Journal articles on the topic 'Landscape assessment – India – History'

In 1981, as a result of Dr Sálim Ali's assessment of the deteriorating status of the great Indian bustard, the Bombay Natural History Society embarked on a five-year project to study the ecology and distribution of the bird. The author, who has worked on the great Indian bustard in three places in India and who took part in the BNHS bustard project, describes its findings.

Background Large carnivores maintain the stability and functioning of ecosystems. Currently, many carnivore species face declining population sizes due to natural and anthropogenic pressures. The leopard, Panthera pardus, is probably the most widely distributed and highly adaptable large felid globally, still persisting in most of its historic range. However, we lack subspecies-level data on country or regional scale on population trends, as ecological monitoring approaches are difficult to apply on such wide-ranging species. We used genetic data from leopards sampled across the Indian subcontinent to investigate population structure and patterns of demographic decline. Methods We collected faecal samples from the Terai-Arc landscape of northern India and identified 56 unique individuals using a panel of 13 microsatellite markers. We merged this data with already available 143 leopard individuals and assessed genetic structure at country scale. Subsequently, we investigated the demographic history of each identified subpopulations and compared genetic decline analyses with countrywide local extinction probabilities. Results Our genetic analyses revealed four distinct subpopulations corresponding to Western Ghats, Deccan Plateau-Semi Arid, Shivalik and Terai region of the north Indian landscape, each with high genetic variation. Coalescent simulations with microsatellite loci revealed a possibly human-induced 75–90% population decline between ∼120–200 years ago across India. Population-specific estimates of genetic decline are in concordance with ecological estimates of local extinction probabilities in these subpopulations obtained from occupancy modeling of the historic and current distribution of leopards in India. Conclusions Our results confirm the population decline of a widely distributed, adaptable large carnivore. We re-iterate the relevance of indirect genetic methods for such species in conjunction with occupancy assessment and recommend that detailed, landscape-level ecological studies on leopard populations are critical to future conservation efforts. Our approaches and inference are relevant to other widely distributed, seemingly unaffected carnivores such as the leopard.

In the early 1920s, a young British woman visiting India met the man she would subsequently marry. As the woman's daughter later revealed, she and her companions “were just sitting down to dinner when he came in through the door and one of the bearers came forward to take his gun and clean it, but my father would have none of that. He always cleaned his own gun before he did anything else. This impressed my mother.” If the narrative halted here, the contemporary reader might construe the story as yet another example of traditional gender dynamics. The love-struck young woman admiringly observes the male imperialist's competent, professional handling of his firearm, symbol both of his mastery over the colonized Indian landscape and its people and of his masculine sexual prowess. In this instance, however, the young woman was no passively adoring female quivering before this symbolic display of male power and sexuality. She herself, as her daughter revealed, had been “brought up with guns” and was a “crack shot.” Her admiration for the man who would become her husband stemmed not from feelings of awe or feminine inadequacy but rather from her cool assessment that here was someone who was her equal—and could be her partner—in hunting, shooting, and handling of firearms. Indeed as their daughter recalled, the successful marriage between these two gun aficionados was based in part on the wife's participation in her husband's hunting duties as an officer in the Indian Forest Service.

Artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms have changed the landscape of Cardio Vascular Disease (CVD) risk assessment and demonstrated a better performance mainly due to its ability to handle the input nonlinear variations. Further, it has the flexibility to add risk factors derived from medical imaging modalities using Computer Vision (CV). Most commonly used algorithms in CVD risk predications were classification and regression tress (CART). Though most of the developed models have shown good accuracy but have not considered risks factors or dependent variables related to specific population which plays an integral role in predicting the risk of CVDs. This Include gender specific clinical risk factors (hormonal changes, bone density etc.), metrological, chronological data, exposure to environmental pollutants, race, genotype, hereditary, dietary intake, physical inactivity, psychological stress etc. Secondly the existing models have not included the weighing and grading of the risks, as all factors won’t contribute equally to the Cardiac Risk. Importantly predictive models can be readily used within the populations in which they were developed but practically they often give a less than satisfactory performance, when applied to another population because of the Inter genetic variations especially in CVDs. India accounts for one-fifth of these deaths worldwide especially in younger population. The results of Global Burden of Disease study state age-standardized CVD death rate of 272 per 100000 populations in India, which is much higher than that of global average of 225. CVDs strike Indians a decade earlier than the western population. For Indians, particular causes of concern in CVD are early age of onset, rapid progression and high mortality rate. Indians are known to have the highest coronary artery disease (CAD) rates, and the conventional risk factors fail to explain this increased risk. In Indian context, aggressive screening tests should begin at an early age and will be beneficial for early detection and treatment to reduce the mortality. Hence there is necessity to develop upgraded AI models specific to a subset of population (Indian, Caucasoid, Dravidian etc.) inclusive of the risk factors in that specific population. Secondly allotting weighing, grading of risk factors in the model will provide accurate cardiac risk prediction compared to other approaches. The regulatory and policy landscape for AI is an emerging issue in jurisdictions globally, including in the European Union and in supra-national bodies like the IEEE, OECD and others. Since 2016, a wave of AI ethics guidelines has been published in order to maintain social control over the technology.

