Search

Financial investments in apple cultivation in Kashmir valley are increasingly recognized as key drivers of economic growth and employment creation. This paper presents a comprehensive economic analysis across physiographic divisions using precise economic indices that include cost-benefit analysis, project evaluation method and other socio-economic determinants. It relies on a primary survey of 866 farm-households selected across four physiographic divisions of the Kashmir valley viz- valley floor, karewas, foothills and side valleys. Results reveal that the karewas fetch the highest returns from an investment owing to its ideal geographical conditions. On contrary, the non-karewas belt was found to be trailing in one or more economic indices although the financial feasibility of investment in apple cultivation was still found satisfactory. The study affirms that agricultural land-use decisions at the micro-scale should be determined by the site-specific attributes and that economic indices are largely dictated by physical characteristics of land itself. While demonstrating the utility of land-use decisions in light of geographical factors, our results can assist both farmers and policy-makers to design a more adapted land use strategy for fostering financial investments in apple cultivation in the valley.

The study aims to ascertain the levels of environmental knowledge among forest dwellers in the Kashmir Himalayas as it exerts a strong influence on people’s attitude and sustainable behaviour towards sustainable forest resource management. The study is based on primary data, which was analysed with the help of Descriptive Statistics and the Binary Logistic Regression Model (BLRM) in SPSS. The study reveals that environmental knowledge had a Weighted Average Index (WAI) and a Standard Deviation (SD) of 3.05 ± 1.38, indicating low levels of knowledge. The attitude registered a WAI and SD of 3.29 ± 1.33, followed by sustainable behaviour with a WAI and SD of 3.30 ± 1.33, signifying a low to moderate level of attitude and sustainable behaviour, respectively. The study indicates that forest dwellers displayed a positive attitude and desirable behaviour on issues pertaining to their livelihoods. Environmental knowledge pertaining to emerging global environmental issues such as the role of forests in combating global warming, greenhouse gas emissions, climate change, and ecological imbalance was found to be very low, primarily on account of low levels of education. In addition, the attitude towards wildlife conservation was non-congenial on account of increasing man-animal conflicts in the region. The study reveals that education, age, and gender were key determinants influencing people’s environmental knowledge, attitude, and sustainable behaviour. Therefore, efforts should be made to enhance the environmental knowledge of forest dwellers through education and broad-based awareness programmes to inculcate a positive attitude and sustainable behaviour towards forest resource management in this fragile Himalayan valley.

The present study attempts to explore the efficacy of machine learning models in landslide predictions caused by rainfall events along Highway from Bandipora to Gurez, J&K, India. Random Forest (RF) and Logistic Regression (LR) Models were employed to find the optimal parameters for targeted feature i.e. landslide prediction. These models were evaluated for accuracy using the receiver operating characteristics, area under the curve (ROC-AUC) and false negative rate (FNR). The results reveal a positive correlation between antecedent precipitation and landslide occurrence rather than between single-day landslide and rainfall events. Comparing the two models, LR model’s performance is well within the acceptable limits of FNR and therefore could be preferred for landslide prediction over RF. LR model’s incorrect prediction rate is 8.48% without including antecedent precipitation data and 5.84% including antecedent precipitation data. Our study calls for wider use of Machinery Learning Models for developing early warning systems of landslides.

Jammu and Kashmir is the largest producer of walnuts in India and it acts as an important source of livelihood for a large section of farmers. The present study aims to measure the profitability and economic efficiency of walnut orchards and subsequently explore constraints hindering walnut cultivation in the Valley of Kashmir, India. It relies on cross-sectional database collected from 240 walnut growers in the study area during the 2018-19 production period. Results reveal that walnut cultivation is highly labour-intensive as it incurs 80% of total production costs. The cost-benefit ratio of 1:5.35/ha indicates better economic prospects for the walnut industry in Kashmir Valley. The regression coefficients of production analysis and marginal value product and marginal factor cost (MVP/MFC) ratio indicate that there is ample scope for the expansion of walnut cultivation in the research area. However, walnut growers are confronted by several problems that more or less tend to be location specific. The study calls for policy intervention concerning better extension services, greater access to credit and farmer training programs to boost walnut production in the study region.

