The novel Coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19) hit the world severely in the first half of 2020 which forced several nations to impose severe restrictions on all sorts of activities involving human population. People were mainly advised to remain home quarantined to curb the virus spread. Industrial and vehicular movements were ceased as a result of lockdown, and therefore the rate of pollutants entering the ecosystem was also reduced in many places. Water and air pollution remained a major concern in the last few decades as these were gradually deteriorating in many spheres including the hydrosphere and atmosphere. As the nation-wide lockdown period in India completed more than two months, this study attempted to analyze the impact of lockdown on water and air quality to understand the short-term environmental changes. Using remote sensing data, this study demonstrated the improvements in ambient water quality in terms of decreased turbidity levels for a section of the Sabarmati River in the Ahmedabad region of India. The Suspended Particulate Matter (SPM) concentrations are evaluated to underline the turbidity levels in the study area before and during the lockdown period using the Landsat 8 OLI images. We noticed that the average SPM has significantly decreased by about 36.48% when compared with the pre-lockdown period; and a drop of 16.79% was observed from the previous year's average SPM. Overall, the average SPM concentration during the lockdown period (8.08 mg/l), was the lowest when compared with pre-lockdown average and long-term (2015–2019) April month average. The atmospheric pollution level (NO 2 , PM 2.5 , and PM 10 ) data obtained from the Central Pollution Control Board for Ahmedabad city also shows a significant improvement during the study period, implying a positive response of COVID-19 imposed lockdown on the environmental fronts.

No abstract

No abstract

Covid‐19 pandemic has affected every sphere of life specially the education sector observing a paradigm shift in the nature of pedagogy from offline face‐to‐face to online‐virtual mode of learning. The biggest challenge in online‐learning was the conduction of online examination for student's assessment specially in Indian context where digital divide is rampant. Thus, present study examines and compares the challenges faced by the students in two most widely accepted modes of examination by Indian universities and institutes of higher learning, that is, take home/unrestricted/assignment‐based examination (ABE) and highly time restricted/open‐book examination (OBE). Primary data was collected through questionnaires prepared by using Google forms to measure adaptability, satisfaction, and challenges using 5‐point Likert's scale. Cronbach's α test was performed on question items to check the reliability and internal consistency of the items. χ 2 test has been applied in order to check whether there is a statistically significant relationship between the gender and place of residence in the acceptability of ABE and OBE. The findings suggest that both modes of examination have their own challenges largely governed by the digital and economic divide. The acceptance level of ABE and OBE is not associated with gender. However, we found the level of acceptance association of ABE with the place of residence of the students but not with OBE.

No abstract

The Indian government unveiled new farm legislation on September 27, 2020, with the goal of empowering the farming community. According to the government, new farm regulations will reduce the reliance of indigenous farmers on the mandi (market yard) system, which is now in place and is quite exploitative and full of middlemen and legal cartels. The regulations made contract farming lawful with the intention of luring private sector investment in bolstering agricultural supply chains and infrastructure to give farmers better pricing. But these rules are referred to as repressive and anti-farmer by the farming community. Farmers believe that eliminating the mandi system will eliminate the minimum support price (MSP) mechanism and that contract farming will ultimately be damaging, enticing major corporations and private investors to bind them to unfair contracts that will result in exploitation. Farmers' demonstrations have begun as a result in the former territory of the green revolution.In order to determine if the new farm regulations introduced by the central government are indeed beneficial to the rural community or not, the article followed the debate among many academics, policy makers, economists, researchers, stakeholders, and politicians (the government's spokesman). The article's main focus is on analysing the farmers' demand for the new farm rules to be repealed and the economic justification for their opposition. Additionally, it contends that new farm rules will encourage capitalistic farming and endanger the viability of farming communities, particularly small and marginal farms (S&M).

No abstract

No abstract