I believe that no country ever stood so much in need of a code of laws as India; and I believe also that there never was a country in which the want might so easily be supplied. I said that there were many points of analogy between the state of that country after the fall of the Mogul power, and the state of Europe after the fall of the Roman empire. In one respect the analogy is very striking.As there were in Europe then, so there are in India now, several systems of law widely differing from each other, but coexisting and coequal. The indigenous population has its own laws. Each of the successive races of conquerors has brought with it its own peculiar jurisprudence: the Mussulman his Koran and the innumerable commentators on the Koran; the Englishman his Statute Book and his Term Reports. As there were established in Italy, at one and the same time, the Roman Law, the Lombard law, the Ripuarian law, the Bavarian law, and the Salic law, so we have now in our Eastern empire Hindoo law, Mahometan law, Parsee law, English law, perpetually mingling with each other and disturbing each other, varying with the person, varying with the place.–Thomas Babington MacaulayOn July 10 1833, in his lengthy and famous speech on the “Government of India” delivered to the House of Commons, Thomas Babington Macaulay offered a brief but fascinating spatial-temporal assessment of the exigencies confronting British legal reform in India. As his above-cited remarks suggest, Macaulay was well acquainted with the subcontinent's rich landscape of multiple legalities and was particularly attuned to the challenges this legal plurality posed to British rule. At the same time, his observations serve as an astute testament to law's travels. Macaulay's speech addressed a range of politically charged issues, including allegations of scandal and corruption surrounding the East India Company's administration. By the end, however, he turned from justifying and defending Company pursuits to persuading an attentive Parliament about the necessity and merits of legal codification. Given Macaulay's unwavering belief in the superiority of Britain (and Europe)—most clearly articulated in his developmentalist analogy between “Europe then” and “India now”—the most plausible itinerary of law's movements was a unidirectional one: law originated in metropolitan London and moved outward to India and elsewhere. However, in advancing his case for codification, Macaulay inadvertently exposed many other laws and their respective circuits of travel. India was difficult to govern precisely because it was a terrain of legal mobility; the residues of other people, places, and times produced a polyglot existence of “Hindoo law, Mahometan law, Parsee law, English law, perpetually mingling with each other and disturbing each other.” What India needed most, Macaulay urged, was a systematized, standardized, and codified rule of law that was to be introduced and imposed by the British: “A code is almost the only blessing, perhaps it is the only blessing, which absolute governments are better fitted to confer on a nation than popular governments.”

Abstract. In the history of mankind, one of the vibrant geographical phenomena is urbanization. The urbanization process is characterized by the expansion of the city from the core to peripheral areas which includes economic development, social, political forces and population density. Very rapid urbanization in the highly populated country like India, which changes natural land cover into urban land use, which is unavoidable. However, the study region Tiruppur is known as the knitwear capital of India that induces urban development in the region which results in the modification of the natural land cover. For understating the interaction between the natural landscape and human activities, land use and land cover (LULC) is considered as the important indicator. Research on land-use and land cover changes using remote sensing technology has a long history to evident. The advancement in the Remote Sensing and GIS techniques provide the fine resolution of data sets to proceed. Sentinel-2B imagery was chosen for this study for two main reasons one is that compare to Landsat imagery it has a high spatial resolution of 10 m and its radiometry includes three vegetation red edge bands. These two characteristics make the Sentinel-2B data appealing for LULC mapping. Different types of classification algorithms have been used to perform land use and land cover mapping. The study aims to create land use and land cover classification by making a comparison between different algorithms in Tiruppur by using Sentinel-2B satellite imagery. The commonly known classification algorithms, K-means, IsoData, support vector machines (SVMs), and maximum likelihood (ML) classification are adopted for investigation. This is followed by the selection of training pixels from the remaining classes to perform and compare different supervised learning algorithms for the first- and second-level classification in terms of accuracy rates. Accuracy was assessed through metrics derived from an error matrix, but primarily overall accuracy and kappa coefficient was used in allocating algorithm hierarchy. Finally, after the comparison, the highly accurate algorithm was suggested for the mapping of urban areas. The highest overall accuracy and kappa coefficient was produced by support vector machine (SVM) is due to the algorithm’s relatively small number of complex decision boundaries. The results are helpful to understand the performance of the classification algorithm for the future studies.

