Population ecology of the endangered Himalayan Yew in Khokhan Wildlife Sanctuary of North Western Himalaya for conservation management

The Himalayan Yew （Taxus baccata subsp, wallichiana） is an endangered native high value medicinal plant of the Himalayan Region. The several medicinal properties of the bark and leaves of this species have increased its risk of extinction due to pressures for utilization. It is also subjected to harvest for fuelwood. The species does not regenerate well from seed and that is another risk factor. The objective of this research was to investigate the population ecology of the species as a foundation for its conservation. Six forest communities in the Khokhan Wildlife Sanctuary where the species is present were sampled. The abundance of the species, impacts of harvesting and its current regeneration patterns indicate that it may soon be extirpated from the Sanctuary. A plan for conserving the remaining sub-populations is presented. It could provide a template for conservation in other locations where the species is at risk.     

Early In-orbit Performance of Scanning Sky Monitor Onboard AstroSat

We report the in-orbit performance of Scanning Sky Monitor (SSM) onboard AstroSat. The SSM operates in the energy range 2.5 to 10 keV and scans the sky to detect and locate transient X-ray sources. This information of any interesting phenomenon in the X-ray sky as observed by SSM is provided to the astronomical community for follow-up observations. Following the launch of AstroSat on 28th September, 2015, SSM was commissioned on October 12th, 2015. The first power ON of the instrument was with the standard X-ray source, Crab in the field-of-view. The first orbit data revealed the basic expected performance of one of the detectors of SSM, SSM1. Following this in the subsequent orbits, the other detectors were also powered ON to find them perform in good health. Quick checks of the data from the first few orbits revealed that the instrument performed with the expected angular resolution of 12’ \(\times \) 2.5\(^\circ \) and effective area in the energy range of interest. This paper discusses the instrument aspects along with few on-board results immediately after power ON.     

Industrialisation in Fiji: Industrial structure and organisation

This paper analyses the significance, structure, and organisation of the manufacturing sector in Fiji, drawing on the author's earlier much larger study of industrialisation in Fiji. The latest Fijian census of industrial production (1984) and the author's 1983 survey of manufacturers in Fiji provide the main statistical basis of the study, which shows that the manufacturing sector is a moderately important component of the Fijian economy. It is dominated by resource industries, particularly food processing, but a wide range of manufacturing activities have, nonetheless, developed. There is a substantial number of small manufacturing establishments with a few large establishments, the latter, however, making an overwhelmingly important contribution to employment, gross output and value added. The market structure in the manufacturing sector is dominated by monopolies and oligopolies resulting from Fiji's small domestic market and its import substitution industrialisation strategy. There is an absence of informal sector activities in Fijian manufacturing, most firms being incorporated companies. The state has a major role as a direct producer in Fijian manufacturing. There are bound to be major changes in the manufacturing sector due to Fiji's current political crisis, but this paper does not address these because of the recency of the events and the consequent unavailability of relevant data.     

Seasonal cycle of surface circulation in the coastal North Indian Ocean

Monthly-mean winds and currents have been used to identify the driving mechanisms of seasonal coastal circulation in the North Indian Ocean. The main conclusions are: (i) the surface circulation off Arabia is typical of a wind-driven system with similar patterns of longshore current and wind stress; (ii) circulation off the west coast of India is consistent with the dynamics of a wind-driven eastern boundary current only during the southwest monsoon. During the northeast monsoon it is possible that the influence of the interior flow is important. (iii) There are at least three mechanisms that influence the surface circulation off the east coast of India: wind-stress, influence of fresh-water run off and contribution of the interior flow. It is difficult at present to assess the relative importance of these three processes.     

Long-Term variability of the indian summer monsoon and related parameters

The long-term variability of the Indian summer monsoon rain-fall and related regional and global param-eters are studied. The cubic spline is used as a digital filter to smooth the high frequency signals in the time series of the various parameters. The length of the data series varies from 95 to 115 years during the period 1871-1985. The parameters studied within the monsoon system are: (a) monsoon rainfall of the country as a whole; (b) number of break-monsoon days during July and August; (c) number of storms/ depressions in Bay of Bengal and Arabian Sea during summer monsoon season; and (d) dates of onset of summer monsoon over South Kerala Coast. The parameters studied outside the monsoon system are: (a) the Wright’s Southern Oscillation Index (June-July-August); (b) the January mean Northern Hemi-spheric surface air temperature anomaly; and (c) the East-equatorial Pacific sea surface temperature anomaly.In order to examine the variability under various degrees of the smoothing, the series are filtered with splines of 50% variance reduction frequency of one cycle per 10, 20 and 30 years. It is observed that the smoothed time series of the parameters within the monsoon system comprise a common slowly varying com-ponent in an episodic manner distinctly showing the excess and deficient rainfall epochs. The change of intercorrelations between the time series with increasing degree of smoothing throws some light on the time scales of the dominant interactions. The relation between Southern Oscillation and East equatorial Pacific sea surface temperature and the Indian summer monsoon seems to be dominant on the interannual scale. The low frequency variations are found to have significantly contributed to the instability of the correlations of monsoon rainfall with parameters outside the monsoon system.     

