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The purpose of this paper is to evaluate India's five year plan strategies for including the deprived in the development process since Independence.

This is a policy review paper based on past studies.

The paper argues that effective policy formulation for inclusion and its evaluation is conditioned by the available institutional capacity to generate and effectively utilize a sound information base. Using empirical illustrations based on past studies, this paper shows that India's pursuit of inclusion has been hampered because of the limited appreciation of design as well as limitations in available information. This has led to a mechanical pursuit of sophistication in policy formulation, which has rendered both the implementation and an honest evaluation of the policy process difficult.

This paper has relevance for inclusive policy reforms and will open up a debate, as well as future research, on the issues raised.

This study aims to create a systematic knowledge base on importance and utilization patterns of underrated pseudo-cereals prevalent in the northeastern hilly (NEH) region of India, namely, buckwheat, Job’s tears, chenopod and amaranth, enabling their diversified use to develop innovative food products from them. The information presented in the paper would facilitate scientists, trainers and young entrepreneurs in developing many novel food products from these underrated pseudo-cereals.

Major scientific information has been collected from Scopus, Web of Science and Google Scholar. Several keywords such as underrated crop, pseudo-cereals, buckwheat, chenopod, Job’s tears, amaranth, value addition and utilization were used to find the data. Relevant information was collected by using about 60 recent research and review articles.

The main findings of this comprehensive study include compiled record of utilization of underrated pseudo-cereals found in the NEH region of India and their scope to innovate smart food products.

The paper presents a comprehensive record of nutritional benefits and utilization status of the underrated pseudo-cereals available in the NEH region of India. This knowledge base would help both the researchers and other professional working in the processing of these crops.

Probiotic fermented foods are fast being recognized as health foods. Most of such foods are based on dairy products but little research work is available on coarse cereals and millets, which constitute the staple foods in developing countries. This paper aims to determine the effect of germination and fementation on nutrient composition of pearl millet based food blends.

Indigenously developed pearl millet based food blends containing raw and germinated pearl millet flour, whey powder and tomato pulp (2:1:1w/w) were autoclaved, cooled and fermented with 5 percent Lactobacillus acidophilus curd which supplied 10⁶cells/ml to the slurry at 37°C for 12 h. The unfermented blends, after autoclaving, served as controls. The developed food blends were subjected to nutritional evaluation by using the standard methods of analysis. The data were statistically analysed.

Pearl millet based, germinated, autoclaved and fermented, food blend maintained adequate cell viability (8.64 cfu g^‐1) as compared to non‐germinated food blend. Germination and probiotic fermentation caused significant improvement in the contents of thiamine, niacin, total lysine, protein fractions, sugars, soluble dietary fibre and in vitro availability of Ca, Fe and Zn of food blends.

Research is currently aimed at developing probiotic millet based food mixture, which had enhanced nutrient profile. Hence, it can be considered for commercialization after establishing its health/therapeutic implications among the population.

Dairy foods have preferentially been used as the carrier medium for probiotics. This paper explores the possibility of using staple foods as the carrier medium. The consumption of such food mixtures containing viable probiotic bacteria should be enhanced among consumers in term of their role in health maintenance and disease prevention.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the market structure and value chain of pearl millet grain and fodder in India. There is a decline in demand for human consumption, with an increase in demand for non-food uses like cattle and poultry feed, raw material for starch and breweries industry. This paper explores alternative channels, uses and value chains of pearl millet grain and fodder. The paper examines in what ways small farmers can benefit from the evolving alternative uses for pearl millet grain in cattle and poultry feed industry, breweries and starch industry. The paper also analyses the impact of aggregators in increasing the efficiency of the value chain.

The study collected primary data from farmers, traders, commission agents and exporters and importers with innovative marketing channels with aggregators (Self-Help Groups) and without aggregators to analyze the prospects for improvements in marketing channels and value chain.

Given that the production of pearl millet is scattered and thin, there is a lot of scope for market aggregators to increase scale economies to reduce market costs to supply in bulk to food and industrial uses. Although there was some demand for human consumption high-quality grain, most of the future demand will come from cattle and poultry feed industry, breweries and starch industry. To tap these larger potentials, farmers need to aggregate their produce and ensure regular supply in bulk quantity at least to compete the cost with alternative grains like maize and broken rice.

The research is based on the field-level data collection and observations obtained from Western India. This paper provides insights how the value chain of pearl millet is working and what improvements are needed to make value chain more efficient and inclusive. Although the results are applicable to similar neglected crops and area, more caution is needed.

Through the formation of farmer aggregators, farmers can enhance their bargaining power vis-a-vis industry.

Till now, there is no study that explored the pearl millet value chain in detail in India, and the paper tries to fill this literature gap.

In low-income economies agriculture plays an important role in promoting economic growth and reducing poverty. Agricultural growth achieved through diversification toward the higher value crops enhance income and mitigate risk. The present study focuses on one of the eastern Indian states namely “Jharkhand”; where agriculture is the mainstay for the 80% of its rural population. The state per-capita income is below the national average; however, it has registered an impressive growth, especially in the agriculture sector in the last one decade. In this study, the authors attempt to identify the components in sources of agricultural growth; the authors also estimate the determinants of overall agricultural growth.