Prioritising weeds for control and deciding upon the type of control and its associated investment are fundamental to weed management planning. Risk analysis is central to this process, combining the activities of risk assessment, risk management and risk communication. Risk assessment methodology has a rich history, but management feasibility has typically been a secondary matter, dealt with separately or not at all. Determinants of management feasibility for weeds include the stage of invasion, weed biology, means of control and cost of weed control. Here, we describe a simple weed risk analytical screen that combines risk assessment with species traits that influence management feasibility. We consider stage of invasion, species biological/dispersal characteristics and plant community invasibility in a preliminary analysis of the risk posed by the non-native plant species on Christmas Island in the Indian Ocean. For each of 31 high-risk species considered to be ineradicable under existing funding constraints, we analyse the risk posed to two major plant communities: evergreen closed-canopy rainforest and semi-deciduous scrub forest. Weed risk ratings are combined with ratings for species-intrinsic feasibility of containment (based on a measure that combines time to reproduction with potential for long distance dispersal) to create preliminary rankings for containment specific to each community. These rankings will provide a key input for a more thorough analysis of containment feasibility – one that considers spatial distributions/landscape features, management aspects and the social environment. We propose a general non-symmetric relationship between weed risk and management feasibility, considering risk to be the dominant component of risk analysis. Therefore, in this analysis species are ranked according to their intrinsic containment feasibility within similar levels of risk to produce an initial prioritisation list for containment. Shade-tolerant weeds are of particular concern for the closed-canopy evergreen rainforest on Christmas Island, but a greater diversity of weeds is likely to invade the semi-deciduous scrub forest because of higher light availability. Nevertheless, future invasion of both communities will likely be conditioned by disturbance, both natural and anthropogenic. The plant communities of Christmas Island have undergone significant fragmentation because of clearing for phosphate mining and other purposes. With a substantial number of invasive plant species firmly established and having the potential to spread further, minimising future anthropogenic disturbance is paramount to reducing community invasibility and therefore conserving the island’s unique biodiversity.

In recent decades, dengue has been expanding rapidly in the tropical cities. Even though environmental factors and landscape features profoundly impact dengue vector abundance and disease epidemiology, significant gaps exist in understanding the role of local environmental heterogeneity on dengue epidemiology in India. In this study, we assessed the role of remotely sensed climatic factors (rainfall, temperature and humidity) and landscape variables (land use pattern, vegetation and built up density) on dengue incidence (2012–2019) in Bhopal city, Central India. Dengue hotspots in the city were assessed through geographical information system based spatial statistics. Dengue incidence increased from 0.59 cases in 2012 to 9.11 cases in 2019 per 10,000 inhabitants, and wards located in Southern Bhopal were found to be dengue hotspots. Distributed lag non-linear model combined with quasi Poisson regression was used to assess the exposure-response association, relative risk (RR), and delayed effects of environmental factors on dengue incidence. The analysis revealed a non-linear relationship between meteorological variables and dengue cases. The model shows that the risk of dengue cases increases with increasing mean temperature, rainfall and absolute humidity. The highest RR of dengue cases (~2.0) was observed for absolute humidity ≥60 g/m3 with a 5–15 week lag. Rapid urbanization assessed by an increase in the built-up area (a 9.1% increase in 2020 compared to 2014) could also be a key factor driving dengue incidence in Bhopal city. The study sheds important insight into the synergistic effects of both the landscape and climatic factors on the transmission dynamics of dengue. Furthermore, the study provides key baseline information on the climatic variables that can be used in the micro-level dengue prediction models in Bhopal and other cities with similar climatic conditions.

The paper deals with the formation of the center of research landscape in Lviv. Basic directions of researches of landscapes which he conducts are exposed. The assessment of collective and personal scientific achievements Lviv researches landscapes, their role is certain in development of Ukrainian science about a landscape. Key words: landscape studies, center of landscape studies, school of landscapestudies, Ukrainian landscape science.