Regional changes in food poverty in India

Using average nutritive values of food actually consumed by individuals, this paper identifies regional concentration of hunger (food poverty) and its changes over time in rural India. There is clearly a heavy concentration of hunger in the coastal states of India, with few exceptions, which has persisted over time. Hunger has declined in about half the states of India but has increased in the remaining half. Unfortunately, it seems to have increased in the states that are relatively prosperous and are surplus producers of food. Hence, increased production of food, though important, does not necessarily reduce hunger. A redeeming conclusion of the study is that there has been a general improvement in the quality of food intake, particularly in the states where food poverty has declined.     

Optimization of the raingauges for a representative all-India and subdivisional rainfall series

Summary An objective approach similar to the forward selection of independent variables in the multiple linear regression has been attempted to optimize the network of raingauges for the summer monsoon rainfall (June–September total) series (1871–1984) of India as well as its 29 selected meteorological subdivisions prepared involving the data of 306 raingauges. For the all-India monsoon rainfall series twenty seven gauges entered the selection whose mean showed the correlation coefficient (CC) of 0.9869. Keeping in view the difficulties of getting data from all the 306 gauges, 35 India Meteorological Department (IMD) gauges with mean showing CC of 0.9898 have been identified for updating this series. The constructed all-India monsoon rainfall series for the period 1871–1992 using 35 selected observations is presented. It was interesting to note that the set of 35 gauges selected for the monsoon total has shown equally promising results for the all-India monsoon monthly (June–September) as well as the annual rainfall series.For the 29 subdivisional monsoon rainfall series, however, in total 188 IMD-gauges (62% of the total of 306 gauges) entered the selection. For 17 subdivisions the CC exceeded 0.98, for 3 subdivisions it varied between 0.97 and 0.98, for 5 subdivisions between 0.96 and 0.97 and for the remaining 4 subdivisions between 0.90 and 0.94. They showed equally encouraging results for the monsoon monthly and annual rainfall series for the different subdivisions.Limitations and implications of the optimization technique are also briefly discussed.With 9 Figures     

SporadicE ionization associated with meteor events

Two meteor events which were sighted in the Gujarat skies of India, were accompained by the visibility of sporadicE ionization on the ionograms recorded at Ahmedabad (Geog. Lat. 23·2°N, long. 72·30°E). The first event was the Dhajala fireball which flashed into the geoatmosphere along an E-N to W-S trail at about 20·40 h IST on 28 January 1976; the closest distance of the ground projection of meteor trail from Ahmedabad was 50km. The other event was a possible meteor group sighted over Ahmedabad on 28 May 1978, at about 21·10 h IST. This work describes the nature of the sporadicE ionization observed on Ahmedabad ionograms during the two events. Features of theEs echo during the Dhajala event which indicate that it could be of meteoric origin are discussed. Meteor theory is used to relate the observed ionization with the physical dimensions of the Dhajala meteorite as obtained by other workers.     

A comparative study of different dielectric models—computation of representative dielectric profiles of black soils

The dielectric property of the soil is an important parameter for microwave remote sensing. Therefore an attempt is made to study and compare the models for the dielectric constant of moist soils by considering three soil types namely Haldi series (sandy loam), Hathiapathar series (silt loam) and Jambria series (clay) and at frequencies 1.4, 4.0 and 18.0 GHz. The semiempirical models of Wang et al. (1980) and Dobson et al (1985) predict more or les same results in the domain of their applicability. However, at lower frequencies below 1.0 GHz, the imaginary part of dielectric constant shows a decreasing trend with decreasing frequency for Wang et al (1980) model whereas it shows reverse trend for Dobson et al (1985) model. The soil texture and frequency dependence of dielectric constant have been investigated for Indian soils. Some of the representative dielectric profiles of black soils of Pune have been computed using semiempirical model of Dobson et al (1985) which are useful for the development of multifrequency models for the study of soil moisture.     

Holocene climatic changes over northwest India: An appraisal

Multidisciplinary studies of the climatic conditions of the present-day arid regions of the northwest Indian region indicate phases of distinct change during the recent post-glacial period. In view of the topical importance of the subject, and the sources of information being scattered throughout multidiscipli-nary research journals, an attempt has been made to summarize and present a coherent picture of the climate of the present-day desert regions of northwest India for the Holocene period. The present-day climatology and physiography of the region is presented as introductory material. The important studies which throw some light on the glacial arid phase, the wet phase, coinciding with the Harappan civilization, and the present-day arid phase are reviewed.