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The following paper was designed to focus on how learners’ process different communication inputs (Listening, Speaking, Reading and Writing) and secondly, how gender differences play a significant role in this process. However, materials and instruction methods must also affect individual responses to given tasks. A study on these issues will necessitate the development of gender sensitive instructional materials with a special focus on improving individual comprehension strategies. First year graduate students with English as a compulsory subject of the two selected institutions were taken for our study. In this paper we have reported the differences between the male and female attitudes of the learners and their beliefs in acquiring LSRW skills for learning English as a foreign language (EFL). Survey questionnaires (through Google forms) and interview questions were designed. One sample T-test and paired sample test were taken whereas, interview question responses were analysed to validate the data. The findings revealed that average responses regarding the difficulty of listening skills are statistically significant and correlation between male students learning listening skills are better in the collaborative learning environment whereas the female students depict a positive and moderate correlation for the same. However, it is also found that there is no significant difference between the overall performance of female and male students and the implications have been discussed in the paper

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Transgenic tomato plants of south Indian cultivar Arka Vikas were developed using Agrobacterium strain EHA 105, harbouring Bt Cry2A gene with a construct containing 35S CaMV promoter, OCS terminator and nptII selectable marker, through Agrobacterium-mediated transformation. This study was conducted to improve the regeneration and transformation protocol for south Indian cultivar Arka Vikas. Hypocotyl was used as explant source for transformation due to high regeneration efficiency, molecular analysis through PCR for putative transformants in T₀ generation and qualitative ELISA method was performed for Bt protein expression followed by insect bioassays. Insect bioassay studies was conducted using neonate larva of helicoverpa armigera to screen the plants and the plants expressing good resistance with molecular and phenotypic characters were carried further for successive generations. The experimental results concluded that Bt gene was deployed in tomato cultivar successfully and had developed resistance to neonate larva of Helicoverpa armigera at laboratory conditions. These results signified that transgenic lines expressed substantial quantity of Bt Cry2A protein efficient in management of Helicoverpa armigera. Precise screening of transgenic T₁ lines is highly important to obtain single copy number plants since the expression of Bt protein in successive generations promotes effective management of this pest in the future.

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The overall objective of the present paper is demonstrating the utility of price forecasting of farm prices and validating the same for major crops namely, Paddy, Ragi and Maize in Karnataka state for the year 2016 using the time series data from 2002 to 2016. The results were obtained from the application of univariate ARIMA techniques to produce price forecasts for cereal and precision of the forecasts were evaluated using the standard criteria of MSE, MAPE and Theils U coefficient criteria. The results of ARIMA price forecasts amply demonstrated the power of the ARIMA model as a tool for price forecasting as revealed by pragmatic models of forecasted prices for 2020. The values of MSE, MAPE and Theils U were relatively lower, indicating validity of the forecasted prices of the three crops.

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The quantification of Soil Organic Carbon (SOC) pools and carbon farming potential of any land use and cropping systems are important indicators of productivity, profitability, and sustainability of that system. The objective of our present study was to evaluate the spatial and depth-wise distribution of SOC pools (active-C and passive-C) and carbon farming potential of major cropping and land use systems in Alfisols under southern agro climatic zone of Andhra Pradesh, India. We quantified active-C, passive-C pools, and SOC status in 19 different land use and cropping systems. The results indicated that SOC status and carbon farming potential were highest (P< 0.001) under forest land use (13.96 g kg^-1 and 62.19 Mg ha^-1) followed by mango orchards (> 15 years age) relatively less than 23.6%, and on par with sugarcane-vegetables 25.2%, and paddy-tomato 23.1 %. The lowest (P< 0.001) was recorded under rainfed groundnut 77.5%, followed by sugarcane-sugarcane 73.3%. The active-C pool was significantly (P< 0.001) higher in forest land use (8.79 g kg^-1) followed by sugarcane-vegetables (8.3 g kg^-1). The passive-C pool was higher (P< 0.001) under forest land use (7.98 g kg^-1), on par with mango orchards> 15 years age (7.49 g kg^-1) and followed by paddy-tomato (5.69 g kg^-1) and sugarcane-paddy (5.12 g kg^-1). The lowest (P<0.001) active and passive-C pools belonged to rainfed groundnut, current fallow lands, and sugarcane-sugarcane cropping systems. Of all the studied land use and cropping systems, carbon farming potential was higher under forest land use followed by mango orchards > 15 years age, sugarcane-vegetables and paddy-tomato cropping systems. The potential was medium under paddy-groundnut, groundnut-tomato/vegetables, tomato-vegetables, perennial fodder plantations, casuarina and eucalyptus plantations and sugarcane-paddy cropping systems, while it was low under paddy-paddy, groundnut-groundnut, flower crops and cultivable wastes and very low under rainfed groundnut, current fallow lands, and sugarcane-sugarcane cropping systems. Thus, the present study emphasizes on the carbon farming potential, which could act as an indicator for sustainability of the different land use and cropping systems under southern agro-climatic zone.