During the last nine millennia or so, man has improved the rice plant, increased its productivity and has found various uses of its parts. The story of rice differs from region to region and has been different in different periods of time. There was a time when tax was collected in the form of rice in Japan, the Southeast Asian kingdoms created hydraulic feats for its cultivation and Ottoman armies advanced with rice as their ration. In recent years, there have been riots due to scarcity of rice and also international efforts to produce enough rice to avoid hunger. The book provides an interesting reading of all such events in the course of its 9000 years long history.

During the last nine millennia or so, man has improved the rice plant, increased its productivity and has found various uses of its parts. The story of rice differs from region to region and has been different in different periods of time. There was a time when tax was collected in the form of rice in Japan, the Southeast Asian kingdoms created hydraulic feats for its cultivation and Ottoman armies advanced with rice as their ration. In recent years, there have been riots due to scarcity of rice and also international efforts to produce enough rice to avoid hunger. The book provides an interesting reading of all such events in the course of its 9000 years long history.

The task of web portal design and development should focus on user centric aspects, which differs for different areas of activity. Agricultural web portal forms a specialized region where the developer should bear in mind the user centric portal development while designing it. In order to develop confidence in contents and quality of information of agricultural web portals, there is need of a methodology to evaluate for these portals. In this book an attemptwas made to develop such evaluation system. Theproposed approach is a generic technique which can be used in evaluation of any website/ web portal.

Flaxseed oil is obtained from the seeds of the flax plant (Linum usitatissimum, L.). Flaxseed oil contains both omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids, which are needed for health. Flaxseed oil contains the essential fatty acid alpha-linolenic acid (ALA), which the body converts into eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), the omega-3 fatty acids found in fish oil. Some researchers think that flaxseed oil might have some of the same benefits as fish oil. Omega-3 fatty acids, usually from fish oil, have been shown to reduce inflammation and help prevent certain chronic diseases such as heart disease and arthritis. The present work elucidate the different pharmacological activities of Flaxseed oil, usually claimed for fish oil. However, authors also observed significant antiulcer activity of Flaxseed oil along with anti-inflammatory activity, an unusual phenomenon for anti-inflammatory drugs.