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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.

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.

The government of India has introduced many schemes for the development and upliftment of the rural people in India. The schemes were introduced to develop rural, underprivileged youth into a self-sufficient, employable workforce and to convert the rural population into a self-sustained generation with housing and income generation. Since it was introduced through banks and financial organizations, people in the banks and people who have knowledge about banks and loans alone were able to get the benefits of the schemes. To implement the schemes, the government of India has started programs through schools and colleges. The following are the objectives of the study. (i) to present the various central Government Schemes of Rural India, (ii) to present the socio-economic profile of the sample respondents, (iii) to study the level of awareness about the central government schemes and (iv) to give suggestions to create more awareness about the central government scheme for rural India. Though many schemes are available and many are developed in many parts of the country, people in the South are not aware of these schemes available for them. So, an attempt has been made to know the awareness of the Central Government Schemes available, the researchers had taken 238 random sample respondents in the city of Coimbatore. The results showed that the people had a medium level of awareness of the Central Government Schemes and suggestions were given accordingly.

{"references": ["1 IPCC Fourth Assessment Report (AR4),Contribution of Working Group I to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.", "2 World Health Report,2007 Accessed at:28.12.2015 http://www.who.int/whr/2007/whr07_en.pdf", "3 The World Malaria Report, 2011Accessed at : http://www.who.int/malaria/world_malaria_report _2011/en", "4 Bhattacharya S., Sharma C, .Dhiman R.C and Mitra A.P., Climate Change and India, Current Science, February 2006 Vol. 90, No. 3, 10 ,pg 369 \u2013 375", "5 WHO(2014). World Malaria Report 2014. WHO, Geneva. 2014. Accessed at http://apps.who. int/iris/bitstream/10665/144852/2/9789241564830 _eng.pdf", "6 NVBDCP(2015).Malaria situation. National Vector Borne Disease control Programme. Accessed athttp://nvbdcp.gov.in/Doc/mal_situation_Jan2015. pdf", "7 Dash A.P, Valecha N.,.Anvikar A.R and Kumar A. Malaria in India: Challenges and opportunities; J. Biosci., 2008 33 583\u2013592", "8 J.Sathaye, J. et al., \"Climate change, sustainable development and India: global and national concerns\", Current Science , February, 2006, Vol 90, No 3, 10 pages 314-325.", "9 Lendrum D. C. and .Corval\u00e1n C, Climate Change and Developing-Country Cities: Implications For Environmental Health and Equity, J Urban Health. 2007 May; 84(Suppl 1): 109\u2013117.", "10 Githeko. A.K., Malaria and climate change, Commonwealth Health Ministers' Update 2009,pg 40- 43", "11 Singh P.K, Dhiman RC.. Climate change and human health: Indian context, J Vector Borne Dis. 2012 Jun;49(2):55-60.", "12 Nigam R, Climate Change and its Impact on Incidence of Malaria: A study of Urban Settlements of Bhopal, th India, Proceedings of 8 International conference on Urban Health,Nairobi,Nov.2009", "13 Osuntoki A. A. ,A review of molecular biology techniques. Proceedings Of the workshop on DNA fingerprinting and blotting techniques,organized by Danifol Biotechnology Consult, 2005", "14 Soetan K. O. and Abatan M. O., Biotechnology a key tool to breakthrough in medical and veterinary research, Biotechnology and Molecular Biology Review , August 2008 ,Vol. 3(4), pp. 088-094.", "15 Gamble H.R, Zarlenga DS, Biotechnology in the development of vaccines for animal parasites. Vet. Parasitol. , 1986, 20: 237-250.", "16 Tangpukdee N, Duangdee, C. P. Wilairatana & S. Krudsood Malaria Diagnosis: ABrief Review, Korean J Parasitol, 2009", "17 Nanotechnology Device Aims to Prevent Malaria D e a t h s T h r o u g h R a p i d D i a g n o s i s , http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/09/12 0926092917.htm", "18 Pesticide Management Education Program at Cornell University website: http://pmep.cce.cornell.edu", "19 Borovsky D Trypsin-modulating oostatic factor: a potential new larvicide for mosquito control", "20 Ghosh AK., Ribolla PE., M.Jacobs-Lorena :Targeting Plasmodium ligands on mosquito salivary glands and midgut with a phage display peptide library. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2001", "21 WHO's Tables of Malaria Vaccine Projects Globally: \"The Rainbow Tables\"", "22 Guidelines on prevention of the reintroduction of malaria,W.H.O.,EMRO Technical Publications Series 34,200"]} Climate change is progressing globally and is likely to affect the human health in various ways. Transmission of vector borne diseases like malaria, which is endemic in most parts of India, is likely to be affected by climate variability. Temperature affects the developmental period related to different stages of mosquitoes' life cycle like blood feeding rates, gonotrophic cycle and longevity. Increase in temperature increases the probability of transmission by reducing the time of gonotrophic cycle, increasing the rate of blood meal digestion and greater frequency of feeding the host. Various reports on the impact of climate change on malaria in India on climate change and its impact on incidence of malaria, regarding impact of climate change on malaria in India with emphasis on selected sites, have shown marked impact and likelihood of increased incidence of malaria and development of new endemic regions. Its hence important to develop newer strategies and Biotechnology, which can play a vital role in combating malaria by intervening at diagnostic, prophylactic, therapeutic and preventive levels by interfering in malarial transmission by vector mosquitoes. Applications to malaria control can be in the form of (a) newer drug development, (b) vector incapacitation-transgenic mosquitoes, (c) vaccine developmentidentification and manufacture, (d) differential diagnosis- speciation and drug sensitivity of malaria parasites. Biotechnology and improved surveillance of malarial infection is the key in mitigating the effect of climate change on incidence of malaria.

