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Rapid population growth in a country like India is threatening the environment through expansion and intensification of agriculture, uncontrolled growth of urbanization and industrialization, and destruction of natural habitats. The present paper is an attempt to study the population change and its impacts on land, forest and water and energy resources. Rapid population growth plays an important role in declining per capita agricultural land, forest and water resources. The analysis reveals that outcomes of high population growth rates are increasing population density and number of people below poverty line. Population pressure contributes to land degradation and soil erosion, thus affecting productive resource base of the economy. The increasing population numbers and growing affluence have resulted in rapid growth of energy production and consumption in India. The environmental effects like ground water and surface water contamination; air pollution and global warming are of growing concern owing to increasing consumption levels. The paper concludes with some policy reflections and emphasizes the potential importance of natural resources.

Phellinus is a genus of fungi belonging to the family Hymenochaetaceae from order Aphyllophorales. Phellinus spp. causing white rot of various kinds in live standing or dead gymnospermic and angiospermic wood occurs worldwide. A total number of 427 records (310 species, 06 sub-species, 42 varieties and 69 formas) of Phellinus are reported worldwide so far. The current study was based on thorough world literature survey for the host range of Phellinus species. About 91 plant families shows infection of Phellinus spp. Amongst all the families, genera of Fabaceae are found to be most susceptible, followed by Rosaceae, Myrtaceae, Cupressaceae, Caesalpiniaceae, Ericaceae, Euphorbiaceae, Lauraceae, Meliaceae, Pinaceae, Rubiaceae Arecaceae, Fagaceae and Olecaceae are also amongst the most frequently infected families. Quercus is the most frequent host of Phellinus.

The Manya Krobo area is bounded in the east by Lake Volta which resulted after the construction of the Akosombo dam since 1965. The groundwater quality of 25 samples in the study area was evaluated for its suitability for drinking and irrigation purposes by estimating pH, EC, TDS, hardness and alkalinity besides major ions, isotopes, SAR, % Na, RSC, RSBC, chlorinity index, SSP, non-carbonate hardness, Potential Salinity, Permeability Index, Magnesium hazard and Index of Base Exchange. The percentage sodium, sodium absorption (SAR), and residual sodium carbonate (RSC) indices show that the groundwaters are generally suitable for irrigation purposes. Negative Index of Base Exchange indicates the chloro-alkaline disequilibrium in the study area and all the water samples fall in the rock dominance field based on Gibbs’ ratio. Based on total hardness, the groundwater in the area is soft. Na-K-HCO3-Cl (48%), Na-HCO3 (40%), and Na-Cl (12%) water types were delineated from the area. Stable isotope analysis of water samples indicates meteoric origin of recharge.

The concept paper discusses the implementation of green skills through co-curricular activities among students of Technical and Vocational Education Training (TVET) in line with a more sustainable industrial development towards sustainable social, economic and environmental. Implementation of green skills is assessed by its importance in education and training through co-curriculum activities as a proactive step towards a more green industrial practices benefit not only to the economy but also to support social and environmental sustainability. According to the literature, there are problems that arise due to the lack of industry awareness of the importance of the adoption of green technologies that will ultimately affect the environment. Accordingly, this article also stated that generic green skills needed by green industries as an effective method to ensure that no conflict or consistency in the implementation of green skills in TVET through co-curriculum activities towards development of green industries.

CdO/ZnO was fabricated by the sol-gel method. The effects of annealing process on the microstructure, transparent properties, and morphology of ZnO films were studied. The film was heated at 400?C for 5hours and the obtained samples were crushed to prepare a fine powder and taken into annealing process the temperature is constant at 700?C. The process will be preceded with different ratio. XRD results show that the different peak values in various chemical composition. In SEM image shows the nano cluster nano particles. In EDAX represents the nano composite which is to identify the compositions. UV- Absorption spectroscopy it is observed that there is a slight shift in absorption edge at 410nm towards longer wavelength side.