Authentic certification, documentation, and ecological characterization of weed flora are of paramount importance for future studies that would help to formulate strategies for their management and conservation. Alien plants used to pose severe threats to ecosystems, and qualitative studies on weed flora in many interior regions of the Himalaya are still scarce. Patterns of species diversity, biological spectrum, and phenology of weeds growing in the Himalayas with invasive nature were investigated from 2017 to 2019 in thirty-eight localities of interior Kupwara district of Kashmir Himalaya from different agroecological zones. A hierarchical cluster analysis using the presence or absence data of flowering among plant species was performed and a complex Heatmap package was used. Data collected revealed a total of 158 plant species belonging to 115 genera and 35 families identified from a high altitude district Kupwara in India. The species distribution pattern across the families was unequal, with three families share more than half of the species documented, while fifteen families were monotypic. The family Asteraceae, Poaceae, and Brassicaceae were the most important weeds in terms of species abundance and species richness. Asteraceae represented by 35 species, as the dominant family followed by Poaceae with 19 species, and Brassicaceae by 14 species. In terms of functional trait diversity, the annual growth form was dominant over other forms such perennial or biannual. The phytogeographical analysis revealed that the maximum 91 species collected were native, while a minimum of 67 species reported as alien. Of the alien species, 25 were invasive, 35 naturalized, and 7 casual. The biological spectrum revealed the dominance of therophyte life form indicating the disturbed vegetation. The phenological spectrum revealed the maximum flowering period of weeds is between April and September where about 73% of species were observed in full bloom. This research adds an important way to the basic information of biodiversity patterns in the Himalayas and constitutes baseline data for the planned implementation of conservation. The outcomes also provide the baseline information on alien weeds, their invasive nature as well as in for better prediction of phenological shifts associated with these species due to contemporary climate change. It also would help to design conservation and management plans for threatened or otherwise important species for future implementation.

Farming is the most dominant land-use in the Kashmir valley, India. However, the region is characterised by low productivity of agricultural crops that includes rice. To this end, the present study aims to measure economic efficiency of farm land inputs using Cobb-Douglas production model and MVP/MFC ratio. The results reveal that rice production operates at diminishing returns to scale as summation of estimated coefficients of signifcant variables was found to be less than unity (0.76). Coming to the MVP/MFC ratio, the labour was found to be operating beyond price efficiency frontier, indicating allocative inefficiency of the said resource. The study calls for immediate reallocation of resources so that optimum use of inputs is ensured not only to sustain rice production but also enhance proft maximization of indigent rice farmers in the study area.

Climate change and variability has far reaching impacts on agriculture particularly in ecologically sensitive areas like the Himalayas. The present study attempts to understand the farmer’s perception and adaptation strategies to changing climate in Lidder watershed of Kashmir Himalayas, India. Based on a cross-sectional database of 266 farm operating families, the study adopts a bottom-up approach to investigate farmer’s perceptions of changes in climatic variables as well as various farm-level adaptation measures, determinants and barriers at the farm-household level. The results show that the majority of farmers have developed a perception of climate change and have engaged themselves in adaptive behaviour with regard to agricultural land use and planning. A weighted average index used to measure the most relevant adaptation strategies revealed that conversion of agricultural land to horticulture, improving irrigational facilities and water harvesting were the main adaptation methods implemented by farmers in the study area. Utilizing the logit regression model, the study confirmed that household characteristics such as land holding size, age of the farmer, years of schooling, farm experience and labour force highly influence household decisions to adapt to climate change. The study calls for policy intervention at the farm-household level to enhance the adaptive capacity of farmers in the region.

