Gurbachan Singh: Judicious Management of Land, Water and Climate Resources for Sustainable Agriculture.
I am very happy to participate in the seventh annual conference of the Association of Punjab Geographers and share some of my thoughts with the distinguished audience present here. I am beholden to the President and members of the Association for inviting me to the conference and providing me this opportunity. The focal theme of this conference "Sustainability of Land Resources" is very appropriate particularly, taking into account the states like Punjab and Haryana known for ushering Green Revolution in India.
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Karanjot Kaur Brar: Environmental Studies in Indian Geography: Emerging Trends and Futuristic Approach.
Environmental studies are at the forefront for a number of reasons. The most obvious is the very visible and apparent human impact and the consequences being faced. Climate change, global warming, rising temperatures, cloudbursts and flash floods, are all much talked about. By virtue of its nature and strong tradition of man-land relationships, all investigations related to the environment fall within the purview of geography.
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R. D. Doi: Patterns of Land Utilization in Sub-watersheds of Morel Sub-catchment (Rajasthan)
The paper deals with aggregate land use/land cover classification based on screen visual interpretation on digital FCC on the scale 1:50,000 and finally logical merging of Kharif (summer) and Rabi (winter) crop season classes. The area (2946.57 km2) under arable land category is just half of the total study area (5892.78 km2). Rabi cropland use predominates among all the 14 classes of land use/land cover sharing 34.69 per cent of the total Morel sub-catchment during the agricultural calendar 2001-02. The ravine land cover shares 15.30 per cent of the total study area ranking second to the Rabi cropland use. The area mapped under Kharif crop is less due to rainfall received 20 to 28 per cent less than the annual mean rainfall amount in the semi-arid Morel sub-catchment during the 2001.It may also be less due to bajara and pulses might have been harvested earlier than the date of satellite pass over the study area. Besides, mixing of spectral signatures could be overcome by collecting sufficient ground truths pertaining to doubtful classes along with other classes of land use/land cover and subsequently correcting bit maps prior to the final aggregation of land use/land cover for the study area.
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Rais Akhtar: Changing Disease Ecology of Leh District: Contemporary Scenario and Historical Perspective.
In this paper an attempt has been made to present a comparative disease scenario between 1867 and 2001, and to highlight geographical explanation on the pattern of diseases in Leh district of Ladakh. The study is based on the primary as well as secondary sources of data and information.
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Ravinder Kaur: Epidemics in India: A Spatio-temporal Analaysis
Hand in hand with history of any seriously infectious disease is its geography. The distribution, occurrence and spread of a disease is a geographers concern. Using the approach of spatial and temporal analysis an attempt has been made in this paper to derive spatial patterns of various epidemics in India since 1970’s .The data reveals that diarrhoea and arbovirus have been major killers in India. Spatially speaking, the states of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Orissa, West Bengal and Andhra Pradesh are more prone to epidemics. Their high population density and high degree of population flux explain the outbreak of disease in these states. By and large the epidemic months are those falling between May and November. These months are most favourable for bacterial contamination of water supply and multiplication of various virus and arthropod vectors which transmit the diseases.
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Vinod. K Bhardwaj, Geeta Sharma: Indo-Nepal Open Border: Is There Need to Review the Friendship.
The present research paper is concerned with the events, to be seen with the eyes of mutual friendship, between India and Nepal and to conclude about the Indo-Nepal border and its current status. The relevance of the open border between India and Nepal from economic and trade points of view is another aspect of relationship, which is being practiced under the "India and Nepal: Trade and Transit Treaty-1950" and the other consecutive mutual agreements between the two governments. But the utility of this open border to the public, living either side to the border, is different from the aforesaid. In the last decade of political paradigm in Nepal it is tried by some anti Indian minds to articulate minor problems to the level that they are propagated as major issues between India and Nepal. Border dispute, regularisation of the border, Mahakali Hydro Power dispute etc. are some of them. It is also a fact that the magnitude of the people, crossing the border daily, weekly and seasonaliy, is more from Nepal than India, which states that Nepal is benefited more through this border than India. The opinion of the borderians, stated in this paper, is based on field survey conducted in the border areas of Uttarakhand. Majority of the respondents are in favour to maintain the status quo at the border. They discarded to get it converted into restricted or liberalised; however the proposal to start registration system was appreciated by them. There is need of bilateral efforts to strengthen the friendly environment between India and Nepal.
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Syed Waseem A. Ashraf, Safia Khanam: Patterns of Vehicular Traffic on The Roads of Aligarh City: A Case Study.
Motorization is inextricably linked to urbanization. Mobility in urban areas is of particular interest, because limits of space and high densities of land-intensive individual transport modes (cars, two- and three-wheelers) result in congestion. India also has witnessed rapid increase in urbanization and motorization, but in India the road traffic is characterized by heterogeneity of traffic.
