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The research study was conducted in Thoubal and Bishnupur districts of Manipur state during 2020-21 to analyze the perception of aromatic black rice growers towards mission organic value chain development scheme (MOVCDS) and to find out the association between the profile characteristics of aromatic black rice growers with their perception towards MOVCDS. One hundred and eighty aromatic rice growers were interviewed using a pre-tested interview schedule. The results revealed that a vast majority (81.67 %) of aromatic black rice growers had good to better level of perception towards MOVCDS. Education, organic farming experience, livestock possession, crop productivity, achievement motivation, aspiration, management orientation, economic motivation, risk orientation, innovative proneness, mass media exposure, training on organic farming, extension agency contact and extension participation of aromatic black rice growers had significant to highly significant association with their perception towards MOVCDS. All the 20 profile characteristics of aromatic black rice growers had contributed to the tune of 71.69 per cent in developing a better perception towards MOVCDS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Groundwater water and its availability in India has become one of the serious problems in recent years. In the last five decades, the intensive groundwater extraction through shallow tube wells is reflected in tube well numbers, which have increased tremendously since the previous 35 years. In Indian villages, there is an increasing number of bore wells or tube wells installed on farms or near their houses. More than 80.00 per cent of farmers are dependent on Groundwater for drinking, domestic use, and agriculture. There has been a recent focus on understanding the attitudes and practices of rural farmers in enhancing their groundwater conservation practices. Farmer's positive or negative attitudes towards groundwater conservation practices can affect their behaviors on adopting those conservation practices. This study aims to provide much-needed empirical data about rural farmers' attitudes towards groundwater conservation. Results from a survey of 32 farmers of the eastern dry zone of Karnataka indicated that most of the farmers have a more favourable (34.37 %) to favorable Attitude (31.25%) towards groundwater conservation and water-saving practice. The mean attitude score of different factors influencing the Attitude of farmers towards groundwater conservation is also mentioned in the present paper. These findings highlight that there is still substantial potential to be harvested from the central institutes to the local government in India through groundwater conservation measures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Progressiveness is characterized as the steady improvement in an individual. Farmer being a central element in development programmes need to have character of progressiveness for reaping the benefits from the programmes. In this regard a study was conducted to measure farmer progressiveness in Chittoor district of Andhrapradesh by considering 30 paddy and 30 groundnut farmers. The results of the study revealed that paddy and groundnut farmers have a progressiveness mean scores of 63.31 and 65.98. The progressiveness level of paddy (40.00 %) and groundnut (36.67 %) farmers were noticed to be in high category indicating that agricultural programmes have brought sufficient improvement in their knowledge levels. Further dimension wise comparison had shown that agricultural and economic components were contributing more to the progressiveness whereas social, individual, household and environmental progressiveness were not contributing much, which indicates that agricultural development programmes need to be comprehensive by including all the factors for all round improvement of the farmers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study was conducted in Belagavi and Bagalkot districts of Karnataka during 2020-21 to know the awareness of sugarcane growers about crisis and crisis management. Data was elicited from 80 head reach, 80 mid reach and 80 tail end sugarcane growers constituting to a total sample size of 240. The results revealed that 47.50 per cent of head reach sugarcane growers belongs to good awareness category followed by poor (30.00 %) and better (22.50 %) awareness categories. Similarly, 38.75 per cent of mid reach sugarcane growers belongs to good awareness category followed by poor (33.75 %) and better (27.50 %). 36.25 per cent of tail end sugarcane growers belongs to good awareness category followed by poor (33.75 %) and better (30.00 %) awareness category. With respect to overall sugarcane growers' awareness, significant percentage of sugarcane growers belongs to good awareness category with 40.83 per cent followed by poor (30.42 %) and better (28.75 %) awareness categories. With respect to statement wise awareness of sugarcane growers about crisis and its management the results revealed that crisis management means aftermath rehabilitation (32.92 %), crisis management was a concern of government (38.75 %), Television was major source of crisis information (25.83 %), agricultural crisis management is concerned with providing relief by government agencies (25.83 %), storing adequate fodder for livestock crisis management (28.33 %) and creating awareness and providing technical help is role of government in crisis management (30.00 %). Floods was major crisis faced (40.00 %), delay in payments was cause of price crisis (34.17 %), planned planting of cane as flood management in sugarcane (27.92 %), acute water shortage was cause of lower sugarcane productivity (27.50 %) and governments role is to take actions against factories for delayed payments (40.00 %). