Top PDF Rising trends in rural market in india (a consumer brand awareness level study with respect to meerut - muzaffarnagar region of western uttar pradesh, india)

confer the power of expert knowledge on even the smallest individual farmer, thus enhancing his competitiveness in the global market ITC eChoupal e-choupal is now being regarded as a reliable delivery mechanism for resource development initiatives. Its potential is being tested through pilot projects in healthcare, educational services, water management and cattle health management with the help of several service providers including non-governmental organizations. As of July 2010, services through 6500 Echoupal across 10 states, reach more than 4 million farmers in about 40,000 villages. (www.echoupal.com). ITC is also trying to position itself with farmers as the much-needed alternative to the network of local dealers or wholesalers, peddling over-priced products of suspect quality. E- choupal network today serves as a rural marketing platform together with other channels established by ITC in rural markets. Over 70 companies today use this channel to offer their goods and services to rural India,” (Srinivas, 2010). The “Philips Mahasangram” is aimed at taking Philips' new products to the semi-urban and rural customers and increasing their awareness where product knowledge, information and availability are concerned." An indication of the size of this initiative can be obtained from the fact that Philips will be spending about 4.5 per cent of its turnover from the rural/semi-urban areas on the Mahasangram alone.

In 2009, life insurance sector felt the financial crisis most acutely, taking into account the increase in unemployment rate and the fall in income of insurance products customers. One of the factors that had a significant influence upon this sector was the psychological factor because the fear and uncertainty concerning consumers’ financial security led in early 2009, both to the increate in cancellations and complete cash surrender of contracts and also the intention to buy an insurance policy was put off.. Consumers need to know when buying insurance that if they request a cash surrender value of their policy will not bring in the expected benefits. Life insurance segment bounced back in late 2009, when the number of surrenders and cancellations diminished significantly. Gross paid claims and the amounts paid for repurchases and mature life insurance contracts totalled 680.,720 million lei in 2009, increasing by 37.48% compared to 2008 (495.1 million lei). Rising prices and wage-cutting were the main elements that influenced negatively the quality of life of the Romanian people. These were followed by the loss of diminish of fringe benefits or job loss, increase of payment value due to leu devaluation, all these aspects being direct consequences of the world economic crisis. This led inevitably to a significant change in consumers’ behaviour.

In this paper, we discuss the evolution of the mobile communication systems from GSM to LTE (2G to 4G) and the trends in the mobile communication industry. The Global System for Mobile Communication (GSM) is a well established cellular system targeted here due to its engineering success and the large number of users currently using the services. The flexibility of wireless networks over voice and data transmission makes it one of the most popular modes of communication. Evolution to next generation services depends on an addition of new services and new features to the existing networks or even an integration of different communication technologies. With the invention of the devices such as tablets and smart phones the need to improve the data transmission rates and transmission efficiency has increased to higher than ever before. In this paper, we focus at some of the important issues pertaining to the evolution of mobile communication networks and predict the future of the networks based on the analysis of the cellular market in India. Since GSM networks accounts for more than 75% of the world wide cellular network, only the evolution of GSM network has been discussed in this paper.

equines  are  Rajasthan,  Uttar  Pradesh,  Jammu  and Kashmir, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh,  Maharashtra, Karnataka and Delhi where these  animals  are  scattered  across  different  regions.  Maharashtra,  Karnataka  and  Delhi  have  well  established  horse  industries,  primarily  involving  thoroughbreds.  In  other  states,  mules,  ponies  and  donkeys  are  kept  as  for  work  purposes  by  the  rural  poor.  In  these  states,  equines  constitute  98%  of  the  total  population  and  they  are  constantly  on  the  move  from  one  place  to  other  with  their  owners  in  search  of  work.  The  movement  of  these  animals  does  usually  occur  on  the  established  roads;  the  animals  are  taken  to  various  places  along  local  trekking  routes  where  movement  controls  are  not  possible.  Animal owners normally procure their animals  from  traders  in  Uttar  Pradesh  and  Rajasthan  where  animal  fairs  are  organised  year  round.  From  these  trading  places,  the  disease  spread  to other parts of the country. 