The trees of parks and gardens support many species, the survival of urban-dwelling species mainly bird species. Birds amongst other species provide a wide range of environmental and social functions to cities and urban dwellers. The present study aims to know bird diversity in two parks as bioindicator of automobile air pollution exposure, landscape changes and/or human interactions. The study areas were selected as per heavily-populated neighborhoods, nearby office buildings, nearby roads and continuous vehicular movements, human interactions as visitors, where high levels of human disturbance are common. The study was carried out at 2 sampling stations viz (i) Elliot park and (ii) Agri-horticulture Society. The bird species diversity was studied by qualitative and quantitative assessment. Indices were Species richness, Index of Dominance, Relative abundance, Shannon-Wiener Diversity Index and Evenness Index for birds for all selected sites were calculated using the statistical formulae. The present results as bioindicators bird species clearly indicate that the bird species are very few in numbers in both the parks. When comparison made between both the parks, it was observed less number of bird varieties (16 types) in Elliot park than varieties (9 types) more less in number in Agri-horticulture society. This study is a preliminary assessment of bird diversity but further researches are needed in relation to biochemical and genetic damage study as well as air pollution load by using instruments. In the present study it was concluded that the less numbers of birds and their different diversity indices were found a decreasing trends, though there no attempt has been made on physico-chemical properties of present air pollutants. The less number of varieties of bird species are as tolerant bioindicators, which may be due to the vehicular pollution and/or human interference and/or landscape changes due to nearby neighborhood blocks, office and residential buildings, continuous movement of vehicles etc

The trees of parks and gardens support many species, the survival of urban-dwelling species mainly bird species. Birds amongst other species provide a wide range of environmental and social functions to cities and urban dwellers. The present study aims to know bird diversity in two parks as bioindicator of automobile air pollution exposure, landscape changes and/or human interactions. The study areas were selected as per heavily-populated neighborhoods, nearby office buildings, nearby roads and continuous vehicular movements, human interactions as visitors, where high levels of human disturbance are common. The study was carried out at 2 sampling stations viz (i) Elliot park and (ii) Agri-horticulture Society. The bird species diversity was studied by qualitative and quantitative assessment. Indices were Species richness, Index of Dominance, Relative abundance, Shannon-Wiener Diversity Index and Evenness Index for birds for all selected sites were calculated using the statistical formulae. The present results as bioindicators bird species clearly indicate that the bird species are very few in numbers in both the parks. When comparison made between both the parks, it was observed less number of bird varieties (16 types) in Elliot park than varieties (9 types) more less in number in Agri-horticulture society. This study is a preliminary assessment of bird diversity but further researches are needed in relation to biochemical and genetic damage study as well as air pollution load by using instruments. In the present study it was concluded that the less numbers of birds and their different diversity indices were found a decreasing trends, though there no attempt has been made on physico-chemical properties of present air pollutants. The less number of varieties of bird species are as tolerant bioindicators, which may be due to the vehicular pollution and/or human interference and/or landscape changes due to nearby neighborhood blocks, office and residential buildings, continuous movement of vehicles etc

China and India are already major players in the global economy. However, their impact in coming decades on the world's economic and strategic landscape will depend … on how each deals with its structural and economic challenges.

Rapid urbanization rates impact significantly on the nature of Land Cover patterns of the environment, which has been evident in the depletion of vegetal reserves and in general modifying the human climatic systems (Henderson, et al., 2017; Kumar, Masago, Mishra, & Fukushi, 2018; Luo and Lau, 2017). This study explores remote sensing classification technique and other auxiliary data to determine LULCC for a period of 50 years (1967-2016). The LULCC types identified were quantitatively evaluated using the change detection approach from results of maximum likelihood classification algorithm in GIS. Accuracy assessment results were evaluated and found to be between 56 to 98 percent of the LULC classification. The change detection analysis revealed change in the LULC types in Minna from 1976 to 2016. Built-up area increases from 74.82ha in 1976 to 116.58ha in 2016. Farmlands increased from 2.23 ha to 46.45ha and bared surface increases from 120.00ha to 161.31ha between 1976 to 2016 resulting to decline in vegetation, water body, and wetlands. The Decade of rapid urbanization was found to coincide with the period of increased Public Private Partnership Agreement (PPPA). Increase in farmlands was due to the adoption of urban agriculture which has influence on food security and the environmental sustainability. The observed increase in built up areas, farmlands and bare surfaces has substantially led to reduction in vegetation and water bodies. The oscillatory nature of water bodies LULCC which was not particularly consistent with the rates of urbanization also suggests that beyond the urbanization process, other factors may influence the LULCC of water bodies in urban settlements. Keywords: Minna, Niger State, Remote Sensing, Land Surface Characteristics References Akinrinmade, A., Ibrahim, K., & Abdurrahman, A. (2012). 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AbstractThis article considers the formation of moral and ethical worlds in India, drawing largely on cases reporting on modern times, as people interact with or imagine the landscapes in which they live. Questions of ethics, and how they are animated in practical existence through the experience of emotional ties and affective attachments to nature, near and far, have not always informed the writing of environmental history in India. In contrast, scholars in disciplines other than history have often paid attention to ethical and religious ideas about landscape and nature. This review argues that ethics of nature are developed in historical processes of community formation and identity-expression or self-making that occur in and through the imagination and experience of the natural world in religious and political action. Historical perspectives on these topics are useful and necessary, even as careful examination of how affect and worship shape attitudes to being in particular landscapes can enrich the understanding of meaningful relations to landscape and nature in environmental history. The argument is developed by a close examination of a handful of recent studies that have provided an empirical basis for this synthesis, review, and conceptual elaboration of the ethics of nature in India. The article considers the formation of ethical ideas and practical values of nature in realms of worship, natural resources management, rural development, conservation science, natural resources policy, and legal disputes relating to nature protection in India.