The present study tries to investigate the influence of the process of urbanization on the vehicular traffic and the vice-versa in Aligarh city. The results show that the increase in income level, inadequate provision of public transport services, and uncontrolled expansion of urban limits have given rise to the number of vehicles in the city. The important feature of vehicular traffic in Aligarh city is the dominance of non-motorized vehicles. There is also increase in the number of individual means of transport (motorized) apart from the public transportation system which has led to high emission level of pollutants.
The situation is alarming, because these are ground level sources of pollution and a large number of people live, move and operate along the roads, and are thus exposed to automotive pollutants. Levels of traffic congestion and emission along the major roads of Aligarh city have been found on the basis of traffic surveys.
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Daljit Kaur Sandhu: Tubewell Irrigation and its Impact on Agricultural Landscape in Notrh-Eastern Tract of Haryana.
The water available for agriculture is one of the elementary base of farming in dry lands. An assured water supply makes the farming superior, stable, diversified and commercially profitable. Rainfall being meagre, concentrated and highly truant both in time and space, farming without irrigation seems a difficult proposition. It is, therefore essential to tap the available water resources for irrigation. The inadequacy of surface water resources is being made up in the recent past by the use of sub-surface water resource. Tubewells are the major source of irrigation and has a great significance for the development of agricultural economy in the study area. Analysis of changes in cropping pattern reveals that emphasis has shifted from coarse food grains to commercial crops particularly rice and sugarcane. There has been a major change in the area under rice and sugarcane cultivation. These water demanding crops resulted the declination in groundwater level. In the present paper an effort has been made to study the groundwater potentials and its use through tubewells. At the same time distribution and concentration of tubewells and their relationship with the depth of groundwater have also been investigated in the northeastern parts of Haryana.
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Navneet Kaur, Dhyan Kaur: Problems and Prospects of Fruit Cultivation in Himachal Pradesh.
Himachal Pradesh is one of the mountainous states of the country. The prevailing agro-climatic conditiions, topography and socio-economic variables have been responsible for a wide spatial spread of fruit cultivation in the state. This has resulted in an increase in area under fruits from a mere 1449.33 hectares in 1951 to almost 2 lakh hectares(1,91,517 ) in 2006. The production of different kinds of fruits in the state has also recorded a tremendous increase from 1200 tonnes to more than 6 lakh tonnes (6,95,517) during the same period. The emergence of fruit cultivation on commercial lines has given a big boost to the state’s economy, besides bringing the socio-political and ecological transformation. These developments have been accompanied by a heapful of problems associated with transportation, labour, pesticides/ fungicides, technical know-how, marketing, etc. It has been noted that more than half of the fruit growers suffer from problems of storage ,transportation and marketing, while most of the rest are suffering from land related difficulties.
This paper attempts to highlight the problems alongwith the future prospects of fruit cultivation in the state. The paper has been divided into four sections. Section I deals with general introduction, data and methodology. Section II is devoted to the varied problems related to fruit cultivation. Whereas the prospects of fruit cultivation constitute section III. Section IV is devoted to conclusions and policy recommendations.
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K. Surjit Singh: Conversion of Land Use- A Process Continuing.
If one views land use as a product of interrelationship of man and use of land surface and the various determinants of surface utilization, the complex dynamics of land use are confronted. This complexity can be understood if one consults the Penguin Dictionary of Human Geography that describes the land use as under: “-- the term land use deals with the spatial aspects of all human activities on the land and with the way in which the land surface is adapted, or could be adapted, to serve human needs. This definition implies that it is the human adaptation of the land surface which is important. Some geographers extend the definition to include types of vegetation as land use categories. A conflict of definition arises, since two distinct concepts are involved; the functional use of land to meet people’s need (e.g. trees, houses, crops). Where the two coincide, e.g. residential use/houses, there is no problem, but if they do not there is the possibility of confusion, e.g. trees and moorland can be recognized as a form of cover without establishing whether the land is used for agriculture, forest, recreation or some other purpose. In the strict sense land use should apply to the activity on and not to the appearance of the land surface”
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Doctoral Abstract: Satish Kumar: Quaternary Geomorphic Events and River Terraces in Northwest Himalaya: A Case Study of Beas Basin, India.
Streams are an extremely important exogenetic agent of geomorphic change because running water is the most widespread cause of landmass degradation on the earth. A river valley possesses features that contain the record of past geomorphic events.
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Doctoral Abstract: Saba Anjum: Women Workers in Informal Sectors in Aligarh City.
Contrary to the image projected world-wide of women fulfilling primarily domestic and child-rearing roles, the reality of most women lives is that they are obliged by poverty and deprivation to seek an income outside the home, either as the sole breadwinner or to supplement male earnings. In developing countries, when women are not engaged solely in subsistence agriculture, they tend to be involved in the so-called informal sector also known as the 'hidden' or 'shadow' economy.
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