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Gitanjali Khorwal,1 Gita Negi,2 Ashish Bhute,3 Harish Chandra,4 Priyavadhana Balasubramanian,4 Jayanti Pant5 1Department of Anatomy, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Rishikesh, Uttarakhand, India; 2Department of Transfusion Medicine, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Rishikesh, Uttarakhand, India; 3Department of Forensic Medicine and Toxicology, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Rishikesh, Uttarakhand, India; 4Department of Pathology, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Rishikesh, Uttarakhand, India; 5Department of Physiology, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Rishikesh, Uttarakhand, IndiaCorrespondence: Jayanti PantDepartment of Physiology, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Rishikesh, Uttarakhand, 249203, IndiaEmail pant.jayanti@gmail.comAbstract: Foundation programs are conducted in medical schools for undergraduate students, since they are naïve and unaware of the medical profession in depth. The program helps them to become familiar with the undergraduate medical training. The present intake of first year medical undergraduates had joined the institute amidst the COVID-19 pandemic and hence the foundation program had to be conducted through an online platform. The present paper is a description of the online program conducted in the institute and is aimed to focus on the pros and cons of using an online platform for conducting the program and the experience gained from it. The online foundation program was conducted over a period of 16 days through the Zoom© platform. The program was tailored to cater for the orientation of 175 students who were admitted for first year MBBS batch 2020– 2021. Feedback from students was obtained through Google Forms© at the end of the program. The online program was conducted smoothly due to the dedicated efforts of all the team members. Sessions requiring hands-on training and physical field visits had to be omitted in the present program. Network connectivity issues were reported sometimes. The conduction of the online foundation course program was indeed a learning experience. The team work was well reflected in the feedback from the students, which revealed appreciation for the overall program. Many sessions went very well in the online mode; however, sessions on humanities and extracurricular activities could have been organized in a better way with the physical presence of the students.Keywords: orientation, Zoom© platform, students, modules

This study evaluates the potential of backyard poultry farming with improved Vanaraja chicken variety for income generation of 66 rural women farmers of weaker sections in Uttarakhand hills. Results indicate that backyard poultry farming with improved Vanaraja variety could be a promising option for sustainable livelihood enhancement of the rural women, those otherwise have very limited income-generating opportunities in other challenging sectors. The performance of Vanaraja birds was evaluated by collecting data on various growth traits like body weight (2.2 to 3.4 kg/bird at 40 weeks), age at first egg laying (235–238 days), total egg production (98–120 eggs/bird), mortality (mean=17%) and reasons of mortality, income generation through sale of eggs and birds, etc. The benefit-cost (B:C) ratio was computed as 2.13. The higher B:C ratio and higher net return indicate that backyard poultry farming with Vanaraja is much more profitable in this region. A practical implication of this study was an increased annual average income of 66 women farmers by 27–61% over their income from other farm produce within 1 year that has great relevance in terms of increased purchase power and confidence building among rural poor to take up backyard poultry farming at a still larger scale. However, constraints and challenges such as high mortality in early stage (17%), high price of chick feed (57% of the total cost incurred in a farming cycle of 72 weeks), limited availability of improved DOCs, adequate medicare and other technical support need to be addressed to make backyard poultry more profitable and sustainable. Further research may address: (i) minimisation of input cost in terms of feed purchased from the market and use of local feed and open foraging to minimise the feed purchased from distant market, (iii) hygiene and health concerns of the chick birds and (iii) late maturity of the birds and low duration of egg laying as compared to other hilly states of India such as Sikkim. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the finding of pollination effects of honey bees (Apis cerana) on productivity outcomes of the three crops of the Himalayan agro-ecosystem: mustard (Brassica campestris), buckwheat (Fagopyrum esculentum) and plum (Prunus domestica). We used pollination exclusion on flowers of target crops to assess the contribution of pollinators on crop yield. The effect of pollination on various yield parameters under different treatments viz. Open pollination (OP) with supplementation of beehives and Control pollination (CP, pollinator exclusion) were quantified. The CP treatment negatively impacted crop yield variables in all the target crops contrary to the OP, where yield variables were significantly higher in all the target crops. Total yield of mustard increased by 27% (179 vs. 227 kg/ha), buckwheat by 73% (309 vs. 1141 kg/ha) and plum by 64% (0.92 vs. 2.52 kg fruits /branch) in OP than the CP. This is mainly due to higher pollinator density in the OP and supplementation of A. cerana bee hive. The maximum pollinator species diversity was recorded in buckwheat (16 spp.) followed by mustard (15 spp.) and plum (13 spp.). In all the target crops, honey bee (A. cerana) emerged as the most abundant visitor, with mean density of 24.38±0.92 in mustard, 18.56±2.00 in buckwheat and 39.45±1.45 in plum. The findings indicate that pollinators, especially honey bees can be suitably integrated with agro-ecosystems of this region for effective pollination management and to maximize the crop yield. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on water security challenges in the Western Himalayas and the need for effective water resource management. Topics include the impact of climate change and human activities on water availability, research gaps in groundwater recharge and hydrology, and policy recommendations for strengthening collaboration between government bodies, research institutions, and local communities to restore traditional water sources.