Insects are depends upon autotrophs and they attract by the flowers colour and shape as pollinator. This is a mutual relationship between flowers and insects. The present study aims to determine flower visiting insect diversity as pollinators in two parks as biomonitoring of automobile air pollution exposure, landscape changes and/or human interactions. The study areas were selected as per heavily-populated neighborhoods, nearby office buildings, nearby roads and continuous vehicular movements, human interactions as visitors, where fences and high levels of human disturbance are common. The study was carried out at 2 sampling stations viz (i) Elliot park and (ii) Agri-Horticulture Society. The flower species were selected viz. Helianthus annuus, Petunia sp. and Buganvilia spectabilis planting above mentioned areas because these species are more common among other species. In each flower, diversity of visiting insects were studied by qualitative and quantitative assessment. Indices were Species richness, Index of Dominance, Relative abundance, Shannon-Wiener Diversity Index and Evenness Index for insects for all selected sites were calculated using the statistical formulae. The present results clearly indicate that the flower visiting insects are very less in numbers on three flowering species and index values were decreased. This study is a preliminary assessment of flower visiting insects diversity but further researches are needed in relation to pollination efficiencies of flower visiting insects and biochemical and genetic damage study of flowers as well as air pollution load by using instruments. It was concluded that three flowering species viz. sunflower, petunia and bougainvillea are very common both the parks but insect visitors are common but present less in number, which may be due to the vehicular pollution and/or human interference and/or landscape changes due to nearby neighborhood blocks, office and residential buildings etc.

Insects are depends upon autotrophs and they attract by the flowers colour and shape as pollinator. This is a mutual relationship between flowers and insects. The present study aims to determine flower visiting insect diversity as pollinators in two parks as biomonitoring of automobile air pollution exposure, landscape changes and/or human interactions. The study areas were selected as per heavily-populated neighborhoods, nearby office buildings, nearby roads and continuous vehicular movements, human interactions as visitors, where fences and high levels of human disturbance are common. The study was carried out at 2 sampling stations viz (i) Elliot park and (ii) Agri-Horticulture Society. The flower species were selected viz. Helianthus annuus, Petunia sp. and Buganvilia spectabilis planting above mentioned areas because these species are more common among other species. In each flower, diversity of visiting insects were studied by qualitative and quantitative assessment. Indices were Species richness, Index of Dominance, Relative abundance, Shannon-Wiener Diversity Index and Evenness Index for insects for all selected sites were calculated using the statistical formulae. The present results clearly indicate that the flower visiting insects are very less in numbers on three flowering species and index values were decreased. This study is a preliminary assessment of flower visiting insects diversity but further researches are needed in relation to pollination efficiencies of flower visiting insects and biochemical and genetic damage study of flowers as well as air pollution load by using instruments. It was concluded that three flowering species viz. sunflower, petunia and bougainvillea are very common both the parks but insect visitors are common but present less in number, which may be due to the vehicular pollution and/or human interference and/or landscape changes due to nearby neighborhood blocks, office and residential buildings etc.

The article considers the history of the creation and development of the Islamic garden, the characteristic features of landscape gardening art in the Islamic style through the prism of the development of ancient gardens of the Temurid period, in particular, on examples of gardens in Central Asia, Afghanistan and India, and other countries, including their perspectives development, as well as proposals for the creation of modern landscape design. Today, with the urbanization and the growth of cities, less territory remains for the green zone, therefore one of the main problems throughout the world is the preservation of the environment, and especially landscape architecture. Gardening art has come a long way and many masterpieces have been irretrievably lost. Today, all aspects of the history and development of Islamic-style gardens and parks are still not disclosed. For this reason the issue of studying traditional Islamic-style gardens and, of course, reviving the traditional park-building culture of the Temurids and Baburids era was raised in Uzbekistan to create a green environment of historical sites and national parks. As a result of the research, the following were considered and identified: the history of the development of Islamic landscape design, the types of gardens in the Islamic style, the history of the creation of various gardens, their names, planning and compositional solutions, characteristic features, decorative techniques for building gardens in Central Asia, Afghanistan, India, technical and water devices used in the Temurid Gardens, as well as the importance of the Temurids dynasty in creating gardens and parks in Afghanistan and India. The conducted research, the experience of designing and creating Islamic gardens in Central Asia, Afghanistan, India and other countries will allow using the recommendations aimed at creating a modern garden in the Islamic style not only in Uzbekistan, but in other countries.

