Data on the epidemiology of epilepsy in a rural community in a developing country would be of value in planning a decentralized management of this malady in its early stages commensurate with available local resources. A detailed screening instrument covering various seizure types was used by trained paramedical workers in a door-to-door survey of a population of 64,963 in rural South India. The prevalence period was from 1 April 1990 to 31 March 1991. The crude prevalence rate per 1000 for active epilepsy was 4.38 for males, 3.40 for females and 3.91 for both. The minimum and maximum prevalence rates, the latter computed from a validation sample, were 3.91 and 4.63 for active epilepsy; 0.28 and 0.77 for inactive epilepsy and 4.19 and 5.41 for life-time prevalence. In addition, corresponding figures for hot-water epilepsy, a type of reflex epilepsy peculiar to this area, were 2.49 and 2.99 for active phase; 0.35 and 0.85 for inactive phase and 2.85 and 3.83 for life-time prevalence. The incidence rate for epilepsy was 49.3 per 100,000, the same as in developed countries. These data do not support the concept that the prevalence of epilepsy in developing countries is twice that in the developed world. However, the role of local/regional variations should be borne in mind before extrapolating the figures to an entire country.

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The study analyses the financial management practices adopted by modern rice milling firms in the Kangayam cluster of Tamil Nadu. For study, 40 firms were selected using simple random sampling method and data were collected through personal interviews with the owner / managers of the firm using a pre-tested interview schedule. The data pertaining to the financial performance were obtained from the records maintained by the firms for three financial years, from 2011-12 to 2013-14. The factor analysis and multiple regression analysis were carried out. Significant differences among the fully and partially modernized rice milling firms have been observed in the preparation of cash budget, setting-up credit policy, preparation of inventory budget and review of inventory turnover, capital budgeting in investment analysis and accounting practices. The measures of financial management practices explained 58.4 per cent (R-squared value) of the variation in the profitability measure return on equity.