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Community based tourism (CBT) focuses on the protection of socio-cultural values and economic benefits of stakeholder host communities of tourism destinations. It is increasingly being promoted as an avenue of sustainable tourism development. But for achieving economic sustainability in long run for CBT initiatives it is imperative to ensure revenue generation through regular tourist footfall and productive use of available resources. The purpose of the study is to examine the tourists’ awareness level about CBT initiatives. The paper also seeks to analyze how far the aware tourist is able to contribute to economic sustainability of CBT destinations. It also aims to identify popular tourist information dissemination sources so that a policy prescription can be suggested for effective marketing and promotion strategy of CBT. The study used questionnaire based survey method and collected primary data of 100 domestic tourists focusing on the CBT destinations of Northern part of west Bengal region. Statistical analysis is used to develop a framework to explain the theoretical relationship of CBT awareness level and tourists’ visit possibility. The findings will lead to policy prescriptions for CBT developers to achieve sustainability in long run by developing unique promotional strategy to increase tourist visit.

The adoption of electric vehicles (EVs) is considered a promising solution to address the negative impacts of conventional vehicles on the environment and human health. This paper provides a comprehensive review of the current state of EVs, including their types, technology, adoption, government policies, environmental impact, and future prospects. The review reveals that EVs have the potential to significantly reduce air pollution, greenhouse gas emissions, and noise pollution. However, their adoption has been hindered by various factors such as perceived usefulness, ease of use, and risk, which can be addressed through policy interventions and infrastructure development. The paper highlights the significance of the Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of Electric Vehicles (FAME) scheme in India and other international policies and initiatives to support the adoption of EVs. The review also identifies the technological advances and battery development as promising opportunities for the future of EVs. The paper concludes by providing implications for policy and practice, including the need for incentives and infrastructure development to promote EV adoption and recommends further research on the consumer trends and challenges in the adoption of EVs.

The “international network initiative on safe and sustainable nanotechnology” (INISS-nano) is focussing on the collaboration in different fields pertaining to nanotechnology research in general and nano-safety research in particular. This shall include collaboration in terms of e.g., training, standardisation efforts, test-guidelines development, metrology, commercialisation, ethical aspects, respsonible science and research, sustainability, and joint research, supporting governance, regulatory guidance, and of course being open for further joint working items. This document is a revision of the first version (which has been published in June 2021) and shows descriptions and an action plan for each of the pillars: Harmonization Support industrial understanding Sharing / facilitate sharing of resources / infrastructures International collaboration on ethical and societal aspects of nanotechnology

Malaria is largely neglected in the South-East Asia Region (SEAR), although it has the highest number of people susceptible to the disease. Malaria in the SEAR exhibits special epidemiological characteristics such as "forest malaria" and malaria due to migration across international borders. The Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS) has been a focal-point for the emergence of drug resistant malaria. With the recent emergence of artemisinin resistance, coupled with the limited availability of insecticides, malaria control efforts in the SEAR face a steep challenge. Indirect man-made factors such as climate change, as well as direct man-made factors such as the circulation of counterfeit drugs have added to the problem. Increased monitoring, surveillance, pharmacovigilance as well as cross-border collaboration are required to address these problems. Regional networking and data-sharing will keep all stakeholders updated about the status of various malaria control programmes in the SEAR. Cutting-edge technologies such as GIS/GPS (geographical information system/global positioning system) systems and mobile phones can provide information in "real-time". A holistic and sustained approach to malaria control by integrated vector management (IVM) is suggested, in which all the stakeholder countries work collaboratively as a consortium. This approach will address the malaria problem in a collective manner so that malaria control can be sustained over time.

This paper establishes the linkage of short duration pigeonpea adoption to farmers' perceptions on the issue of sustainability. Results from a formal on-farm survey and rapid rural appraisals conducted in a drought prone area in Central India, confirm that: a) farmers have a high degree of awareness regarding the effects of intensive cultivation of cash crops such as sugarcane or cotton in irrigated tracts - in terms of reduced yields and increasing use of inputs; b) appropriate crop/varietal adoption and management practices are consciously taken to maintain productivity levels in the context of existing and desired cropping systems; and c) farmers increase or maintain soil fertility by rotation with nitrogen fixing legumes and alternate pigeonpea in different plots each year. Farmers are aware of the nodulation capacity of legumes such as pigeonpea. For these reasons, short duration pigeonpea is chosen as most appropriate for profitable double cropping in deep black soils. The crop is also grown as a boundary crop to prevent soil erosion.

Sustainable development, energy efficiency, use of renewable energy sources and protection of the environment are of greatest current interest at the start of this century. The first energy crisis in 1973 showed that conventional energy sources are limited. The knowledge that energy consumption is greatly the cause of emission of SO2, NOx and CO2 pollutants initiate worldwide investigation of technologies and production of systems using renewable energy sources representing ecologically clean energy sources with no pollutants and harmful influences. The most important role of renewable energy sources is reducing the greenhouse effect, increasing energy safety and the opportunity for opening of new work places in small and medium enterprises. In this paper a short review of alternative energy sources from the viewpoint of sustainable development, energy efficiency and protection of the environment is given including the role of the drying process technology in sustainable development through: reduction of energy “consumption”, drying source bio-fuel, solar drying, drying in order to prevent resource “losses”, drying to protect the environment etc.

Cities worldwide are experiencing the effects of extreme climate events. Urban floods have emerged as a direct consequence of climate change in cities. Understanding the vulnerability to flooding would help policy actions to reduce the impacts due to flooding. This paper targets Ahmedabad, one of the major cities in India witnessing rapid urbanization and frequently struggling with floods. The study utilizes flood vulnerability indicators, quantifying and establishing a flood vulnerability index for Ahmedabad. The index links social, environmental, infrastructure, economic, and building-level indicators to define flood vulnerability. The relative importance of the indicators is arrived at by using experts' inputs and merged with the indicator to spatially analyze the patterns of vulnerability in the city comprising the four dimensions. The study finding suggests the city's eastern side is most vulnerable to floods. Twenty-four percent of the Ahmedabad population lives in highly vulnerable areas and seventy-four percent in moderately vulnerable areas, while a mere two percent of Ahmedabad's population resides in low-vulnerable areas. Lambha ward is the most vulnerable for the social dimension, while Dani Limda ward is the most vulnerable for the economic dimension. Kadi ward performs poorly in the environmental and infrastructure dimension. Sarkhej emerges as the most vulnerable ward in building conditions. Combining the dimensions, Shahpur is the most vulnerable ward when considering overall flood vulnerability.

India is one of those countries that, along with other countries across the world has taken a pledge to protect the environment, as well as promote overall development through sustainable practices. The Government of India like other nations is trying to promote initiatives that help it in achieving these goals. Amid such developments, even corporate organizations are attempting to include such practices in their functioning through innovative advertisements. Not just creation, but marketing and promotion of products and services by both international and Indian brands reflect the goals through their commercials that aim to be fulfilled by 2030. While creating advertisements with direct and indirect approaches alone are not sufficient to spread awareness, the reception of the messages and understanding of the concept is actually important in implementing the SDGs into practice. Such endeavors highly resonate and click with today’s fairly educated and literate (also ‘woke’) audience who makes conscious and informed purchasing decisions. The study considered selected advertisements to map the SDGs embedded into the messages. In this regard, Focus Group Discussions were conducted to 1. evaluate the perception of the participants who were exposed to the ads and a2. to elicit suggestions that could be utilized to disseminate the goals to the masses with a higher impact and widen the sphere of application of the global effort to achieve sustainability.