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In an attempt to understand the role of supply-side infrastructure in provider choice, the study looks into the regional variation in provider choice in healthcare among Indian households both for inpatient and outpatient services. Since provider choice is often documented to be influenced by various socioeconomic, demographic and ailment-related demand-side factors like income class, gender, disease type, etc., the purpose of this study is to unearth the regional variation in provider choice after controlling for these other factors and also to see if there is any association between the regional variation in provider choice and regional variation in prevalence of different types of providers. The study uses the database of Social Consumption: Health Survey, 75th round to look into the provider choice among Indian households and the databases of Rural Health Statistics and Economic Census, 6th round to get information about the supply-side infrastructure of healthcare. Along with descriptive statistics, multinomial logit model for the outpatient cases and binary logit for the inpatient cases have been used here. The study adds to the existing knowledge by confirming the strong existence of regional variation in provider choice even after controlling for the observed demand-side influencers of provider choice. The congruence between regional variation in likelihood of choosing one type of provider over the other, and regional variation in prevalence of these providers, reaffirms the role of supply-side factors in provider choice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Self-perceived health, a subjective assessment of health status, is influenced by state of economic independence and employment status after controlling for other demographic, social and health-related factors, particularly for elderly people as they tend to face discrimination in intra-household resource allocation. Being economically independent and employed increase the likelihood of elderly people rating their health as good/excellent compared to others and employment status came out as even more impactful. This study provides new insights by observing that across the expenditure quintile groups of the households, the importance of these variables varies as the bias in intra-household resource allocation against elderly people is supposed to increase with declining economic resources of the households. Economic independence improves the likelihood of rating one's health as good/excellent in the lowest expenditure quintile much more compared to those in the uppermost expenditure quintile. For employed too, the positive influence of employment status on self-perceived health of elderly people has been strictly increasing as we move down the expenditure quintiles of households. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The southern part of West Bengal produces very high quality of betel leaves not only ideal for domestic consumption but also for export with distinct cultivar producing highest amount of leaf essential oil. A small betel-vine of 3 decimal land could generate a monthly income of Rs.10,000-12,000. The main constraint of betel business is high perishability of the leaves. Several measures are recommended by the scientists for preservation of betel leaves. The extraction of betel leaf essential oil is the most adaptable solution to the perishability problem with a shelf life above 3 years with diverse application and high return. The coastal Bengal faces recurrent cyclones in summer causing havoc devastation of betel-vines and leaf-piles becomes the birth place of diverse pathogens. In betel export Salmonella infection and presence of high level of pesticide causes rejection of consignments. These declined betel mote creates environmental pollution by animal consumption and gets access to the food chain and local aquifers causing ecological imbalance even death. In such a condition the community based extraction facility of BLEO could be developed by the state horticulture department with involvement of local unemployed youth. Diverse oil extraction methods are available and could be selected according to the space, resource and demand of the market. Oil could be extracted from partially rotten and disease-stuck leaves leading to maximum utilization of waste leaves. The trader-cum-exporters could set up commercial oil extraction facility in pack-house adjoining area or local market or kishan mandi to reap the benefit of excess produce. The agri-marketing department and exporters could promote the marketing of this fragrant essential oil. The involvement of public and private sector could facilitate the large-scale utilization of the leaves with employment generation and high economic gain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study finds out the importance of socio-economic, demographic and health-care-related factors in determining catastrophic health expenditure (CHE) of a household and how they influence its health care expenditure. Rising out-of-pocket (OOP) expenses for health financing in developing countries with different methodologies to assess the associated factors with CHE has been documented. This study contributes to the existing literature from the methodological viewpoint. In the two-step approach, at the first step, the probability of a household incurring CHE has been estimated and in the second the importance of the determinants of health expenditure is examined. An analysis is done to find out whether the situation varies across the quintiles. The database is the 71st round of social consumption of health survey conducted by the NSSO during January-June 2014. Health expenditure in household budgets is the highest among the poorest quintile. Treating a non-communicable disease and opting for private facilities are expensive. Relaxing the budget constraint by financing the healthcare from sources like contributions from friends/relatives and sale of assets lead to high spending on healthcare. The study recommends health expenditure protection schemes for the vulnerable groups, etc. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Randomly amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) markers were used to estimate the genetic diversity of 25 phenotypically elite, nucellar clones of mandarin orange (Citrus reticulata Blanco), selected from seven locations in three geographically separate states of the North Eastern Himalayan Region of India. The 15 decamer primers generated 106 randomly amplified DNA fragments that were used as the genetic markers. The Squared Euclidean Distance measurement showed 65% maximum and 11% minimum genetic dissimilarity between the plant selections. By Ward's cluster analysis, the 25 individual plant selections were classified into two major clusters, having 15 and 10 plants each. Plants of one location were distributed within both of the two major clusters. The two major clusters were further divided into two sub-clusters each. The plants collected from three separate locations each were exclusive to these subclusters. Results of the analysis indicated the existence of large genetic differences among the plants of different locations and also within a single location of the region. Genetic similarity among the plants taken from geographically separated locations was also evident. The study confirms the existence of wide genetic diversity of mandarin orange plants in the North Eastern Himalyan Region of India that can be used in mandarin orange plant improvement programmes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]