Heavy metal pollution was reported in commercially valuable freshwater edible fish in the Buriganga River, Bangladesh. The concentrations of As, Pb, Cd, Cr, Zn, and Cu were investigated in the muscle, gill, stomach, intestine, and liver of Heteropneustes fossilis caught at three stations to assess the degree of fish pollution by heavy metals. Significant differences in concentrations of analyzed elements were observed among different tissues, but not among the stations. The ranges of the measured concentrations (μg/g dry weight) in the tissues of H. fossilis were as follows: arsenic concentration was (0.2-0.4), (0.82-0.90), (3.29-3.99), (2.20-2.80), and (2.41-2.90), that of lead was (1.79-2.20), (4.95-6.55), (10.36-13.38), (5.74-9.70), and (18.20-18.79), that of cadmium was (0.3-0.4), (2.87-4.27), (1.03-1.63), (1.55-4.59), and (2.25-5.50), that of chromium was (1.40-1.70), (3.52-3.72), (2.28-5.29), (2.77-3.79), and (4.25-8.65), that of zinc was (24.47-28.82), (16.82-18.80), (20.22-22.20), (22.86-26.68), and (60.82-67.80), and that of copper was (7.80-8.50), (6.22-6.81), (38.21-44.25), (17.07-21.03), and (43.24-47.30) in the muscle, gill, stomach, intestine, and liver, respectively. This research showed that the liver appeared to be the main heavy metal storage tissue, while the muscle had the lowest levels of analyzed metals. The concentrations of metal in the muscles not exceeded the acceptable levels for a food source for human consumption.

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The recent upsurge in urban growth and decentralization of economic activities has made peripheral urban areas, the PUI, a topical issue. However, the issues once visible in the city center have moved to this PUI culminated into land transformation and city expansion. Understanding the process and actors of land use transformation in the rural-urban boundary is crucial because of its dynamic nature. The present study tries to investigate the land transformation and different actors and their role in driving these transformations. The present study was done in Aligarh City, which is relatively a small city, compared to other cities of which literature is available but it is also a fast growing city in India. The issues examined here are certainly not limited to Aligarh City and many of the features can be traced with other cities as well. Like many other cities in north India, Aligarh City is expanding fast; moreover, it is surrounded by a populous rural area with productive and rich agricultural hinterland. Such conditions give rise to many conflicts among rural and urban economies, values, and people. However, they also generate mutually beneficial complementarities in the rural and urban spheres. The net outcome is highly selective for different groups and different locations. The role of actors in PUI is strong, because it is characterized by intermixing of rural and urban activities. The trends and patterns of land transformation at any location are the outcome of certain "alliances" and "conflicts" among these individual actors.

A total of 75 toads (39 males and 36 females), Bufo melanostictus, collected from different areas of Dhaka city from May 2009 to April 2010 was examined for helminth parasites. The results showed that seven parasite species were collected, and prevalence of infection was 100%. The parasite fauna was comprised of Trematoda: 8% was the prevalence of Ganeo kumaonensis, 8% of Halipegus eccentricus; Nematoda: 100% of Oswaldocruzia indica, 68% of Neopharyngodon sp., 40% of Rhabdias bufonis; Acanthocephala: 28% of Pseudoacanthocephalus bufonis; and Pentastomida: 4% of Raillietiella indica. Serious damage was observed in intestine (53.94%) then rectum (24.55%), stomach (12.73%) and lungs (8.78%). The males had a higher intensity (77.92) than the females (44.58). Seasonally, the highest intensity of infection was found in the rainy season (81.21) and lowest during the winter (39.87).

The present article attempts to show how distance from the urban centre plays an important role in transformation of infrastructure in the peripheral area of cities which is termed as urban fringe of Aligarh city. The distributional pattern of the indicators of infrastructure shows that their values decline along as we move from the city towards the peripheral area of an urban fringe. As we move from the centre of the city, the infrastructure facilities decline with the increase in distance. The nature of the urban fringe varies considerably according to the level of urbanisation, the economy and the geographical location from the urban centre. It is a common understanding that urban growth not only impacts natural and built environment but it also influences infrastructural structure in the urban fringe. Urbanisation offers livelihood choices for people in the urban fringe and also provides them better access to urban services and infrastructure.

Currently insect pest management solely depends on chemical pesticide that continuously affects on environment, biodiversity, animal as well as human health. Outbreak of secondary insect pest is also the cost of pesticide use in field leading crop more vulnerable to more pests. These negative impacts of pesticides have provoked growing interest in the adoption of multi-function agricultural biodiversity that promote pest management, creating interesting challenge for traditional approaches to regulatory compliance. To address multi-function agricultural practice, we tested several intercropping systems with mustard and their effect on pest management. Our results revealed that intercropping systems mustard with onion, garlic, radhuni and coriander significantly reduced pest population over sole crop. However, intercropping mustard with wheat and gram increased pest population in mustard field. This result indicated that all crops are not suitable for intercropping system. Among the tested intercropping systems, mustard with onion and coriander significantly reduced branch and flower infestation and increased pod formation per plant. These four intercropping systems did not significantly affect on honeybee pollinator which are crucial for mustard crop yield. A significant linear relationship was also found between honeybee population and pod formation. Our results indicate that suitable intercropping system can be a potential multi-functional agricultural practice for pest management in mustard crop.

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