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Child sponsorship is a vital tool for development by transferring funds from rich countries to children in developing countries. It supports the development of marginalised children primarily through education. This article describes the outcome evaluation of a 10-year intervention by a sponsoring agency in Kerala, India. The study evaluated the outcome regarding self-esteem, achievement motivation and family functioning of the sponsored children, adopting a post-test-only quasi-experimental design with a control group (CG). Data were collected from 80 individuals (Intervention group [IG], n = 40 and CG, n = 40) and analysed statistically using SPSS. The paired sample t-test rejected the null hypotheses confirming the significant differences in the measure of variables for participants in the IG and CG. The thematic analysis of qualitative data collected by interviewing 10 child-mother dyads triangulated the quantitative results asserting the positive outcome of the intervention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Surveys were conducted in major chilli growing regions (nine districts) of Karnataka, India to assess the outbreak of thrips during November - December, 2021. The predominant thrips species identified in the surveyed fields was Thrips parvispinus, mainly observed on flowers, flower buds and leaves. In the surveyed areas, more than 75% of the chilli was infested by T. parvispinus that resulted in loss of more than 85% of the crop yield. Despite repeated applications of the insecticides, control failures were noticed. Hence there is an urgent need to bring management strategies to save the crop from T. parvispinus menace in future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bacteria play a central role in the oxidation of organic matter. In tropical estuaries, bacterial metabolic rates and carbon modification are regulated by physicochemical changes influenced by the annual monsoon-mediated river runoff. The present study is the first report on the effect of monsoon-influenced river discharge magnitude on bacterial metabolic rates and organic matter variation in the tropical Godavari estuary and adjacent coastal waters. Concentrations, nature, and sources of particulate organic carbon and nitrogen were investigated by elemental analyser-isotopic ratio mass spectrometer, whereas concentrations of dissolved organic carbon and nitrogen were determined by a high-temperature catalytic oxidation in surface waters of Godavari estuary, east coast of India. Bacterial abundance and metabolic rates were measured, and pCO2 levels were calculated for surface water samples. The maxima obtained in bacterial respiration (BR) rate (994 μg C l−1 d−1) were associated with maximum concentrations and the terrigenous nature of organic matter with high C:N ratio (∼12). The highly depleted δ13C POC (−32.9 ± 1.4‰) associated with Chl-a maxima suggest its contribution from freshwater planktons. The significant positive correlation of bacterial productivity (BP), bacterial growth efficiency (BGE), and BR with particulate organic matter associated with low DOC:POC ratio could imply a heterotrophic preference for an abundant form of organic matter. We, moreover, uncovered that terrigenous organic matter is modified efficiently in the estuarine transect by heterotrophic bacteria under favorable physicochemical conditions like low salinity and high nutrient content. Furthermore, the majority (76%) of BGE values were <8%, and average pCO2 levels were ∼14 times greater than the atmospheric levels. Overall, this study reported that the Godavari estuary is net heterotrophic and hence significantly contributes to global carbon cycle biogeochemistry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A field experiment was conducted at Agricultural College Farm, Bapatla (Andhra Pradesh), study the effect of different sowing dates on the yield and quality of different varieties of clusterbean. The experiment was laid out in factorial randomized block design replicated thrice, six dates of sowing from 15th September to 1st December at fifteen days interval and two clusterbean varieties viz. RGC-936 and RGC-1003. Results revealed thatgrowth parameters, yield attributes, yield (1568 kg ha-1) and quality parametersviz. gum content (31.6 %), protein content (30.1 %) and viscosity (3783 cP) were highest with RGC-1003 sown at 15thNovember, which was at par with 1st December sowing with same variety. The study results showed that the clusterbean crop can be grown successfully in non-traditional area as a rabi crop. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Indian Railways is the monopoly Organization under the control of the Central Government of India. During 2015–-16, the Indian Railways carried 8.107 billion passengers and has 8500 stations. There are about 24,313 unmanned level crossing exists in India. It has resulted in so many mishaps, and several fatalities reported. Hence there is an urgent need to design a system to implement automatic closing of unmanned level crossing to avoid accidents. This paper has developed a prototype model of automatic gate closing using a piezoelectric vibration sensor. In this model, the sensor has fixed before level crossing at feet distance to detect the arrival of a train. As soon as the train crosses the sensor, the signal is transmitted to the gate using the RF module. The receiver at the gate receives the signal, and it closes the gate within 30 s. The gate gets released automatically after 180 s, thus provide the safe passage of people and vehicles. The model is a cost-effective method and very easy to design and implement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As per the Magnitude of Substance Use in India 2019 survey report, over 57 million of the Indian population is in need of professional help for alcohol use disorders and around 7.7 million for opioid use disorders. The increasing demand for addiction treatment services in India calls for professionalising every aspect of the field. Frequent human rights violations and various unethical practices in Indian addiction treatment facilities have been reported in the mass media. This study is a content analysis of newspaper reports from January 1, 2016 to December 31, 2019 looking into legal, ethical and professional concerns regarding the treatment of substance use disorders in India. The content analysis revealed various human rights violations, the use of improper treatment modalities, the lack of basic facilities at treatment settings, and the presence of unqualified professionals in practice.

Introduction: Non-tuberculous mycobacteria (NTM) causing clinical disease have become increasingly common and more diverse. The development of fast, inexpensive, and reliable tests to identify nontuberculous mycobacteria is need of the hour especially under the Revised National TB Control Programme (RNTCP). The Aim of the study was to check the Diagnostic efficacy of the GenoType Mycobacterium CM/AS assay compared with HPLC and Biochemical Test for Identification of Non-Tuberculous Mycobacteria under the Revised Tuberculosis Control Programme., Methods and Result: It is a cross-sectional study, the suspected NTM culture isolates from the RNTCP accredited laboratories were sent to NRL for speciation and Identification. The culture positive isolates were subjected to Biochemical Identification Test, HPLC and LPA CM/AS. The LPA had 98.23% sensitivity, 50% specificity, 99.56% positive predictive value (PPV) and 20% Negative predictive value (NPV) when compared to HPLC considering Biochemical test as Gold reference standard. The comparison of HPLC and LPA for identification of each species using Mc Nemers Chi square test shown no significant difference between these tests., Conclusion: Considering Cost, Time and ease of performing the techniques, we recommend first do the basic biochemical test to rule out MTBC from NTM. Then do HPLC and further if results are unclear do LPA CM/AS kit for species confirmation., Significance and Impact of Study: NTM are emerging as important causative agents of pulmonary and extra pulmonary disease, the ability to recognize disease caused by NTM and subsequently treat such disease has become increasingly important. The identification of NTM up to its species level using HPLC and LPA CM/AS should gain importance in all TB reference Laboratories., (Copyright © 2018 Tuberculosis Association of India. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)