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Sugarcane exhibits all the major characteristics of a promising
bioenergy crop including high biomass yield, C4 photosynthetic
system, perennial nature, and ratooning ability. Being the largest
agricultural commodity of the world with respect to total
production, sugarcane biomass is abundantly available. Brazil has
already become a sugarcane biofuels centered economy while
Thailand, Colombia, and South Africa are also significantly
exploiting this energy source. Other major cane producers include
India, China, Pakistan, Mexico, Australia, Indonesia, and the
United States. It has been projected that sugarcane biofuels will
be playing extremely important role in world's energy matrix in
recent future. This book analyzes the significance, applications,
achievements, and future avenues of biofuels and bioenergy
production from sugarcane, in top cane growing countries around the
globe. Moreover, we also evaluate the barriers and areas of
improvement for targeting efficient, sustainable, and
cost-effective biofuels from sugarcane to meet the world's energy
needs and combat the climate change.
This volume identifies existing statist approaches and political
economies of river management in South Asia. These rivers are
heavily suffering from millions of people who in contrast consider
them as holy and worship them. Edited by Professor Imtiaz Ahmed,
the contributors of this book from India, Nepal and Pakistan are
leading readers on a journey through the transboundary rivers of
South Asia where rivers are vital for the life and living. The book
explains why the region needs a framework for cooperation on the
wellbeing of these rivers. River management is the key to
sustaining healthy river systems. The authors stress that right of
the rivers must be codified and guaranteed by the state and the
people in South Asia. However, the statist approach to the
transboundary rivers in South Asia actually conceives them as
national rivers. This volume contributes to the current campaign of
overcoming the water dystopias in South Asia.
Right to water may sound novel and somewhat dramatic, yet it has
been central to the quest of human civilization for thousands of
years. One of the earliest references to water as 'common property'
can be found in the Jewish laws as early as 3000 BCE.Similar views
are also found in Islam. In fact, the Arabic word for Islamic law -
shari'ah - originally meant "the place from which one descends to
water."Since water is a gift from the divine to all living beings,
sharing water is regarded as holy duty. This is found across
religions, regions, societies, and communities, from New Zealand to
Nigeria, from Bangladesh to Brazil. But then, what transformed the
divine sanction? What led to the negation of the 'commons,' with
sharing of the riverine water across territorial boundaries
suffering the most?The answer probably lies as much as in the
politics of safeguarding one's personal or national interests as it
is in the limitations imposed by our disciplinary understanding of
things.In this context, a thorough reexamination, even
reconceptualization,of some of the core issuesis required.Firstly,
the concept of water needs to be understood not as H2O, as it is
done in physical sciences,but as H2OP4. That is, the meaning of
water in social sciences must include not only 'twice hydrogen plus
oxygen' but also four P's - pollution, power, politics and profit.
This is not to discount the 'science' in the conceptualization of
water but rather to add elements central to social
sciences.Secondly, the concept of river needs to be redefined and
understood not as a carrier of water, as assumedin most of
theWestern languages, but as 'nadi,' a flow consisting of prana
(life), shakti (power), and atman (soul), as etymologically
definedin most of the South Asian languages. This comes closer to
what critical hydrologists would say, WEBS, that is, a 'river'
consists of water, energy, biodiversity and sediment. In this
light, any fragmentation of transboundary river waterin the name of
'sharing'becomes an unworkable option, unless of course a mechanism
is found to 'share'the water of the river along with its energy,
biodiversity and sediment, and that again, without distorting and
harming the life of the river!Thirdly, the subject of 'water
commons'needs to be approached from the standpoint of 'rights' of
both human andriver. This is to flag the notion that nature,
including rivers, has 'rights'just like humans, although their
manifestations may be different. In fact, empowered humans,
particularly those in control of the state, have more
'responsibility' than 'rights' in dissuading themselves and others
from creating conditions of human wrongs, not only against fellow
human beings but also against nature.Finally, if the 'rights'
ofhumans are to be ensuredthen there is an urgent need to
reconceptualize and mainstream the human as a multiverse being.
This is because humans are not only political beings but also
economic, cultural, ecological, technological, and psychological
beings. In this light, if conflicts are to be contained then humans
need to be empowered in all possible areasof life - politics,
economics, ecology, culture, technology, and psychology. This would
certainly require empowering each and every person, all at the same
time receptive to nature in general and rivers in particular.The
book is designed to initiate a discourse on the civilizational
quest for water commons, indeed, with the expectation that a
discussion on rights and rivers would lead to a creative flow of
ideas and practices.
Sugarcane exhibits all the major characteristics of a promising
bioenergy crop including high biomass yield, C4 photosynthetic
system, perennial nature, and ratooning ability. Being the largest
agricultural commodity of the world with respect to total
production, sugarcane biomass is abundantly available. Brazil has
already become a sugarcane biofuels centered economy while
Thailand, Colombia, and South Africa are also significantly
exploiting this energy source. Other major cane producers include
India, China, Pakistan, Mexico, Australia, Indonesia, and the
United States. It has been projected that sugarcane biofuels will
be playing extremely important role in world's energy matrix in
recent future. This book analyzes the significance, applications,
achievements, and future avenues of biofuels and bioenergy
production from sugarcane, in top cane growing countries around the
globe. Moreover, we also evaluate the barriers and areas of
improvement for targeting efficient, sustainable, and
cost-effective biofuels from sugarcane to meet the world's energy
needs and combat the climate change.