The European market for butter, characterized by market integration, was observed by Hockmann and Vöneki (2008). This case-study is an excellent example to illustrate the kind of major pressures arising from the CAP in a food branch that may directly affect the rural areas of milk production. For a long time, the intervention prices set by the EU provided the ‘market basic price’, keeping the EU prices artificially higher than world market prices (Agrar Europe, 2005). After the CAP Reform in 2004, with the decrease of intervention prices, the gap between EU and world market prices started to reduce with the intention of removing a certain structural production surplus from the markets (Daugbjerg and Swinbank, 2004). Nowadays, the existing production excess is exported and submitted to a refunding applied after being calculated on the difference between domestic and world market prices, as was done until 2004, but now also after a calibration by other factors such as internal market stability, restrictions resulting from World Trade Organization commitments, or even future market trends. Indeed, it should be made clear that, for several key branches of the food sector like cereals, dairy products or wine, for example, and for many years, the CAP applied a very complex price support system that to a great extent influenced farmers in a way that was almost totally out of their control.

Several available micro scale demographic and epidemiological evidences regarding the menarcheal age of Indian women only permits conjecture about any consistent magnitude of socioeco- nomic and geographic variations in age at menarche over time. The estimates presented in Table 1 summarize the levels and patterns of age at menarche among specific groups of Indian women. The mean age at menarche reportedly varied from 16.50 years to 12.43 years across various subgroups of Indian women over the past four decades [38–50]. Notably, most of the studies that reported age at menarche above 13 years were estimates during 1970–1990, while remaining studies that provided estimates of age at menarche below 13 years were recent studies mostly after 2000.Some of the studies provide estimates of age at menarche across various socioeconomic groups, rural vs. urban, sportswomen, ethnic/caste groups, linguistic groups etc. For instance, a study reported the estimated age at menarche for non-poor and poor girls (13.5060.03SD and 13.9460.09SDre- spectively) in Tirupati city of Andhra Pradesh in South India [51]. Substantial caste wise differential in age at menarche (Brahmin: 12.5861.03SD; Maratha: 12.6060.86SD; Scheduled Caste: 13.1661.14SD; Other castes: 13.0860.97SD) were also found among girls in a province in Maharashtra, Western India [52]. Some studies have shown marked differences in age at menarche among girls by socioeconomic status (Class I: 13.0561.09SD; Class IV–V: 12.0761.77SD), body mass index (underweight: 12.7261.18SD; normal: 12.6761.37SD; obese: 11.9761.68SD) and place of residence (rural: 12.5161.55SD; urban: 12.3761.46SD) in Lucknow district of North India [39].

ages 55-64 (7%). Adoption of mHealth is higher in developing economies than in developed economies. A study conducted by McKinsey & Company [22] on global healthcare revealed that, mobile healthcare solutions were being deployed more rapidly in emerging markets than in developed economies with 59% of emerging-market patients using at least one mHealth application or service, compared with 35% in the developed world. Among those who do not, emerging-market residents were more interested in starting. The study further revealed that these trends would imply that the larger developed economies could end up spending nearly 15 percent of their GDP on healthcare within the next two decades. McKinsey [22] conducted a market survey of 3,000 people in the US, China, Germany, South Africa, India, and Brazil. Participants were asked about their willingness to adopt and pay for mHealth services, specifically SMS medication reminders; remote medical advice, phone-prompted drug delivery, and health watch (remote monitoring of factors such as blood pressure and pulse). The survey revealed that a sizeable proportion of consumers were willing to pay USD 15 to 58 a month for a remote monitoring solution (in the survey the health watch), with interest in both emerging and developed markets. If the results are extrapolated to organization for economic co-operation and development (OECD) and BRIC countries (considering the different populations), we can estimate an untapped consumer-led market potential of up to USD 30 to 35 billion. The world of apps is set to transform healthcare in the coming years. It is estimated that some 30 percent of smartphone users are likely to use wellness apps by 2015, while the smartphone and tablet are becoming the most popular technological development for doctors since the invention of the stethoscope (Boston Consulting Group [BCG], 2012). The drivers of mHealth in each country are thus different. For Indian respondents, the three biggest attractions are cost reduction (cited by 58%), convenience of access (55%)and ability to obtain otherwise unavailable information (40%). Convenience is the biggest consideration of British patients (49%), but this is followed by a desire to take greater control of their own health (43%). Cost reduction (25%) is far down the list [23].