STS scholars studying anti-nuclear activism in the context of nations in the Global North have observed the critical role of science to mediate relations of domination and resistance. Through a historical examination of anti-nuclear activism in India, this article investigates the instrumentalization of science as a liberal democratic rationality. In doing so, the article shows how elite Indian activists – many of whom are scientists, engineers, journalists and academic professionals – will never be seen as scientifically knowledgeable in nuclear matters, because of their non-state educational pedigrees. If activists cannot hold the state accountable through science, they have attempted to anticipate what other kinds of arguments and modes of contention may gain traction. As such, they have deployed more ‘guerilla’ tactics grounded in bureaucratic rationalities in the hopes of installing themselves as alternate sources of expertise in India’s nuclear landscape.

Definitions of ‘historical archaeology’ frequently imply the use of documentary sources to contextualise the archaeological record and aid interpretation of its content. In this article, I underscore the importance of a complementary process of using the archaeological record to enrich interpretations of epigraphical sources from the medieval Deccan. Going beyond others’ critical calls to evaluate how interpretations of these inscriptional sources are shaped by biases in research practices, I will suggest that the substantive content of politicised donative stelae on the Raichur Doab was related to shifting material contexts of agricultural land use and the dynamic assemblages of cultigens, soils and water that facilitated production during the period. By contextualising inscriptional records and donative practices within an archaeologically documented landscape of changing production activities, one has a stronger epistemological basis for evaluating the social and political significance of the inscriptional archive and the historiography that it affords. In this case, it allows for the re-evaluation of historiographical tropes of the Raichur Doab’s value as ‘fertile’ agricultural space and provides a richer interpretation of how newly emergent social relationships and distinctions evident in eleventh–sixteenth-century inscriptions articulated with landscape histories.

This Presidential Address explores Korean Buddhist travel undertaken for religious training, missionary propagation, and devotional pilgrimage. By traveling to India and throughout East Asia, as well as to the mythic undersea bastion of the faith, Koreans demonstrated their associations with the wider world of Buddhist culture, whether it be terrestrial or cosmological. Simultaneous with continued travel overseas to the Chinese mainland and the Buddhist homeland of India, Koreans also brought those sacred sites home through a wholesale remapping of the domestic landscape. As local geography became universalized, there was less need for the long, dangerous journeys overseas to Buddhist sacred sites: instead, the geography of Buddhism became implicit within the indigenous landscape, turning Korea into the Buddha-land itself. Once this “relocalization” of Buddhism had occurred, Korean Buddhists were able to travel through the sacred geography of Buddhism from the (relative) comfort of their own locale.

This work reports the distribution of two rare Zingiberaceae, Globba spathulata and Hemiorchis pantlingii, in Dampa Tiger Reserve, a protected area, located in Mizoram, northeastern India. Both these species have a distribution restricted to the northeastern part of India and the adjoining countries of Bangladesh, Myanmar and northern Thailand. In this study, we enumerate the species, present their current global distribution and conduct a conservation assessment for them. The study indicates presence of rare floral species in the protected landscape, and a lack of ecological and conservation attention to the region. A conservation assessment conducted for both species, based on their existing global distribution and potential threats, identifies the species as ‘Vulnerable’.

Abstract The aim of this study was to ascertain the current condition of the Anchar lake water body in the Indian state of J&K in terms of water quality using some main parameters such as pH, TDS, EC, DO, and nitrates content. For the years 2019 and 2020, samples were obtained for two seasons: summer and winter. The quantitative analysis of the experimental results indicates a general increasing trend and considerable variance in nitrates content, as well as a gradual decrease in pH, indicating that the lake’s acidity is increasing, but only within the basicity range, with real values approaching neutrality: TDS and EC content suggest a very favorable situation, but when the overall parameters are tested, they show a defect. Since the sampling sites were well aerated, the dissolved oxygen content showed a growing pattern, and as a result, this metric proved to be useless in deciding the overall scenario in the lake. In the winter, the longitudinal trend line indicates a 10% decrease in pH, while in the summer, it shows a 4.4 percent decrease in pH. In winters, the longitudinal trend line reveals a 6.7 percent growth in nitrate content, while summers see a marginal decline. In the winter, the longitudinal trend line shows a 7% rise in dissolved oxygen, while in the summer, it shows a uniform trend.