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Water hyacinth is the most serious aquatic weed in water body causing enormous problems to the economics and the environment. The design of a particular program of water hyacinth control is not an easy task. A strategic plan has to be developed to control the growth of aquatic weed and socio economic constrains, which may prevent the practice of any particular control method. The present paper briefly describes the methodology for controlling the growth of water hyacinth in small scale. Though there are several methods to control water hyacinth which include manual pulling, mechanical harvesting and biological control (introduction of weevils that weaken the water hyacinth root system). Each method has its own economic and environment constrains for which practical advice is needed. Therefore, technically sound programme of control of weed should be rationally developed and implemented. With this background, a pilot study was carried out to use Alternanthera philoxeroides - Alligator weed, to control water hyacinth and its impact on growth and development of water hyacinth. Results revealed that the tanks treated with Alternanthera philoxeroides stems reduced the stem length of Eichhornia gradually which varied from 58.07 to 76.87 per cent when compared to the control, Eichhornea (22 %) or application of the water containing leachates of the Alternanthera philoxeroides to the Eichhornea tanks at 20 days 40 days old leachate there was significant reduction in fresh weight from 65 to 85 per cent implying there was some inhibitory effect on growth of Eichhornea due to application of leachates. Similar trend was noticed in reduction of fresh weight of Eichhornea (57 to 77%) where Alternanthera philoxeroides stems were added. In treatment where All-male genetically improved farmed tilapia (GIFT) fish also showed reduction in fresh weight of Eichhornea. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective This study was done with the aim to compare the clinical outcome and patient's quality of life between early (within 24 hours post-injury) versus delayed (after 24 hours to 7 days) surgically treated patients of acute cervical spinal cord injury. The current study was based on the hypothesis that early surgical decompression and fixations in acute cervical spinal cord trauma are safe and are associated with improved outcome as compared with delayed surgical decompression. Methods A total of 54 patients were recruited and divided into early decompression surgery group A (operated within 24 hours of trauma; n = 25) and late/delayed decompression surgery group B (operated between 24 hours and 7 days of trauma; n = 29). The patients in both groups were followed up, and comparative differences noted in the neurological outcome, quality of life, and bony fusion. Results The early surgery group had lesser postoperative complications. In group A, 54.17% patients had 1 American Spinal Injury Association Impairment Scale (AIS) grade improvement, while 29.17% experienced > 2 AIS grade improvement (p = 0.015). In group B, the neurological improvement was 50 and 21.43%, respectively (p = 0.003). There was a significant improvement in the postoperative quality of life scores in early surgery group. Conclusion Early surgery in patients with acute cervical spinal cord injury should be considered strongly in view of the lesser complications, better neurological recovery, and reduced mortality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction Delay in doing cranioplasty (CP) after decompressive craniectomy (DC) may cause motor, cognitive, and language deficits. Studies show doing CP before developing such symptoms helps in improving the outcome. CP improves cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) dynamics and cerebral blood flow, which may lead to better cognitive and functional outcome. Objective The aim of the study was to assess cognitive and functional outcomes of early versus delayed cranioplasty (DCP) after DC. Methodology This was a prospective observational study on 42 patients aged over 16 years and up to 70 years, who had undergone CP after DC for severe traumatic brain injury in in-patient and outpatient department of neurosurgery at a tertiary care hospital in Bhubaneswar, Odisha, India from the period of March 01, 2016 to December 31, 2017. Cognitive and functional outcomes were compared in early and DCP groups in preoperative and follow-up period at 1 month, 3 months, and 6 months. Early cranioplasty (ECP) was within 2 months, and DCP was beyond 2 months. Results Total sample size under this study was 42; 21 in ECP and 21 in DCP group. Mean age was 41.40 ± 15.95 years. The age distribution was quite young with 38.1% in 30 to 49 age group and had very high proportion of males (85.7%).This analysis revealed that both the ECP and DCP groups have resulted in significant improvement in mini-mental state examination (MMSE) and Glasgow Outcome Scale Extended (GOSE) score after CP. But in the ECP group, there has been steady and significant improvement in MMSE and GOSE score at different follow-ups starting from postoperative 1 month in MMSE score and from 3 months up to 6 months in GOSE score. Conclusion Neurosurgeon should evaluate and carefully monitor each individual case and take up CP as early as possible with suitable indication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]