Rainfall is recognized as one of the main factors that influence the triggering of landslides in mountainous regions. The National Highway 1D from Sonamarg to Kargil is located in the elevated Greater-Himalaya mountainous region of Jammu and Kashmir, constantly suffering from landslides associated with rainfall events. Under this framework, a statistical study was conducted to study a relationship between landslide and rainfall events along the tough terrain of NH 1D. Out of the 317 landslides, however, only 213 landslides showed significant positive correlation with rainfall events. Analysis of the rainfall datasets from 1992 to 2016 showed the erratic and uneven rainfall distribution along the National Highway 1D. The results of the general linear regression model showed that the landslide occurrence is mainly explained by rainfall increase except at a certain point of time, where landslide occurrence seems to be related to other factors as well. The results of the present study depicted that around 67.19% of studied landslide have a direct link with seasonal rainfall events. In the present study, majority of the landslides were found to occur at Zojila pass, Gumri, and Pandras. This stretch is characterized by weak lithology, high altitude, high drainage and lineament density as compared to the other areas from Sonmarg to Kargil. Landslides have socio-economic and environmental consequences along the National Highway 1D. Thus, there is an immediate need to mitigate the landslide hazard along the National Highway 1D.

Horticulture plays a pivotal role in the economy of Jammu and Kashmir. Owing to favourable agro-climatic conditions, temperate horticulture is fast expanding in the state which is characterised by the increasing dominance of apple cultivation. In the present study, an attempt has been made to evaluate the long term trends in the productivity and areal expansion of apple cultivation in the state. It has been observed that area under apple cultivation has witnessed a considerable increase (326%) from year the 1975–1976 to the year 2015–2016. This trend is translated in the compound growth rates of both area and yield which has witnessed an increase at the rate of 0.69 and 3.09 respectively. The decomposition model analysis predicted that apple production is mainly contributed by area effect (65.73) followed by interaction effect (23.71) and yield effect (10.55). The rapid increase in the area under apple cultivation can be attributed to higher profitability. Climate change has also played a role in encouraging the shift in land use pattern in the state. The yield of apple is showing clear signs of stagnation and is hovering between 9 and 10 MT/ha during the last four decades. Therefore, policy intervention by the government along with the up-gradation of pre and post-harvest technology is the need of the hour to boost the productivity of this sector.

The Himalayan Mountains are geodynamical important, featuring a wide climatic range with a rich diversity of flora, fauna, human communities, culture, and social set-up. In recent decades, due to constant anthropogenic pressure and considerable changes witnessed in the climate of the region, species of this region are threatened. Here, we assessed the impact of nomadic settlement and associated disturbances on plant species composition, diversity parameters, ecosystem properties, and fire incidence in high-altitude forests of Western Himalaya, India. Based on the distance between nomadic settlement location and forest, we classified forest as near nomadic settlement (NNS) or away nomadic settlement (ANS) forest types. We found a significant variation in plant species composition between forest types. Three species, namely, Sibbaldia cuneata, Poa annua, and Abies pindrow, contribute 25% of the cumulative variation in plant species composition. Studying live plants, we found a significant difference only for density, in which ANS had a higher average density than NNS. Considering dead plants, we found a significant difference in all nine plant-related parameters evaluated between sites. NNS had a higher value of all parameters evaluated, except for height, which was higher in ANS sites. ANS forest type show 1.3 times more average carbon stock (160.39 ± 59.03 MgCha−1, mean ± SD) than NNS forest type (120.40 ± 51.74 MgCha−1). We found a significant difference in plant diversity evaluated between forest types. ANS had higher values of Margalef and Fisher diversity but lower values of evenness. We found that NSS had significantly higher values of fire incidences, whereas ANS has a higher normalized differential vegetation index and enhanced vegetation index. Overall, our study showed that species composition, diversity, and fire incidence are strongly impacted due to nomadic settlements. These findings are paramount for designing appropriate livelihood options for indigenous communities and management policies of the long-term forest harvest to achieve global goals and the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration targets (2021–2030) to protect the sustainable development of forest mountainous regions.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to find out the importance of the tag “Islamic” in the title of banks. This will help to determine the future strategy of Islamic banks, while expanding to the countries where Islamic banking is seen as a religious banking and not an as an alternative approach to the conventional banking. Design/methodology/approach Adopting convenience sampling, a total of 596 customers of both Islamic and conventional banks were surveyed from four regions of Saudi Arabia (Makkah, Madinah, Riyadh and Dammam) using a self-structured questionnaire on a five-point Likert scale. Findings The results concede that Islamic banks without the tag “Islamic” and conventional banks have same customer satisfaction. There are some factors other than the tag “Islamic” which are driving customers towards Islamic banking. Those factors include physical aspects of the bank, level of satisfaction with the services, dealing and attendance by the staff and safety and security of the bank. Besides, the application of fundamental principles of Islamic banking works as a key motivation for customer satisfaction with Islamic banking. Practical implications Applying the tag “Islamic” is not as important as implementing the principles of Islamic banking. Islamic banks can survive and compete well even without using the “Islamic” tag if they implement the prime principles of Islamic banking and work on improving the factors highlighted by this study. This study can prove to be helpful in the expansion of Islamic banking in the countries where religious banking is not generally preferred by customers. Originality/value This is the first study to find out the customer satisfaction in a dual banking system (comprising of conventional banks and Islamic banks that do not use the tag “Islamic”), thereby filling the existing gap in the Islamic banking literature.