Indirect costs refer to the reduction in household productivity resulting from the interruption of normal or preferred activities of household members. We used an output-based approach to value the time diverted as a result of ill-health in all persons contributing to the economic pro- ductivity or wealth of the household. For those with formally-paid wages, the indirect cost was the daily earnings multiplied by the number of days lost. The contribution of individual house- hold members to agricultural output was not determined. Study participants were asked to re- port the overall loss of income from agriculture during the period of ill-health. When provided with information on the reduction in agricultural output local market prices were used to de- termine the monetary value. The market values reported by patients were remarkably consis- tent. The use of an output-based approach was appropriate in this setting, allowing us to account for the significant fluctuations in work intensity that occurred during the year and the coping strategies used to minimise productivity losses, for example recruitment of additional labour to minimise farming losses. The cost of hiring external labour was valued using average local wage rates for males and females. Coping strategies used to generate money, for example selling assets or taking a loan, were identified but considered separately and not factored into cost data. Time diverted by those engaged in unpaid production (children, the elderly, jobsee- kers and women engaged in domestic work) was considered valueless for the purpose of this analysis and excluded from estimates of indirect costs.

This is the first study from India systematically examining the scale-up of anti-retroviral treatment services and its potential impact on the trends in average CD4 lymphocyte counts of people living with HIV. The strength of the study was that we collected data from 12 ART centres spread across the state of Karnataka and included all the PLHIV registered for HIV care. We found that there has been a massive scale-up of ART services in the state over the past 8 years with a 12-fold increase in the number of PLHIV registered for care in 2011 as compared to 2004. The proportion of females living with HIV registered for care has consistently increased over the years to reach more than 50% in 2011 allaying any concerns of gender- based inequity in accessing services. Increasing trend in median age of PLHIV registered for care indicates a right shift in age distribution and may be an early indicator of declining HIV epidemic in the state. This fact is confirmed by recent estimates from NACO which indicate a nationally declining trend in HIV incidence and the number of people living with HIV. HIV incidence is declining in both males and females [16]. The rising number of females accessing HIV care in the background of falling incidence provides additional evidence of improved access among females.

Many institutions have started augmenting teacher-led programmes with content-rich e-learning modules. Government initiatives are not far behind either. The projection for further development of distance e-Learning in India is positive. Several efforts are currently progressing towards providing quality distance learning to more people in urban and rural areas, through the utilization of more effective web resources and practices. The major hindrance to the acceptance of e-learning can be attributed to the Indian mindset that is more inclined to traditional classroom teaching (HANSEN, 2008). The visibility of e-learning is currently limited to IT and educational CDs, but With PC penetration and overall online accessibility increasing in the country, the future of e-learning looks promising, provided the organization of content and delivery is well-structured.

associated with its desirability can be seen as a manifestation of the agenda, needs and ideology of the intervening agency as much as the actual needs of the local communities. It raises the question of the accountability and representativeness of organisation vis-à-vis the communities. Taking the case of a Gandhian activist organisation, Tarun Bharat Sangh (hereafter TBS), which has received international recognition (and funding) for promoting traditional rainwater harvesting by means of small earthen dams (locally known as johads; see figure 1 below) in Rajasthani villages, this paper explains how a g ass oots o ga isatio , hile ad o ati g the ause of people’s o t ol o e thei lo al atu al resources, uses and manipulates the idea of 'traditional' for creating a niche for itself in the arena of soil and water conservation. 3 The TBS, based in Alwar district of Rajasthan, takes pride in designing its water harvesting structures using indigenous knowledge and shramdaan (literally, voluntary labour) provided by village communities. It takes recourse to religious and cultural practices (such as tree-worship) for promoting forest conservation and claims to have 'drought-proofed' some Rajasthani villages. 4 It also sees itself as an agency playing a catalytic role in realising the Gandhian dream of village 'self-reliance' and self-suffi ie . A dis ussio o the TBS’s a ilit to eate 'change from below', and its power to keep autonomy from the trans-national development regime even while accepting funds from international donors has been presented elsewhere (see Gupta and Sinha, 2008). Here, my main purpose is to problematise the notion and practice of 'traditional' rainwater harvesting in the context of the TBS. The paper demystifies traditional rainwater harvesting and the various positive connotations associated with it in the narratives of TBS. It argues that beyond the discourse, little attention is actually given to equity in the 'revival' of traditional water harvesting.

