One live and another dead Yellow-bellied Weasel were spotted at an altitude of 2,190m and 3,078m, respectively, in Lamsung, Dhaulagiri Rural Municipality, Myagdi and Barekot Rural Municipality, Jajarkot on 1 May 2016 and 16 June 2016 in the afternoon.  This is probably the first record of the species with photographs in Myagdi District of Gandaki Province, and in Jajarkot District of Karnali Province, western Nepal.

Assessing and managing nitrogen sustainably is imperative for achieving the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) targeted for 2030. South Asian countries, aware of the environmental and health impacts of nitrogen pollution, regionally as well as globally, piloted the 2019 UN resolution on Sustainable Nitrogen Management, calling for urgent policy action. This paper assists South Asia policy development by providing new insights into nitrogen-related policies in the region; it makes a step-change advance on an existing global analysis and database. We built on available methods to better identify, classify and analyse 966 nitrogen-related policies for the region. We compared the global and regional nitrogen policy landscapes to explain the benefits of a deeper policy assessment. The policies we classified as having ‘higher’ relevance – those with direct reference to nitrogen and/or its potential impacts – represent the current nitrogen policy landscape for South Asia. We show that a small proportion of policies (9%) consider multiple pollution sources, sectors, nitrogen threats and impacts, with integrative policy instruments. 5% of policies also consider both non-point and point sources of pollution, representing standout policies. More such policies with an integrated approach are vital in addressing the complexities of nitrogen pollution. Adapting existing and drafting new policies are both required to deal with other current and emerging nitrogen issues. Our analysis provides evidence for a roadmap for sustainable nitrogen policy in South Asia and beyond and supports efforts to reduce the threats posed by nitrogen pollution to achieve the SDGs.

White salted (udon) noodles are one of the major staple foods in Asian countries, particularly in Japan. Noodle manufacturers prefer the Australian noodle wheat (ANW) varieties to produce high-quality udon noodles. However, the production of this variety has reduced significantly in recent years, thus affecting the Japanese noodle market. Noodle manufacturers often add tapioca starch to compensate for the flour scarcity; however, the noodle-eating quality and texture are significantly reduced. This study, therefore, investigated the effect of the addition of porous tapioca starch on the cooking quality and texture of udon noodles. For this, tapioca starch was initially subjected to enzyme treatment, ultrasonication, and a combination of both to produce a porous starch where a combined enzyme (0.4% alpha amylase)–ultrasound treatment (20 kHz) yielded a porous starch with increased specific surface area and better absorbent properties which are ideal for udon noodle manufacturing, Later, udon noodles were prepared using three varieties of ANW, a hard Mace variety, and commercial wheat flour by incorporating the prepared porous tapioca starch at a concentration of 5% and 10% of dry ingredients. Adding this porous starch resulted in a lower cooking time with higher water absorption and desirable lower cooking loss compared to the control sample with 5% of the porous starch chosen as the optimum formulation. Increasing the level of the porous starch reduced the hardness of the noodles whilst maintaining the desired instrumental texture. Additionally, a multivariate analysis indicated a good correlation between responses’ optimum cooking time and water absorption capacity as well as turbidity and cooking loss, and a cluster analysis grouped noodle samples prepared from different varieties into the same clusters based on the porous starch added, indicating the possibility of different market strategies to improve the quality of the udon noodles produced from different wheat varieties.