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The agricultural sector in any country plays an important contributor to national output along with its high absorbability of the working population. In the agricultural sector, paddy production holds a major share in the total output in countries like India. The growth and stability of the paddy production at the national level depends on the same factors at the sub-national levels such as the provincial and district levels. The present study focuses first on the stability analysis of the quantity of food production and irrigation facilities in the top 10 rice-producing states in India and then on the stability of yield rates in three varieties of paddy production, Aus, Aman, and Boro, and irrigation facilities across the blocks in the Paschim Medinipur district of West Bengal, as a special reference. The analyses involves the evaluation of the growth and stability using Coppock’s method and trend analysis. It is found that Uttar Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh have a positive significant correlation between irrigation facilities and paddy production. From this study, it is also found that the correlation between changes in the yield rate of Aus, Aman, and Boro production and changes in irrigation is positive and significantly related to each other for Garbeta 1, Garbeta 3, Keshiary, Kharagpur 2, Chandrakona 1, and Chandrakona 2 blocks in Paschim Medinipur district under West Bengal. Therefore, the results recommend that the government should focus on irrigation facilities in those areas where the benefits of irrigation facilities are fully realized.

Food security is the major issue of the world as well as in developing countries like India in recent times. The study examines the status of food security for 15 selected states in India during 1995–1996 to 2018–2019 where the statuses of food security for the states are estimated by applying the multidimensional food security index. The secondary data on different food security indicators are collected from the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Agricultural Organization, National Family Health Survey (NFHS) report, RBI bulletin, Economic and Political Weekly Research Foundation (EPWRF), and different issues of Statistical Abstract of India. The value of the food security index has significantly increased over the study period. The food security conditions for all the states have improved at higher rates in the second subperiod compared to the first subperiod in the country. It has also used panel autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) method for the estimation of log-term and short-term relationship between food security and socioeconomic indicators of various states in the country. The food security of most of the states could be improved with the improvement in the conditions on the per capita power consumption, workforce participation rate, and cropping intensity in the country. Furthermore, the regional imbalance has decreased establishing that food security of the poorer states improved at a higher rate compared to richer states.

This study aims at understanding how higher education institutions (HEIs) can contribute to sustainable development, by designing their programmes for bringing about a transformative impact on communities and students, and also to examine what alternative pedagogical approaches could be used for that. In the past decades, HEIs have increasingly created social innovation (SI) programmes, as a way to achieve United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. These community-oriented and field-based programmes are difficult to ally with conventional classroom education. This study explores how these programmes could integrate the participatory approach and what would be the benefits. It also investigates the effectiveness of the experiential learning approach for teaching sustainability.

A case study method is used to document SI projects initiated by an HEI programme in rural India.

It was found that the participatory approach contributes to empowering communities and also benefits the students in terms of academic, professional and personal growth. Empirical findings show that experiential learning is an efficient method to teach sustainability. Ultimately, both pedagogical approaches are found to be mutually beneficial.

This study fills a gap in the literature, by providing empirical evidence on how HEI can implement innovative educational strategies such as participatory approach and experiential learning in their programmes towards teaching sustainability. A conceptual model for HEI interested in developing similar programmes is also proposed. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is one of the first studies focusing on the context of Indian HEI.

Volatility in agricultural commodity prices assumes a lot of significance since its associated uncertainty is one of the major factors affecting the income security of producers and traders. The study aims to investigate the fluctuations and instability of the two crops, paddy and wheat, in the states of India. It has estimated instability in prices over the years (2006–2023) for paddy and wheat for the top three producing states by using coefficient of variation (CV), Cuddy-Della Valle index and Coppock’s index. Then it estimates volatility by generalized autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity (GARCH) framework. It is observed that the average standard deviation of prices across mandis for paddy in a given month is 0.18 and for wheat it is 0.22. Both for paddy and wheat Punjab has the maximum instability among the three states if we consider CV and Coppock’s index. But if we consider the Cuddy-Della Valle index, Madhya Pradesh has the maximum instability for wheat. The noticed unpredictability in the price series of paddy revealed that the value of ARCH (α) has significant term and value of GARCH (β) was also significant for all the price series. The volatility (α + β) was quite persistent of the order of 0.985 in case of Uttar Pradesh. In case of wheat Punjab has the maximum value 0.95 signifying explosiveness. In case of wheat Punjab has the maximum value 0.95 signifying explosiveness.

Over the past decade, India has emerged as one of the major exporters of agricultural products in the international market. Although agriculture in India accounts for about 50% of the economy's employment, its contribution as share to India's gross domestic product is significantly low. India primarily has emphasized on the production of food grains since the government policies promote not only exports but also food security and sustenance of rural and vulnerable sections of the economy. In recent times, India has witnessed a sharp increase in the productivity of food grains, but the underlying factors are of grave concern since issues such as suboptimal production, underutilization of resources and inability to adopt advanced technologies remain unacknowledged. The present study delves into various aspects of the production of food grains across 30 Indian states and emphasizes upon measuring the efficiency of food grain production across the 30 states on the basis of the non-parametric technique of Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA). The evaluation also considers economies of scale. The results highlight the fact that the Indian states are about 21% inefficient in terms of food grain production with the average efficiency score being 0.79. The methodology adopted for this study incorporates crucial factors such as usage of land area, usage of fertilizers and allocation of bank credit to carry the analysis forward. The present study has also aimed at providing certain policy recommendations for the policymakers in this regard so that the states can sustainably improve their efficiency in terms of the production of food grains.