Islamic finance: more expectations and less disappointment Released On Friday, 31 March 2017 Author(s) Fayaz Ahmad Lone , Siraj Ahmad DOI http://dx.doi.org/10.21511/imfi.14(1).2017.14 Article Info Volume 14 2017, Issue #1, pp. 134-141 TO CITE АНОТАЦІЯ 141 Views 424 Downloads Creative Commons License This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License Islamic finance has faced a two-fold criticism from scholars; viz. constructive criticism and destructive criticism. Majority of the scholars criticize it with the intention to improve its overall development, but some scholars are more negative in their criticism. This paper proposes that Islamic banks (a component of Islamic finance) are not charitable institutions, but are the intermediary institutions that take care of investors’ expectations to keep the time value and return to their investments intact with the market fluctuations. The purpose of this paper is to provide better insight about Islamic finance so as to further improve this industry to achieve its long term goals and serve the society better. The paper also attempts to answer some of the common allegations imposed by scholars towards Islamic finance.

The evolutionary history of high mountain plants in the Northern hemisphere has frequently been shaped by geographical isolation and allopatric speciation. In sympatry, high mountain systems potentially provide opportunities for ecological speciation along altitudinal belts and via polyploidy. However, the role of habitat and cytotype differentiation as isolation mechanisms is poorly understood. We developed a well-resolved phylogenetic framework for a clade of 34 North American and Central Asian mountain Ranunculi to reconstruct sister relationships and ecogeographical patterns. Based on seven DNA sequence markers (ITS of nrDNA, rpl32-trnL , trnT-trnL , ndhA intron , petL-psbE , trnV-ndhC , mat K/ trn K, and the psb J- pet A intergenic spacer) we utilized Maximum Likelihood and NeighborNet analyses. Data on habitat, altitude and ploidy levels were mapped onto the phylogenetic tree by using Mesquite analysis, and ecological differentiation was tested by habitat contrasts of sister species and by pairwise matching analysis. Phylogenetic analysis revealed five well supported geographical subclades (two in North America, each one in Southern Central Asia, northern Central Asia/Arctic and in European/Asian lowland). The North American sister species exhibit allopatric, parapatric and sympatric distributions and represent even in sympatry distinct genetic clusters with some degree of habitat and/or cytotype differentiation. In the Himalayas and in the mountains of Taiwan all sister taxa occur in sympatry and form multiple genetic clusters; habitat differentiation is significantly lower than in North America, while cytotype diversity is poorly documented. In the temperate to arctic mountains of North America, ecological differentiation along altitudinal belts and/or cytotype differentiation may contribute to maintenance of species boundaries in sympatry. In the Himalayas, the restriction of buttercups to higher altitudes probably hampers ecological differentiation; hence, ongoing hybridization blurs species boundaries in sympatry. Isolation mechanisms in high mountain systems cannot be generalized but depend on the peculiar geomorphological and climatic conditions.

