Background: The Village Health Sanitation and Nutrition Committee (VHSNC) is a first step toward decentralized planning and community empowerment approach Objective: To assess the constitution of the VHSNCs, to assess the activities undertaken by them, and to assess the funding and utilization status of the VHSNCs. Materials and Methods: Study design-Community-based cross-sectional study. Study place-Three blocks of Kamrup district viz, Boko-Bongaon, Hajo, and Sualkuchi. Study period-July 1 to October 31, 2015. Study population-The functionaries of VHSNCs present during visit and the records maintained. Sample size-Total 78 VHSNCs were assessed in this study. Sample collection technique-Out of the total 12 blocks, 3 blocks were selected. Sub-centers (50%) under these three blocks selected and two villages from each SC selected. All the 78 VHSNCs operating in these villages were included in this study. Data collection tool-Predesigned and pretested schedule containing both open-and closed-ended questions. Primary data were collected by interview method and secondary data obtained from various records. Results: 55.12% VHSNCs had 11 or more members. Panchayati Raj Institution (PRI) member, Auxiliary Nurse Midwife (ANM), Accredited Social Health Activist (ASHA), Anganwadi Worker (AWW), and Medical officer were members in all of the committees. Only 16.67% of the VHSNCs conducted 10-12 meetings in 1 year. 16.67% VHSNCs had maintained and updated the untied fund register. Formation of new committee and new members (96.15%), ASHA's incentive (94.87%), and Anganwadi Center (AWC) repairing (88.76%) were commonly discussed topics in monthly meetings. A majority of 67.93% VHSNCs utilized more than 90% of the funds allotted to them. Conclusion: It was observed that although VHSNCs have been constituted in all of the revenue villages in the study area, there are several lacunae in their organization.

The age-old agro-based sericulture activities have been playing an important role in the generation of employment and income in a slowly progressing economy of Assam. Though all the four major varieties of silk, namely, eri, muga, mulberry and tasar are grown in Assam, the first two occupy the prime positions in the sericulture scenario of the state. Mulberry is also one of the traditional activities, but it has lost much of its competitiveness in recent times and tasar is a recent introduction and still at an infant stage. There has been a significant change in the relative position of each sericulture activity in terms of generation of employment and income and popularity among the people. The present article tries to make a comparative assessment of different silk cultures in Assam, namely, eri, muga and mulberry as a source of employment and income. It is observed that ericulture over the years has become more popular among the people, as it is still cheap and it yields more revenue to the family farms than the other sericulture activities. Though muga is very popular to a certain section of population and yield more net profit per unit of investment, its undertaking requires more capital and also it involves more risk compared to the other ventures.

Species diversity is the number of different species found in a particular area. However, conservation biologist often uses the term species diversity even when they are actually referring to species richness, i.e. to number of present species (Harrison et al., 2004). Dibrugarh district located in the upper Assam is well known for its biological richness. Similarly, the study area i.e., the Dibrugarh University campus is also having a good number of species diversity. The biological diversity found in the study area is often related to its vegetation cover, which is categorized into evergreen, semi-evergreen, deciduous, semi-deciduous and coniferous/alpine/others. The Botanical garden inside the campus has been considered as one of the protected area covering an area of 4.63 hectares.  It is famous for rare, valuable trees, fruits, medicinal herbs etc. Apart from that the north eastern part corner of the campus also having some forest covers including a tea garden. The present study involves identification and mapping of species diversity of prominent tree, grass and herbs in selected quadrants available in the study area. Plant communities are classified according to structure of canopy or type (tree, shrub or herbaceous) and dominance of taxa. The study is mainly based on primary data collected for the field study. For density analysis of species, 15 major species are taken for study and area is divided into 200m X 200m grids. The herbaceous plants are identified and analysis through quadrant method. The major 5 selective site are taken for study includes both grazing and non-grazing. Out of 103 herbaceous species there are 35 major species are identified which prominent inside the study area. These species are again classified into two broad i.e. Annual and Perennial. For canopy cover analysis of trees there are major 100 species are taken and average canopy area was measured.

The increasing numbers of newspaper reports on disappearing women from the north eastern state of Assam and especially from the economically backward areas of the state in recent years deserve close attention from both researchers' points of view as well as policy-level intervention of the larger community along with the government. This study makes an attempt to operate upon the menace area through the scalpel of game theory under the light of both primary and secondary data collected from the study area. It is an attempt to outline conscious human behaviour that leads to crimes such as women trafficking and identify the parameters controlling or affecting which types of crimes can be controlled. In order to do so, different distinct entities associated with the problem have been considered as different players leading to the concluding indication of prevailing flaws in the legal system of the country along with lack of employment opportunities and mass ignorance about the problem in hand among common people as the major reasons.