This article targeted to experimentally examine the impact of several considered process parameters namely, applied voltage (AV), tool feed rate, electrolyte concentration and pulse frequency (PF), on the material removal rate (MRR) and radial overcut (ROC) while performing shaped tube drilling of aviation grade Inconel 625 super alloy through electrochemical machining principle. Further, an attempt has also been made to develop mathematical models for the process responses along with advanced optimization with evolutionary methods.

The central composite rotatable design matrix was used to scheme out the experiments in the present study. The consistency and accuracy of the developed mathematical models were confirmed through statistical results. Additionally, a field emission scanning electron microscope analysis was conducted to assess and analyze the microstructure of the machined work samples. The study also seeks to optimize the selected process inputs for MRR and ROC through the implementation of the desirability method, particle swarm optimization (PSO) and Teaching Learning-Based Optimization (TLBO).

The ROC is significantly influenced by the input parameters, specifically the PF and AV. Less ROC values were observed when the high PF with moderate AV. The minimum and maximum values of ROC and MRR were obtained as; 135.128 µm and 380.720 µm; 1.37 mg/min and 2.3707 mg/min, correspondingly. The best optimized confirmatory results were obtained through the TLBO approach, with an MRR value of 3.1587 mg/min and a ROC of 71.9629 µm, in comparison to the PSO and desirability approaches.

The various challenges associated with the productive machining of aviation grade Inconel 625 superalloy have been explored experimentally. The conducted experimentation has been performed on the in-house fabricated micro-electrochemical setup capable of performing a variety of advanced machining operations at the miniaturized level. Further, the application of shaped tube drilling while processing aviation grade Inconel 625 superalloy has been explored with the developed micro-ECM set-up. Moreover, the performed microstructure analysis of the machined work samples has elaborated and explored the various associated surface integrity aspects which are quite crucial when it comes to real-life aerospace-related applications. The utility of designed experiments has further made the attempted experimental analysis more fruitful and qualitative too.

Food security emerges when all people always have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe, and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life. The availability of food, access to food, and absorption of food are three key aspects of food security. Considering the above, the initial goal in this chapter is to measure annual growth rate and compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of production of food grains, nutri coarse cereals, total pulses, and nine oilseeds for the period 2011–2021 in India. To estimate per capita availability of Food Grains, Nutri Coarse Cereals, Total Pulses and Nine Oilseeds (in kg) represents the food security in India. The highest production is recorded in between 2011 and 2021 for food grains (315.72), followed by the production of nine oil seeds (36.7), total pulses (27.69), and nutri coarse cereals (26.42). In 2016, the annual growth rate for food grains and nine oilseeds was 9.37 and 23.88%, respectively. It is very evident that the availability per capita has grown from 2011 to 2021. The per capita availability of food grains increased from 206.17 kg in 2011 to 224.30 kg in 2021. The per capita availability of total pulses increased from 13.59 kg in 2011 to 19.67 kg in 2021. The per capita availability of nine oil seeds increased from 23.70 kg in 2011 to 26.78 kg in 2021 which indicates India has managed food security successfully in the last decade.

Agriculture is one of the important sectors for the sustainable development of any country. In order to achieve the SDG1 and 2, improvization of productivity and performance in agricultural development is needed. The present study attempts to analyse the change in productivity and cropping pattern among the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) countries that comprises Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Myanmar, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Thailand. The study also examines the performance of BIMSTEC countries in exporting the agricultural products. The study is based on the secondary data collected from Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. In accordance with the importance for the development of the country, the study also analyses the export and import of these cereal crops among the BIMSTEC countries. For the empirical investigations the study uses co-efficient of variation, Coppock’s instability index and Balassa’s index. The study reveals that productivity and cropping pattern of the cereal production has been changing gradually over time in all BIMSTEC countries which show the importance of products substitution. It also reveals that the development cooperation among the BIMSTEC countries through promotion of exports and imports is required to meet their needs.

Despite recent economic progress, Bangladesh still faces significant challenges from natural disasters that impact food security and employment. In 2017, a severe flash flood caused by excessive rain and onrush from India devastated the haor-based Sunamganj district. The study explores the impacts of the flash flood on food security, employment and the overall well-being of the affected population, as well as evaluates government and NGO initiatives taken to alleviate the crisis using a mixed-methods approach, incorporating qualitative and quantitative data collection techniques such as in-depth interviews, focus group discussions (FGDs), key informant interviews and surveys from the flash flood-affected people residing in the five affected villages. The study observes that the flash flood caused severe damage to the agricultural sector, with almost every farmer in the affected area losing their single-season high-yielding Boro paddy, resulting in year-long food insecurity and unemployment. The government responded to the situation by providing year-long food and monetary aid through various social safety net programmes, although some accusations of nepotism and embezzlement were reported. The study found that the majority of the people were reliant on government aid for survival throughout the year. Moreover, some NGOs also played a crucial role by providing food and other support. The research suggests that transparency and accountability must be prioritized to ensure fairness, and positive lessons learned from the government's efforts during this flash flood might be helpful in reducing vulnerability and distributing relief more effectively.