This study was carried out within the framework of multi-criteria
decsion analysis approch Analytic Hierarchy Process by integrating
with Geographic Information System (GIS).This reasearch work can be
applied in all kind of pulic facilities planning determining any
kind of suitable sites. This is a sustainable development planning
method applied. Therefore, it is a useful technique in town
planning decision-making process by using GIS-based MCDA method
finding sustainable sselection of development sites.
This study investigates importance of privatization, changes in the
performance of organizations after meeting the privatization policy
and overall effects on the growth of economy of the country. It is
described by Farazmand (2001) that privatization has been
rationalized by its advocates, policy makers and international
agencies on various grounds ranging from economic efficiency to
income distribution. It is observed that lot of research has been
done on the performance of privatized entities but this research
analyzes the growth of macroeconomic factors after privatization,
especially in case of large unprofitable state-owned enterprises.
Privatization of state-owned enterprises has been investigated in
this research with a case study of already privatized banking
sector. The theory of privatization has been tested with the
performance of private banks as compared to the public banks using
the profitability ratios. The statistical result obtained from the
profitability ratio show improvement in the performance of banking
sector due to privatization in Pakistan and there is evidence of
growth of the economic indicators especially FDI in the financial
market.
Attempts to transfer useful alien genetic material into wheat
initially involved substitution of alien chromosome from the alien
species into wheat genome. Most of these wheat derivatives have had
limited use in practical breeding because of the linked undesirable
genes on the alien segment which resulted in the loss of yield
and/or quality of the recipient wheats. The amount of alien genetic
material in these lines can be reduced by induction of allosyndetic
recombination. In the earlier studies, cytological and / or
biochemical procedures were used to detect and isolate the
wheat-alien recombinant chromosomes. Because of large amount of
time and effort required and the limited resolving power of the
techniques, these procedures though used successfully by the
pioneer workers have not proved very efficient for the
identification and isolation of such recombinants. During present
work, DNA based Co-dominant markers (RFLPs) were used for isolation
and characterization of wheat-Ag. intermedium recombinant
chromosomes. Pattern of homoeologous chromosome recombination was
compared with homologous recombination in Triticeae.
"Ephedra" is a gymnospermic genus of Gnetales and family
Ephedraceae. The genus is represented by forty-two species from the
world, among them nine are provisionally reported from Pakistan. It
is recognized for fourteen phyto-chemicals, among them ephedrine
and pseudo-ephedrine are the most important, widely used as
bronchodilators and decongestants. Traditionally the plant is used
for respiratory tract diseases and to enhance the effect of snuff.
Besides its use as medicine, some of its species are used as diet
supplement for weight reduction. Quantity and quality of chemicals
present in the genus vary species to species. Hence, it is
important to properly identify the plant and get benefit from its
valuable chemicals. Conventional tools of taxonomy can identify the
genus but overlapping morphological features of the plant creates
problems in proper alignment of species. PCR based Molecular
markers e.g. RAPDs can help to delineate various field specimens
with high accuracy and thus provide a handy tool for
identification.
Divorce is usually studied in terms of two distinct perspectives.
One focuses on the procedure laid down for giving the seal of final
authority to a divorce. The other explores the processes that are
set in motion once the stability of a marriage is threatened. The
latter perspective does not see divorce in isolation but treats it
in the wider context of social structure. When divorce in Muslim
communities is discussed, the tendency quite often is to place
theology and law at the centre. This book recognizes that divorce
in Muslim communities entails substantial theological and legal
dimensions, but takes as its point of departure the view that it is
only by placing divorce in the social and cultural context that
meaningful conclusions can be arrived at. It examines, in the light
of empirical evidence, the incidence of divorce and separation, the
social and other causes due to which divorce and separation takes
place, and the position of divorced women in society as well as
their prospects of remarriage. In the process substantial
methodological and theoretical questions relevant to the study of
divorce as a social phenomenon are raised. The book has an
immediate practical aim as well. Muslim law of divorce,
particularly the provision of triple divorce, which vests a
unilateral right in the husband to pronounce a summary divorce upon
his wife, has been the subject of considerable controversy.
Essentially, the papers brought together in this book are
sociological analyses of divorce and remarriage among Muslims in
India and the data thrown up as part of these analyses should clear
some points in the controversy.
This is an overview of the use of waste materials in highway
construction. It presents a summary of practices in the use of
waste materials in highway construction and the experiences of the
US in the technical, environmental, and economic aspects of the
various applications of the waste materials. The information
presented was obtained from a review of published literature,
presentations of research by professionals at different forums,
personal meetings with experts, and a questionnaire regarding the
use of waste materials to each state highway agency.Public concern
is constantly expressed about the vast quantities of useful
materials being discarded or destroyed. Legislation to stimulate
recycling efforts is in force in a number of states, and is being
debated in others. One avenue of approach toward waste reduction is
presented here.The book describes the state-of-the-practice in the
use of waste materials in highway construction in the US and
describes the applications of selected waste materials including:
waste tires, waste glass, reclaimed paving materials, slags and
ashes, building rubble, sewage sludge, and incinerator residue. An
evaluation based on technical, environmental, and economic factors
indicated that reclaimed paving materials, coal fly ash, blast
furnace slag, bottom ash, boiler slag, steel slag, and rubber tires
have significant potential to replace conventional materials for
various applications in highway construction. Specific applications
of the waste products and potential problems associated with their
usage in highway operations, which must be addressed prior to their
extensive use, are also included.
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