from bromegrass (Bromus secalinus), increases considerably in imbibed embryos from dormant barley (Hordeum vulgare L.) grains. Our investigations also indicate thatPer1 transcript levels are dormancy-related in the aleurone layer of whole grains. In contrast to most seed-expressed antioxidantsPer1 disappears in germinating embryos, and in the mature aleurone the transcript is down-regulated by the germinating embryo or by gibberellic acid (GA). Our data show that the barley seed peroxiredoxin is encoded by a singlePer1 gene. Possible roles of the PER1 peroxiredoxin in barley grains during desiccation, dormancy and imbibition are discussed.

An epidemic of hepatitis A virus (HAV) among intravenous drug abusers in Oslo involved 144 serologically confirmed cases. Another 26 patients (non‐drug abusers), of whom 14 were derived from a single nosocomial outbreak, were associated with the epidemic. Sequencing of the VP1/P2A junction revealed that viruses associated with the epidemic were completely identical, whereas other HAV samples collected during the same period differed by up to 10 %. HAV was detected in the serum of 48 of 100 patients by a nested PCR. Viremia was observed as early as 25 days before the onset of clinical hepatitis, and up to 30 days after. The large number of patients within the drug abuser group, and the few secondary cases, raised the question of whether the virus could be transmitted by the use of needles. To establish whether viral contamination of drugs did contribute appreciably to maintaining the epidemic, we examined heroin and amphetamine confiscated during the period, using immunomagnetic separation coupled to nested PCR, but failed to detect any virus. Antibodies against hepatitis B virus and hepatitis C virus were common among the HAV infected drug abusers (43% and 81%, respectively), suggesting widespread sharing of needles. This observation and the large number of patients with a demonstrable viremia suggest that needle sharing may contribute to the dissemination of HAV. J. Med. Virol. 53:69–75, 1997.© 1997 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.