Fire is one of the major causes of forest degradation in India, and has wide ranging adverse ecological, economic and social impacts. In Uttarakhand, Chir Pine (Pinus roxburghii) forests spread over appx. 16% of total forest area (between 1000 and 1800 m asl) are particularly prone to forest fire (FF) due to resin-rich leaf litter accumulation on the forest floor during summer. Year 2016 (April-early June), witnessed a major Forest fire in the Chir Pine forests of Uttarakhand registering a total of 2069 Forest fire incidents affecting 4423 ha forests. This outrage of forest fire in Uttarakhand concerned everyone across the country, and to save the forests large scale efforts were made. Even National Disaster Response Force and helicopters had to be engaged in putting out forest fire. This article is a follow-up of a visit of Parliamentary Standing Committee on Science & Technology, Environment & Forests, Govt. of India to Uttarakhand (6-7 June, 2016) in the aftermath of Forest fire, and provides an overview of forest fire in Uttarakhand, its causes and consequences, and suggests some remedial measures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study on treeline phenology in Tungnath, Garhwal Himalaya (altitude, 2955-3334 m asl), we (i) collected data on micro-climatic conditions, timing of major phenophases, leaf and shoot growth phenology and leaf nitrogen resorption in four major tree species (Abies spectabilis, Betula utilis, Quercus semecarpifolia, Rhododendron arboreum) and a krummholz species (R. campanulatum); and (ii) compared the treeline species phenology with mid-altitude forest tree species phenology of this region. Meteorological data reported for this site revealed that the mean monthly atmospheric temperature during growing period (July-September) has increased at the rate of 0.11 °C yr-1 in the last two decades. Leaf bud-break occurred in all the species in May, however, the proportion of marked tree population in bud-break phase at the time of first observation in May varied considerably across the species from 10% in Q. semecarpifolia to 50% in R. arboreum. Leaf initiation and leafing in the treeline species was delayed by about two months, compared to the mid-altitude tree species. Also, the leaf expansion within one month of leafing was conspicuously slower in treeline species than mid-altitude species (43% vs. 83% in Quercus spp. and 49% vs. 76% in R. arboreum). The treeline species were characterized by short growing period (2-4 months), lower period of steady-state in peak leaf mass and rapid leaf mass loss, low nitrogen concentration in leaves (1.7% vs. 2.5%), slow shoot growth, lower shoot length (5.6 cm vs. 9.5 cm) and shoot growth period, and higher leaf density in shoots (1.2 vs. 0.8 leaves cm-1 shoot length) than the mid-altitude forest trees. It is expected that with the increasing rate of warming in Tungnath the phenological behaviour of treeline species would change markedly in future leading to changes in ecosystem properties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sensitivity of alpine treeline ecotone to climate change and upward shift of plants due to warming have been reported from many parts of the globe. However, such research in the climate sensitive western Himalaya is still in infancy due to paucity of past climatic and vegetation distribution data to detect the change. In this paper we determined the expansion of Rhododendron campanulatum krummholz using seedling population and growth characteristics along an altitudinal transect rummimg from the upper forest limit to treeline ecotone and beyond it in Tungnath (i.e., 3242 m asl), Uttarakhand. In the studied transect (altitudinal gradient of 3511-3665 m asl) in 2017, a total of 17 trees and 36 seedlings of R. campanulatum were found growing. Almost half of the trees were devoid of any seedlings around their canopies. Height and circumference at collar height of both the adults and seedlings were positively correlated (P < 0.05). Taking the mean distance of seedlings from the mother tree (2.8 m; range = 0.50-4.72 m) and mean age of the seedlings (2-9 yrs; mean = 3.9 yr; reckoned by the number of internodes) the rate of expansion of R. campanulatum population was computed about 1.4 m yr-1 Occurrence of mature individuals at the mountain top without any seedlings indicates that as no space left for upward movement of plants, the interspaces between the krummholz are being filled by the regenerating individuals. This may leave little grazing grounds for the migratory livestock and change ecosystem properties. It may be further pointed out that due to rise in atmospheric temperature (@ 0.11 °C yr-1 in the past two decades) and continued biotic stress of grazing and tree lopping, R. campanulatum, a non-palatable species of wider niche width might preponderate at the expense of herbs and other treeline species in future and may bring out compositional changes in treeline vegetation and carbon storage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]