The concept of social exclusion is context-specific and there is no uniform paradigm of exclusion across the world. This paper attempts to analyse exclusion of resource-poor groups in watershed development programmes in the Indian context. It aims to explore excluded community groups from the perspective of people’s equal opportunity and equal access to newly generated economic benefits in watershed development programmes. The paper also traces the determinant factors responsible for denial and exclusion of resource-poor groups and describes the detailed processes involved in their exclusion from institutional and livelihood opportunities in watershed programmes. At the same time, the paper also explores suggestions and views of resource-poor groups about their meaningful social inclusion in watershed programme. The Gadiwat Indo-German Watershed Development Project in Aurangabad district in the State of Maharashtra is studied in detail in terms of its social, economic and political realities through mix-method and multi-stakeholder approaches. The key findings of the paper are that landownership, caste, gender, membership in village institutions and/or watershed institutions or close relationship with members, as well as the limitations of the programme guidelines, are the major determinants of institutional inclusion and the extent of resulting economic benefits. The exclusion of resource-poor groups mainly takes the form of their exclusion from institutional representation. In order to promote meaningful social inclusion of resource-poor groups, there is need for a more livelihood-oriented focus and their equal representation and participation in watershed institutions.

This paper has examined three features of the rural economy in the context of transition of Indian economy: (a) shift in rural employment pattern, (b) trends in rural wages and agricultural growth, and (c) relationships between agricultural wages, productivity and rural non-farm employment (RNFE) in India. The change over of farm employment to non-farm employment has been found higher for male than female workers and the recent decade has witnessed a higher rate of transition. The RNF sector provided employment to about 38 per cent of male and 21 per cent of female labour forces in 2009-10. It is observed that although the wages were lower for farm labours than non-farm labour, the growth rate of agricultural wages has been higher than of non-farm wages. The wage determinant analysis has revealed that agricultural productivity and RNFE have a positive influence on agricultural wages, while labour availability (labourland ratio) and high dependency on agriculture pull down the wage rates. The analysis has confirmed that the growths of agriculture and RNFE have trickled down to the agricultural labour, indicating an inclusive growth. The study has concluded that policies directed towards improving agricultural productivity and promoting RNFE would provide better agricultural wage rates and assure rural livelihood security.