Tobacco consumption is a huge public health issue in India and its impact is especially devastating among the poor. Effective tobacco control should be a top priority, both as a health issue and as a method to reduce poverty. Tobacco use is deeply ingrained as a cultural practice and there are a myriad of tobacco types. We reviewed multiple determinants of tobacco consumption including socio-economic status, marriage, population growth, marketing strategies, and price. We also considered the tobacco burden including economic and social costs and adverse health impacts especially those resulting from oral cancer. We then addressed the history of tobacco control legislation in India and challenges in implementation. Tobacco consumption in India is continuing to increase despite tobacco control policy. Needed are more visible and aggressive anti-tobacco campaigns including increased public awareness of tobacco harms and active engagement of worksites and health professionals in promoting tobacco cessation.

The intention of India’s Smart City Mission program is to achieve better living conditions in a sustainable environment with smart solutions. This program identifies the key challenges of urbanization and the environment. The mitigation of these challenges depends on the monitoring and assessment of multiple factors, including demography, education, health, and the environment; however, the inclusion of environmental factors are limited. The monitoring and assessment of environmental factors will continuously generate big data and hence would require scientific and technological innovation for a sustainable management plan. This study identifies six environmental factors, which should be integrated in the development of smart cities. These environmental factors include indicators of landscape and geography, climate, atmospheric pollution, water resources, energy resources, and urban green space as a major component of the environment. This paper also discusses the importance of these environmental components and the maintenance of big data in the management of smart cities.

Riparian ecosystems, the central elements in many landscapes, are described as an ecotone stretchedout across the landscape because of their shape diversity and function as filters and corridors still theyare most disturbed and threatened by humans. The present work deals with seasonal dynamics inplant diversity indices at two distinct sites (I and II) at ecotonal belts of River Gomati, Jaunpur (U.P.).The diversity indices of plant community have been computed on the basis of density values recordedfrom April, 2012 to March, 2013. Site I showed more species richness and evenness as compared tosite II. Shannon and Weaver, Evenness, Marglef’s, McIntosh and Menhinic diversity indices valueswere higher at site I compared to site II. In contrast, the concentration dominance showed highervalue at site II, whereas Simpson values of diversity have fluctuated in different seasons at both thesites (I and II). It finally deals to formulate strategies and methods for the management of plantdiversity and other natural resources based on various ecological studies, and logical grounds.DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3126/eco.v20i0.11444ECOPRINTAn International Journal of EcologyVol. 20, 2013Page: 71-76

Abstract:The role of sacred forest patches in maintaining biodiversity and offering ecosystem services is well established, though the functional aspects are understated. This study aims to understand the functional diversity of tree reproductive traits of sacred forest patches in an altered landscape. Twenty-five sacred groves in Palakkad region, Kerala, India, were chosen to assess the distribution of five reproductive traits – pollination mechanism, fruit size, seed number, seed size and dispersal mechanism – among the tree populations. The data matrix was analysed for overall trait-state distribution, functional diversity assessment and its relation to environmental parameters and disturbance in the area. A total of 87 woody species was documented with a fairly homogenized distribution of fruit and seed characters, with ≥50% of the recorded trait states in each grove in comparison to control plot. Pollination and dispersal mechanisms are dominated by a single guild. e.g. insects and birds, often generalist in nature. Functional richness had a strong correlation with Shannon's index and disturbance, but evenness and divergence were weakly related with others. Comparative assessment with null model showed no significant deviations from expected results indicating apparent lack of habitat filtering or resource competition among sacred groves. The trait homogenization and overall simplification of the grove biota is perhaps an outcome of rapid land-use change and its consequences on specialist members. This study shows sacred groves are important for maintaining a plethora of functional traits in the altered landscape. However, the prevalence of generalist mediators indicates maintenance of basic ecological functions in the landscape without support for specialist ones.

Objectives: To describe and explore the reasons for the current health technology assessment (HTA) landscape in the United States.Methods: Relying on multiple historical literature and other documents as well as drawing on personal experiences and observations, we describe, evaluate, and explain the evolving and dynamic HTA-related evidence landscape.Results: The present HTA-related landscape is a product of a dynamic, somewhat turbulent path in the United States. Many early aggressive federal efforts beginning in the 1970s were rejected in the 1980s only to be revived by the mid-1990s and continue to strengthen today, likely due to diffusing private sector political opposition from de-linking HTA from policy decisions (e.g., coverage, clinical guidelines) and omitting economic evaluation. Meanwhile, private sector HTA efforts have remained active during the entire period.Conclusions: The current HTA-related landscape is at least as dynamic as it has been at any point in its turbulent 30-year history and is likely to continue as health reform in the US is debated once again.

