Climate change is a global threat to the food and nutritional security of the world. As greenhouse-gas emissions in the atmosphere are increasing, the temperature is also rising due to the greenhouse effect. The average global temperature is increasing continuously and is predicted to rise by 2 °C until 2100, which would cause substantial economic losses at the global level. The concentration of CO2, which accounts for a major proportion of greenhouse gases, is increasing at an alarming rate, and has led to higher growth and plant productivity due to increased photosynthesis, but increased temperature offsets this effect as it leads to increased crop respiration rate and evapotranspiration, higher pest infestation, a shift in weed flora, and reduced crop duration. Climate change also affects the microbial population and their enzymatic activities in soil. This paper reviews the information collected through the literature regarding the issue of climate change, its possible causes, its projection in the near future, its impact on the agriculture sector as an influence on physiological and metabolic activities of plants, and its potential and reported implications for growth and plant productivity, pest infestation, and mitigation strategies and their economic impact.

Developed financial system is one of the important determinants of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI). The article analyzes the impact of financial system development on FDI with respect to BRIC countries for the period 1991 to 2010. Using the panel data analyses, fixed and random effect, our results conclude that FDI inflows to BRIC countries are influenced by banking sector and stock market variables, used as a proxy for financial development. FDI is positively influenced by size of banking sector and stock market capitalization. However, more domestic credit by banking sector negatively influences FDI inflows to these countries over the period of study. The study contributes to the existing literature as it analyzes the influence of financial sector development on China’s FDI too, not included in earlier cross-countries studies.

Vegetable production is hampered by several abiotic stresses which are very common in this era of climate change. There is a huge pressure on the plants to survive and yield better results even in the prevalence of various environmental stresses such as cold stress, drought, heat stress, salinity etc. This necessitates the need of robust plant growth which is possible with mycorrhizal association. Mycorrhiza improves plants tolerance to several abiotic stresses by various physiological, functional and biochemical changes in plants. The application of arbuscular mycorrhiza (AM) as vegetable biofertilizers doesn’t only influence the plant health, but moreover discursively it lowers the demand for harmful chemical fertilizers. Overall, it may be concluded that inoculation of vegetables with arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi can be used, as it easily guards plants against undesirable abiotic stresses. In this work, information is provided based on several examples from the literature based on the application of AM to combat harmful abiotic stresses in vegetable crops. This paper reviews the impacts of AM fungi on the plant parameters, its functional activities and molecular mechanisms which makes it more adaptable and underline the future prospects of using AM fungi as a biofertilizer in the stress condition.

Nowadays, developing economies are becoming the preferred destination of foreign direct investment (FDI) infl ow. We draw insights from Dunning's eclectic paradigm to explore how FDI infl ow is infl uenced by the quality of the physical infrastructure and human resources of the host country. We investigate various India-specifi c infrastructural factors affecting FDI infl ow between 1991 and 2010.Our empirical fi ndings indicate that factors like railway transportation and road network as well as the quality of human resources played a crucial role in attracting FDI. However, air transportation or communication infrastructure is yet to play a signifi cant role. Our study makes a modest attempt to identify areas of concern and scope for the further improvement of India's infrastructure facilities to attract foreign investment in the future.

Purpose -The purpose of this paper is to examine the causal relationship between economic growth and foreign direct investment (FDI) in context of India. Design/methodology/approach -Using Toda-Yamamoto granger causality technique, authors tried to examine the causal link between GDP per capita (proxy for economic growth) and FDI. The data is tested for stationarity using Augmented Dickey-Fuller test and Phillips Peron test. Authors also examined the co integration properties using Johansen test to identify long run relationship between the two variables. Findings -It was found that GDP per capita and FDI are integrated in long run. There also exist a bidirectional between FDI and growth in post liberalization period, i.e. post 1991. There is also evidence of FDI led growth in the pre-liberalization period, i.e. pre 1991.Research limitations/implications -There are many factors which contribute to FDI and GDP per capita. A comprehensive study can be done to explore other determinants of FDI and GDP per capita. Practical implications -The findings reveal that economic growth measured by GDP per capita has become one of the important determinants of FDI after liberalization. The evidence of FDI led growth in both the periods signifies that policy makers should ensure a minimum level of economic growth to maintain India as an attractive destination for FDI. The policy should lay emphasis on business facilitation measures like improving the conditions for doing business in India, expanding the role of investment promotion agencies (IPAs) and providing single window for foreign investment. Originality/value -There exists cross-sectional studies on examining relationship between FDI and growth. However, there is a need to have country level study to identify FDI and growth nexus as it is sensitive to country specific factors which are unobservable in time series analysis of group of countries.