The vegetation around Lake Naivasha is under great threat by the horticultural and livestock farming common in the region through irrigation practices and overgrazing. The vegetation is heterogeneous varying from aquatic plants, grassland, shrubland, woodland and a forest. The study was conducted to analyse the effect of soil properties and environmental variable on plant communities. A total of 227 plant species were collected and identified representing 65 families. Plant species were classified into five community types using Hierachical Agglomerative Clustering Technique of the Syntax computer programme. These were: Acacia brevispica - Acacia drepanolobium community, Acacia xanthophloea–Pennisetum clandestinum community, Euphorbia candelabrum-Euphorbia buseii community, Digitaria abyssnica-Eragrostis superba - Sida cuneifolia community, and Tarchonanthus camphoratus- Solanum incanum community. Soil samples collected from each sample plot were analysed for soil pH, electrical conductivity, cation exchange capacity, organic matter, sodium, potassium, calcium, magnesium, phosphorus, nitrogen and soil texture (sand, clay and silt content). Plant species diversity and richness decreased with distance from the lake as the woodlands and shrublands vegetation types near the lake had high plant species diversity than the grasslands. The results support the prediction that species diversity and richness decrease with increase in habitat degradation. Recommedations towards the conservation of plant species diversity around Lake Naivasha area are also put forward.

Nanocrystallites of Cadmium oxide (CdO) thin films with different gelation time were deposited by sol-gel spin coating method on a glass substrate. A comparative analysis of the effect of viscosity of sol-gel on the structural, electrical, and optical properties of as deposited films was made. Films were grown with gelation time of one to four days and optimum gelation time of third day of sol-gel viscosity of 3.28 x 10-3 Nsm-2 was determined. From the X-ray diffraction studies the polycrystalline nature of the grown film with a preferential orientation (1 1 1) was analyzed. The resistivity of the material decreases with the increase of gelation time and then increases after the optimum value of gelation time. The films showed resistivity of 2.16 x 10-4 ? m with an optical transmission of 80 % at the wavelength of 625 nm. The observed band gap of the developed film was found to be 2.25 eV. Also optical studies confirm that the optical transmittance was decreased when the viscosity was increased.

Internet of things is one of the rapidly growing fields for delivering social and economic benefits for emerging and developing economy. The field of IOT is expanding its wings in all the domains like medical, industrial, transportation, education, mining etc. Now-a-days with the advancement in integrated on chip computers like Arduino, Raspberry pi the technology is reaching the ground level with its application in agriculture and aquaculture. Water quality is a critical factor while culturing aquatic organisms. It mainly depends on several parameters like dissolved oxygen, ammonia, pH, temperature, salt, nitrates, carbonates etc. The quality of water is monitored continuously with the help of sensors to ensure growth and survival of aquatic life. The sensed data is transferred to the aqua farmer mobile through cloud. As a result preventive measures can be taken in time to minimize the losses and increase the productivity.

This paper presents the sorption studies of reactive orange -16 by using the nut shell of Arachis hypogaea. Batch experiments were conducted to study the effect of sorbent dosage, solution pH and initial dye concentration. Sorbent, net shell of Arachis hypogaea was characterized by Fourier Transform Infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM). Langmuir and Freundlich adsorption isotherm models were used to represent the equilibrium data. The Langmuir isotherm model was found to be fitted well with the experimental data. The results of sorbent dosage showed that the equilibrium uptake capacity was found to be increase from 7.23mg/g to 25.53mg/g with decrease in amount of Sorbent from 0.5g to 0.1g. The equilibrium uptake capacity was increase from10.283mg/g to 26.950mg/g when increasing the initial dye concentration from 50mg/L to 200mg/L. This indicates that the dye removal was influenced by the initial dye solution concentration. The sorption results were analyzed for pseudo first order, pseudo second order kinetic and intra particle diffusion model. The values of dimensionless separation factors (RL) and Freundlich constant (n) showed that net shell of Arachis hypogaea could be used to remove reactive orange -16 from their aqueous solution.

The study was undertaken to find out the influence of different manure treatment methods on carbon sequestration potential of fodder maize. Significantly higher carbon sequestration potential was observed in improved, followed by enriched and vermicompost manure treatments than farmer’s and inorganic fertilizer treatment groups at 60th day. It was concluded that application of improved, enriched and vermicompost manure sequestered higher carbon from the atmosphere than other treatments, implying the benefit for reducing the impact of carbon, a potential green house gas.