In the straitjacket world of Indian banking, something as fascinating as Islamic banking is a distant dream. Nonetheless, countless advocates of Islamic banking have been trying their best over the years to propagate the concept. India has 14 percent Muslims population which is more than the Muslim population of Bangladesh, turkey, Egypt, Iran, Nigeria, Afghanistan, Sudan, Iraq, Saudi Arabia etc But there is no any full fledged Islamic bank currently working in this country. Reserve Bank of India and other legal institutions of India are not issuing license to banks to work as per the principles of Islamic banking. Necessary measures are, however, being taken by India Government for the same. The present study is taken to explain how Islamic banking is better for India while taking the SWOT analysis and Michael Porter’s five forces model. It also explains how Islamic bank can commence in India by suggesting necessary measure for the same.

The sources of Islamic Finance are the Quran and Sunnah. These are the basic two sources from which conclusions regarding the authenticity of Islamic finance are considered. Islam itself is complete in all respects and therefore it has provided detailed guidelines for Islamic finance, either directly or indirectly, in a variety of different ways.

Islamic finance is as old as Islam itself, but over the course of its history the way of business has changed from the Barter System to the Dirham System and from the Dirham System to the Currency System. The way in which business was financed in earlier periods of trade is totally different from the way in which it is financed today. Islamic finance also remained in papers for many years and a practical, modern shape was only given to it with the establishment of the Dubai Islamic Bank in 1975. Today Islamic finance is emerging not only in Muslim countries but all over the world, irrespective of economic systems prevailing there. Over the course of the next few years Islamic banking is expected to become an expanding and emerging market as it is currently estimated to be increasing at an annual rate of 15 per cent.

The previous chapter focused on a discussion of the different objectives of Islamic finance. These objectives are based on the teaching in the Qur’an and the Sunnah and it is mandatory that they should be followed in Islamic finance.

The information and data collected on the research problem under study through a questionnaire-based survey of the stakeholders in the business of Islamic finance has been presented in the previous chapter. The data were analysed and through the application of statistical tools and a number of conclusions were outlined. The logical inferences drawn have been used to testify the hypothesis formulated for this study. In this chapter we will bring together some important findings and draw some final conclusions. This chapter will also include a number of recommendation as to how it should be possible to improve and strengthen the Riba-free system of Islamic finance and also to overcome the incongruities that currently exist in terms of the compatibility of the objectives and achievements of Islamic finance. A number of suggestions have also been made that will enable Islamic finance to keep pace with the rapid changes taking place worldwide in the financial sector with regard to products and services and the increased use of technology tools in conducting transactions under conditions of Islamic finance.

Islamic Finance is the subject of growing interest as it provides an alternative banking system to the world economy. Islam considers trade a very important component of economic development and, therefore, the notion of investing finance in an ethical way is essential. On the one hand, interest is forbidden in Islam; on the other hand, the management of investment is a must, so Islam has developed an alternative financial system which encourages the promotion of trade without interest. In this system, therefore, risk is shared rather than being transferred while taking the business transactions into consideration.

In the previous chapter, Islamic finance and its background were discussed in order to understand the nature of Islamic finance from a Shari’ah point of view. In order to obtain a thorough understanding of the system of Islamic finance, there was also a discussion of the different types of riba. The present chapter moves on to an explanation of the objectives of Islamic finance. These objectives have been classified into four separate categories: Islamic objectives, social objectives, ethical objectives and economic objectives.

Islamic Banking in Saudi Arabia is emerging because of the social implications prevailing in this banking system. Saudi Arabia has both conventional and Islamic banks, but many banks have shifted from conventional to Islamic in the last few years. The present study was conducted to analyze the perception of Saudi society towards Islamic banking as far as its ‘shariah’ rules are concerned. The study aims at measuring to what extent society is satisfied with this banking system and what is their perception towards working of this banking? Based on the findings, some important suggestions have been mentioned at the end.

Bangus valley is an unexplored tourist destination of district kupwara of Jammu and Kashmir. The state government has proposed the place for the development of ecotourism but, to avoid environmental degra- dation from the tourism pressure and to maintain its ecological balance it was important to assess the tourism carrying capacity of the place. The present tentative investigation showed that the place can accommodate 3250 visits per day.