Roads are becoming one of the greater threats to avian fauna. In India, very few studies have been carried out to assess the mortality of avian fauna and other vertebrates. The data on the road kill survey was collected from Jan 2015 to Dec 2017. For the survey of a road-killed avian fauna, the road passing through the agricultural landscape (from Amravati to Paratwada) was selected based on geographical location and availability of vegetation diversity. The survey found a total of 694 carcasses of 38 different species belonging to 25 families that were killed on Amravati to Paratwada Highway. The highest mortality of Greater Coucal (Centropus sinensis) was recorded on Amravati to Paratwada state highway. While studying the seasonal variations, it was observed that the maximum mortality was found from June to September and the minimum from February to May.

The international seminar on Museums and the Changing Cultural Landscape, coordinated by Dr. Manvi Seth, was organized by the department of museology in the National Museum Institute of History of Art, Conservation and Museology in collaboration with the Ladakh Autonomous Hill Development Council (LAHDC) from 2–4 September 2012 at the Central Institute of Buddhist Studies (CIBS), Leh, Ladakh, India.

There are a large number of contested spaces, objects, monuments, historical figures, events and memories in North-eastern states of India. Their commemorations often incite historical controversies, which often spill into the fragile, contested political landscape of the region. The construction of a memorial park at the site of nineteenth century stone inscriptions recently dragged these inscriptions out from historical obscurity, and hence they became another site of contested history in the region. This article historicises the creation of these contested objects and commemorations, in the local and colonial archives, and subsequent writing of national histories in the region. It will also look at the entanglements and intertextualities between these archives and local histories, and how they produced these contested objects and their numerous histories.

Understanding the patterns of gene flow of an endangered species metapopulation occupying a fragmented habitat is crucial for landscape-level conservation planning and devising effective conservation strategies. Tigers ( Panthera tigris ) are globally endangered and their populations are highly fragmented and exist in a few isolated metapopulations across their range. We used multi-locus genotypic data from 273 individual tigers ( Panthera tigris tigris ) from four tiger populations of the Satpura–Maikal landscape of central India to determine whether the corridors in this landscape are functional. This 45 000 km 2 landscape contains 17% of India's tiger population and 12% of its tiger habitat. We applied Bayesian and coalescent-based analyses to estimate contemporary and historical gene flow among these populations and to infer their evolutionary history. We found that the tiger metapopulation in central India has high rates of historical and contemporary gene flow. The tests for population history reveal that tigers populated central India about 10 000 years ago. Their population subdivision began about 1000 years ago and accelerated about 200 years ago owing to habitat fragmentation, leading to four spatially separated populations. These four populations have been in migration–drift equilibrium maintained by high gene flow. We found the highest rates of contemporary gene flow in populations that are connected by forest corridors. This information is highly relevant to conservation practitioners and policy makers, because deforestation, road widening and mining are imminent threats to these corridors.

ABSTRACT Listen to the many women Listen to the many voices Spoken and unspoken1 On March 27, 1984, "The Times of India" reported that in Delhi, "a bride is burnt to death every twelve hours." 2 The number of dowry deaths has steadily increased in the 1980s and 1990s. Even though the official number of dowry deaths rose from 6,758 in 1996 to 7,543 in 1997,3 unofficial estimates of dowry deaths figure around a staggering 25,000 annually. 4 Classical socialist feminist traditions have inadequately addressed the widespread prevalence of this social practice. Drawing from primary and secondary sources, this article reconceptualizes and reframes the "legitimate" practice of dowry from a modified socialist feminist perspective. A modified capitalist patriarchal approach that includes caste and religion is necessary to expound the primacy of the phenomenon. As well, this critique suggests recommendations for social change. For: Through the eyes of women It is another way of seeing It is another way of knowing 5

This article argues that the languages of loyalty and affiliation that marked public and formal relations of service and hierarchy in medieval India, though traditionally understood as thinly veiled pretexts for class exploitation or self-aggrandizement, may instead be interpreted, when combined with other sorts of sources, as elements within a larger ethical landscape where men of rank shared varieties of companionship and intimacy with one another. The article will enter this realm of intimacy through an exploration of the emotions of grief and loss in two strangely parallel Chola-period friendships: one epigraphically documented to the tenth century, and the other recounted in an important contemporary hagiographical tradition. The article argues not only for the importance of male friendship and intimacy in the political and religious life of elites in medieval south India but also suggests that fragmented memories of particular lived experiences between individuals may have been embedded in or triggered by more idealized representations. I hope to suggest that there were not only structures of affect at work in the constitution of male intimacy but also models and paradigms.