Attaining ‘Sustainable Energy Security’ (SES) is a valid end goal of an energy policy. However, SES is a multidimensional concept which is difficult to evaluate. The aim of this paper is to undertake a comparative assessment of SES of various energy sources for the residential sector in India. The paper also intends to construct a SES Index and rank the energy sources by assessing their performance in different dimensions. The end goal is to identify the energy sources which are relatively more secure and sustainable for India. The paper uses a scoring matrix and a weighting matrix to develop a SES Index. This multidimensional index is constructed as a weighted sum of four indices representing various dimensions, viz. Availability, Affordability, Efficiency and Environmental Acceptability. A comparative assessment of six energy sources for the residential sector for urban India reveals that, firewood has the highest rank followed by LPG and electricity while kerosene has the lowest rank. However in rural India, firewood has the highest rank followed by dung cakes while LPG has the lowest rank. Sensitivity of the SES Index to variation in weights reveals that the results are mostly insensitive to +/- 10% variation in allotted weights. It is therefore important that energy policy in India should be designed in a manner, so as to promote the use of firewood and dung cakes which are relatively more ‘Available’ and ‘Affordable’ in rural areas. Along with this, emphasis should be given on design of better technologies to increase the ‘Efficiency’ and ‘Acceptability’ of these energy sources. International Journal of Sustainable Energy Planning and Management, Vol 5 (2015)

The paper has estimated the demand for human labour use in sugarcane and other competing crops and changes over time in its use in major cane-growing states. It has also examined the supply-demand gap in human labour for sugarcane and has provided some coping strategies. The study, based on the primary as well as secondary data on the use of human labour for sugarcane for the past 30 years (1980 to 2010), has found that sugarcane cultivation is least mechanized and most labour-intensive in almost all major canegrowing states of India. The labour-use per hectare has increased in all the cane-growing states, except Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra. Study has revealed that the proportion of casual labour has increased over the years in sub-tropical states because of less availability of family labour for cane cultivation. The assured labour in the form of family + attached labour is on decline, impacting sugarcane cultivation adversely. Arduous work and inhuman working conditions, lack of female participation and disintegrating traditional system of cane harvesting have been identified as the major constraints for the increasing demand and supply gaps in sugarcane cultivation. The shortage of labour is reported to hit all sugarcane cultivation operations, driving up the costs and a decline in the profit margin of farmers. The study has also found that area under cane cultivation has reduced drastically in Haryana and cane yield is stagnant or declining in Maharashtra. The coping strategies for reducing demand-supply gap suggested in the paper are: R&D efforts towards development of sugarcane harvester; development of suitable crop geometry to facilitate the movement of machineries up to the knee-high stage of the crop; change in the traditional system of cane planting for fast germination to avoid weed menace and curtailing labour requirement; popularization of cane planting by machines developed at IISR, Lucknow and popularization of multifunctional ratoon management device. The sugar mills must evolve a sound cane development plan in their cane command areas for purchase of machinery and tie up with the manufacturers and research organizations. This will help in ensuring mechanization of cane operations and avoid forced scarcity of labour in situations of labour diversion to schemes like MGNREGS.

The paper highlights some of the key concerns across the sectors of school, higher and teacher education. A few potential research themes that can help problematise the issues raised have been identified. An emphasis is laid on the need to build on practice-based repositories of knowledge, curricular framing and pedagogic strategies. Examining the contours of and potential for ESD includes: addressing questions of environmental, social, economic and epistemic justice in school and higher education contexts; exploring linkages between ESD and climate change education, education on sustainable cities and communities and identifying novel methods of wider public engagement and social education.