The study is based on the secondary data from 2000–2001 to 2015–2016. This paper first decomposes the agricultural growth into area, price, yields (technological improvement) and diversification effects through the method of growth accounting approach. Secondly, the study employs the new classical growth model through the ordinary least square (OLS) to examine the determinants of overall agricultural growth.

The author's findings indicate that there has been a shift in cropping patterns from the cultivation of cereals to non-cereals in the state during the study period. Among the major crops, the area under pulses cultivation has increased by 19% from 2000–t2002 to 2014–2016. The increase in area under cultivation and the diversification in favor of higher-value crops have been the major reasons for the accelerating overall agricultural growth in the state along with improvements in technology. The study reveals that increased use of fertilizer per hectare, capital formation and road density are the main determinants of high agricultural growth in the state.

The study is based on secondary data and based on one state. A primary study to complement this could have been better. The limited data available for some of important variables related to mechanizations are also a limitation of the present study.

Several studies have analyzed the diversification and agricultural growth in India. With our best knowledge this kind of study has not been done so far for the state of Jharkhand in eastern India.

Much to the relief of everyone, the general election has come and gone and with it the boring television drivel; the result a foregone conclusion. The Labour/Trade Union movement with a severe beating, the worst for half a century, a disaster they have certainly been asking for. Taking a line from the backwoods wisdom of Abraham Lincoln — “You can't fool all the people all the time!” Now, all that most people desire is not to live easy — life is never that and by the nature of things, it cannot be — but to have a reasonably settled, peaceful existence, to work out what they would consider to be their destiny; to be spared the attentions of the planners, the plotters, provocateurs, down to the wilful spoilers and wreckers. They have a right to expect Government protection. We cannot help recalling the memory of a brilliant Saturday, but one of the darkest days of the War, when the earth beneath our feet trembled at the destructive might of fleets of massive bombers overhead, the small silvery Messerschmits weaving above them. Believing all to be lost, we heaped curses on successive Governments which had wrangled over rearmament, especially the “Butter before Guns” brigade, who at the word conscription almost had apoplexy, and left its people exposed to destruction. Now, as then, the question is “Have they learned anything?” With all the countless millions Government costs, its people have the right to claim something for their money, not the least of which is the right to industrial and domestic peace.

This paper aims to understand the significant farm and market-level factors that incentivize the adoption and marketing of pulses influencing its supply response to changing demand.

The authors first use a modified Nerlovian supply response model using secondary data to identify the major price and non-price factors influencing the supply of pigeon pea, black and green gram in the major pulses growing states in India. Second, using primary qualitative data the authors map the pulses value chain from farm to retail to identify the how proportional and fixed transaction costs (FCTs) influence market participation of pulses growers and limit the transmission of price and quality information.

The supply response model shows some positive influence of price on area allocation for pigeon pea and black gram and some negative effects of yield and price increase of competing crops on pigeon pea acreage. However, for the most part, the area of Kharif pulses is inelastic to prices in the long run. Irrigation, rainfall and yields in the lag year are shown to have a significant influence on area allocation for pulses. The market study reveals that low yields, low landholding size and geographical disadvantages of high agro-climatic risk and poor connectivity hinder market access of pulses farmers relative to other crops. Market power in favor of buyers and poor price and quality information is a disadvantage to sellers, influencing their ability to participate in markets.

A quantitative study would be required to identify the magnitude of farm and market-level transaction costs.

This study helps to understand the supply response of pulses and gives suggestions to direct policy to rectify this.

The terms are not synonymous; their differences are mainly of function and areas of administration. Community Health is used in national health service law; environmental health to describe the residuum of health functions remaining with local authorities after the first NHS/Local Government reorganization of 1974. Previously, they were all embraced in the term public health, known for a century or more, with little attention to divisions and in the field of administration, all local authority between county and district councils. In the dichotomy created by the reorganization, the personal health services, including the ambulance service, may have dove‐tailed into the national health service, but for the remaining functions, there was a situation of unreality, which has persisted. It is difficult to know where community health and environmental health begin and end. From the outside, the unreality may be more apparent than real. The Royal Commission on the NHS in their Report of last year state that leaving environmental health services with local authorities “does not seem to have caused any problems”—and this, despite the disparity in status of the area health authority and the bottom tier, local councils.

The provision of fair and remunerative prices to farmers through government intervention is one of the key debates to address the farmers' distress in India. This article identifies how different marketing channels are responsible for higher price realization over the officially announced minimum support price (MSP).

The study uses the NSSO-SAS, 2012–13 and NSSO-SAS, 2018–19 for Aggregate level data and Unit Level Data on the Situation Assessment Survey of Farmers' households. It uses logit regression to determine the factors responsible for better price realization.

Our major findings indicate that two factors importantly determine better price realization than MSP. Firstly, government agencies provide better prices for crops covered by MSP, such as paddy, wheat and cotton. However, the probability of receiving higher prices increases for some crops if the farmers belong to the upper land size classes and upper social category. Secondly, jowar, bajra, maize and ragi, other important crops that don't benefit from government agencies, may require higher levels of procurement at the state level.

The present study only analyzes selected major crops. Distance is an important factor in choosing a marketing channel that is not incorporated due to unavailability in NSS Data.

The study is based on the latest original empirical evidence and sheds light on the variation in price realization in different agricultural marketing channels in India.