INTRODUCTION: Population ageing is the process by which older individuals become a proportionally larger share of the total population was one of the most distinctive demographic events of the twentieth century. It will surely remain important throughout the twenty-first century. Initially experienced by the more developed countries, the process has recently become apparent in much of the developing world as well. 1 India, the second largest country in the world, is presently

- depunerile de ioni amoniu sunt ridicate în România, comparabile cu valorile deter- minate în Germania ş i dep ăş indu-le pe cele înregistrate în celelalte ţă ri europene spec- ifica[r]

Rural-urban migrants, their rural siblings, and urban non- migrants and their urban siblings were included in analyses. Distributions of macronutrient intake were checked for outliers. Median values and lower and upper quartiles were calculated (because of the skewed distribution of some variables) for energy intake, macronutrient intake (protein, fat, saturated fat, and carbohydrate, and percent energy from each of these), and energy-density, by sex and migration status. Nutrients were transformed to the natural log scale and statistical tests for the significance of the trend in mean values across rural, migrant, and urban groups were calculated using linear regression models and Wald test statistics, adjusted for age and factory site. Analyses were carried out separately in men and women, as we anticipated that there may be gender differences in the effect of migration, and also because of the statistical dependency between husbands and wives produced by the study design. Robust standard errors were used to account for clustering in sibling pairs. Similar analyses were conducted to examine variation in food groups by migration status. Vegetarianism was assessed by whether the participant reported consumption of any meat or fish in the FFQ. Differences in the proportion of vegetarians in rural, migrant and urban groups were assessed via Wald test statistics from a logistic regression model, adjusting for age, factory, and again accounting for clustering in sibling pairs by calculating robust standard errors. For meat and fish, differences in intake were considered for participants who were non-vegetarians only.

Use of mobile phones in acute care and epidemics A study from Washington, D.C. reported participants’ willing- ness to send photographs of their wounds to physicians for diagnosis and recommendations [42]. Majority of our respondents were willing to communicate with healthcare providers via mobile phones in an emergency. However, their limited use of phone camera (4.5%) and phone-based Internet (1%) minimises the possibility of using photographs, Internet and MMS. A study from Nakuru, Kenya demonstrated that mobile phones were useful in facilitating communication and decision-making in reproductive health [40]. This may be due to quicker communication and easier access to information in an emergency. Such use of mobile phones could especially benefit rural India, where frequently, patients must travel long distances to meet a doctor, not only for their most basic health requirements but also in emergencies. The possibility of using emergency helplines that either provide verbal basic or professional assistance could also be explored in this setting. However for the population in our study, accessing healthcare in an emergency may not pose a significant issue given the presence of a primary and a secondary level healthcare facility in the village. In our study, those with formal education were more likely to contact their doctor via mobile phone, for acute and emergency care. It is possible that this group had better health literacy [43] than the others because of their education. They were likely to understand the importance of health personnel and urgent intervention in the management of emergencies. However, those literate in English were less likely to contact their doctor in an emergency. The reasons for this association need to be determined.

The basic mechanism underlying the complications in both the vivax and falciparum malaria is similar but the degree of contribution by the individual multiple fac- tors differs. Complications such as cerebral malaria, re- nal failure, hepatic involvement and ARDS are believed to be due to sequestration of infected red cells in microvas- culature. Other complications such as severe anaemia, dis- seminated intravascular coagulation and thrombocytope- nia are considered to be non-sequestration related with a

A careful revision has been done for each article and the source of ANN application in market segmentation has been categorized into 8 dimensions as shown in Fig. 1 Although this search was not exhaustive, it serves as a comprehensive base for an understanding of ANN research in segmentation. The application of neural networks in marketing area is relatively new but is becoming popular because of their ability of capturing nonlinear relationship between the variables. Numerous applications of NNs models in marketing discipline are available, to mention a few are Market Segmentation, Market Response Prediction, New Product Launch, Sales Forecasting, Consumer Choice Prediction, etc. Market modeling is an extremely important issue in marketing. At the aggregate level, market share models are commonly used in marketing for a number of different purposes. These include the estimation of price and advertising elasticity as well as more generally, predicting the effects of changes in marketing variables. Cluster analysis is a common tool for market segmentation. Conventional research usually employs the multivariate analysis procedures. Kuo et al., (2002a,b, 2006) compared three clustering methods and proposed that SOM performs better clustering than the other conventional methods.

