Judicious nutrient management is crucial to soil organic carbon (SOC) sequestration in tropical soils. Management practices or technologies that increase carbon input to the soil and reduce carbon loss or both lead to net carbon sequestration in soils. There exists a close link between soil erosion/degradation, climate change, and poverty. The community-based natural resources management is a useful strategy for judicious governance. Soil carbon loss could be decreased by adopting conservation agriculture and minimizing soil disturbance, checking erosion through reduced tillage intensity, and using low quality organic inputs. Improving agricultural and land-use policies in degraded lands, such as marginal land and eroding landscapes, offers an enormous opportunity for enhancing carbon sequestration. Soils of most agro-ecosystems may have lost 30–50 % of the antecedent SOC pool in temperate regions and 50–75 % in the tropics. Any land reclamation practice which improve soil structure and enhance soil quality lead to carbon sequestration.
The term "ecosystem services" first coined and published by Ehrlich and Mooney (1983) "Ecosystem services" (ESs) refers the benefits that human being is derived from the effective functioning of the ecosystem. In other word, ecosystem functioning and or processes those directly or indirectly contribute to human well-being are called ESs. Very often these services are described or discussed in qualitative term putting more emphasis of societal well-being in non-quantitative and non-economic term. We are putting them in an economic term as 'natural-capital'. Based on the nature of services the ESs are classified into four broad categories. Those are provisioning services, regulating services, supporting services and cultural services. Agriculture provides basic needs of human being in terms of food, fibre, and raw materials for industries. The ESs provided by agriculture in term of provisional (food, fodder, fibre, fuel, raw materials for industries, by products), regulatory (gas and water regulation, erosion control, pollination, flood control, etc.), supporting (soil fertility, soil formation, nutrient cycling, hydrological flow, etc.) and cultural (aesthetic, recreation, etc) should be accounted with proper methodologies so that payment of ESs could be done effectively. There is need for payment of ESs in agriculture for sustaining food and environmental security.
Risks arising out of erratic weather, variations in yields & prices; changes in government policies, international markets, labour availability, etc. are inherent to Indian agriculture and various schemes have been devised and operated over time to protect the farmers from losses that included guaranteed prices, subsidized inputs, credit and crop insurances. Since 1985, when the first ever complete crop insurance programme, namely, Comprehensive Crop Insurance Scheme (CCIS) introduced, the premium, crop coverage, sum insured, risk estimation, claim settlement etc. changed substantively in subsequent programmes like National Agricultural Insurance Scheme (NAIS), Weather index-based Crop Insurance Scheme (WBCIS), Modified National Agricultural Insurance Scheme (MNAIS), National Crop Insurance Programme (NCIP), and most recently introduced Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY). The PMFBY is a transformative scheme and for its' efficient operation, some technological choices have been projected like smart-phones, digital photography, remote sensing technologies (satellite and Unmanned Aerial Vehicles − UAVs), new statistical methods and modelling approaches, and IT/ICTs. However, still lacunae is there in terms of proper institutional framework low level of education and awareness that are the reasons for lack of reception among the farmers. There is scope for linking Payment to Ecosystem Services (PES) and Crop Insurance to put a value on earlier un-priced ecosystem services like regulation of climate, water quality and the habitat for wild animals and through this, gets them into the larger economic framework. Payment to Eco-system services (PES) comprises a sequence of payments to landholders or natural resource administrators in return for an assured stream of ecosystem services. A suitably structured PES scheme can deliver the essential inducements for fostering superior land management and improved delivery of ecosystem services. The willingness of farmers to accept new practices, which deliver added services be governed by awareness, attitudes, available resources, and also inducements.
The important soil quality indicators were investigated under different land use systems namely, sal forest, agroforestry, rainfed cropland and irrigated cropland to provide base line data for future research in lower north western Himalayan region. The soil properties such as soil depth, texture, organic carbon, total N, available P, available K, CEC and soil pH were investigated for each land use system to assess relative soil quality index (RSQI).
Dragmacidin D, an emerging biologically active marine natural product, has attracted attention as a lead compound for treating Parkinson's and Alzheimer's diseases. Prominent structural features of this compound are the two indole-pyrazinone bonds and the presence of a polar aminoimidazole unit. We have established a concise total synthesis of dragmacidin D using direct C-H coupling reactions. Methodological developments include (i) Pd-catalyzed thiophene-indole C-H/C-I coupling, (ii) Pd-catalyzed indole-pyrazine N-oxide C-H/C-H coupling, and (iii) acid-catalyzed indole-pyrazinone C-H/C-H coupling. These regioselective catalytic C-H couplings enabled us to rapidly assemble simple building blocks to construct the core structure of dragmacidin D in a step-economical fashion.
Over the past decades, agriculture sector played a crucial role in enhancing the economic growth of India, and will continue so in future. It employs 55% of the workforce, thereby contributing to 17.1% of the country's Gross Value Added (GVA) for the year 2017-18 (MoA & FW, 2019). Agricultural production in India grew at an average of 3.6% annually since 2011, thanks to the policy decisions on inputs including improved fertilizer delivery systems and high yielding varieties. Release of improved varieties in cereals, pulses, fruits, vegetables and ornamental flowers as well as high-yielding breeds in the livestock and fisheries sectors has increased the diversification. Availability of a range of nutrition rich food commodities played crucial role in reducing undernourished population from 24% in 1990-92 to 15% in 2014-16 (OECD, 2018, FAO statistics). India is currently the largest product export economy of the world. India is leading exporter of rice globally, amounting to 8.34 Mt in 2019, and currently holds >85% of global basmati rice exports. The country has shown massive resilience to very recent global outbreak of COVID-19, and managed to tackle the social and economic challenges with a spirit of self-reliance. The 'Atma Nirbhar Bharat Abhiyan' by Government of India with a special economic package of Rs 20 lakh crore to enable the resurgence of the economy through three mantras, 'innovation, integrity and inclusion' as suggested by none other than the Hon'ble Prime Minister of the country. It is therefore imperative that the agricultural sector too needs new initiatives to continue with the success, and realize the potential of self-reliance.
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