The abrasivity of rock which is a main contributory geological condition can be described by the petrographic composition, in particular the contribution of hard minerals like quartz. Determination of quartz or equivalent quartz content can be done by microscopic examination of a thin section. Alternatively by laboratory tests where some kind of model or index test is used. In the present paper the Cerchar abrasivity test as well as the Laboratoire des Ponts et Chaussées (LCPC) abrasivity test is employed and its comparison with other methods has also been made. Abrasion is the wearing or tearing away of particles from the surface. More abrasive the rocks are, the higher the operation costs. The mechanization of the excavation methods associated with increased advancement rate or increased production rates in mining require a greater knowledge of rock abrasivity. Abrasiveness of rock cannot be predicted with a high degree of accuracy. In recent years, the studies on determining the abrasiveness of rocks have been carried out intensively. There are several methods for estimating the abrasiveness of rocks and minerals, used with various degree of success and relevance. They can be broadly divided into three categories:

5 Several long term measures of management and mitigation of the fishery impacts have been implemented by relevant organizations. In recent years an evolution regarding the scale of action has been noticed, with an effort to apply ecosystem based measures. It is understood today that to protect the species, we have to protect their environment and its resources (Garcia et al., 2003; Fréon et al., 2005). The common assumption that the decline in marine resources is due to direct exploitation is problematic since it is derived from several factors. Pollution, illegal fishing, habitat degradation and climate change, contribute to a large part of the degradation noticed on marine environment and the scarcity of its resources. Also natural phenomena can be misleading in relation to the analysis of fish stocks (Alheit et al., 2005). Marine ecosystem is not only affected by fisheries impacts. It is an extremely dynamic system, as such, influenced by many factors that will lead to a large variation (Halley and Stergiou, 2005; Drinkwater et al., 2009; Wilson et al., 2013). This variability of the ecosystem and resources will be reflected in the fishing industry, causing the increasing variability that has been observed in landings (Halley & Stergiou, 2005). Among the factors affecting the variability are: predator-prey interactions, climate change, recruitment, patterns of distribution, seasonality and invasive species, among others (Bascompte et al., 2005; Pais, 2007; Badjeck, 2010; Teixeira et al., 2013). These factors could induce errors in the assessment of stock decline causes, thus leading to heavy management measures which will in turn affect the fishing industry and the whole economy that depends on it.

ABSTRACT: Nutritional inadequacy leads to health problems, especially during the period of increased demand. Adolescents are a potential group in view of rapid growth and maturation which demands extra nutrients. With the multitude of social customs and beliefs cited against adolescents especially adolescent girls it is no wonder that they form the vulnerable group of under nutrition. With poor socio economic status, hostile living conditions and food influenced by vagaries of nature, adolescents living at hills form the distinct group to be studied. This cross-sectional prevalence study included 45 adolescent girls of age group 12-19 years residing in hills of Garhwal. The outcome measures for nutritional status were stunting, thinness and proportion of underweight/under nutrition. In this study 34.61% of adolescents’ girls were found to be stunted. The stunting was more (33.33%) in 16 to 19 years of age group. The overall prevalence of thinness was 43.47%. However percentage of thinness was higher (56.25%) in the lower age group (12-15 years). Under nutrition was prevalent in similar proportions in both the age groups with > 50% of the rural adolescent girls having less than 3 rd percentile of weight for age by NCHS standards. The prevalence of stunting, thinness and underweight was high among adolescent girls living at high altitudes. In this regard special attention should be paid to the girls of hills and specific strategies should be formulated for meeting their nutritional demands.