India is the largest producer and consumer of pulses in the world contributing around 25-28% of the total global production. The increasing demand and supply gap of pulses has led to an increasing trend in their import by India. In view of this gap, one of the strategies for “Doubling Farmers’ Income by 2022” was to enhance area, production and productivity of pulses in India by incentivizing the farmers with right price. Hence an attempt has been made in this study to analyze the growth of pulses over a period of time i.e. from 1980-81 to 2017-18 in India using secondary data. The average annual growth rates and percentages were used as tools to carry out analysis. The results revealed that area, production and productivity of total pulses was positive but indicating a slow growth of 1.36 per cent, 3.29 per cent and 2.04 per cent respectively per annum. Due to steep hike in Minimum Support Price (MSP) during 2015-16, it was noticed that area, production and yield have recorded higher growth than previous years. The percentage change in area, production and productivity for major pulses during three periods indicated that there was a marginal increase in area and production of gram in major producing states and the same trend was noticed in red gram and black gram. It was also observed that in some of the states the growth in period- III for major pulses was higher compared to period-II. Policy implications or lessons learned are missing!

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The present study was conducted to assess the empowerment level of women in the fisheries sector in the Ganjam district of Odisha. In the inland sector, the highest numbers of women are of the fishermen population in Ganjam district i.e. 29476 out of a total 263514 number of female fisheries population of the state (Directorate of Fisheries, Government of Odisha, 2015). A very good concentration of women is involving in fisheries activities in this district. But when sector-specific cases are concerned, there are very few studies found where different dimensions of women empowerment through fisheries are discussed. The results revealed that the majority of the respondents (66.60%) in the Inland sector are grouped under a medium level of empowerment followed by low and high-level empowerment (16.70%). These results indicated that there is a significant move towards the empowerment of women in the case of inland fisheries. However, in the Marine sector equal percentage of respondents belonged to both medium and high levels of women empowerment i.e. each 30 (50.00%) and low level of empowerment was nil which indicates the level of empowerment in the marine fisheries activities compared to inland fisheries. With this background, the overall empowerment score was categorized into the low, medium, and high level of empowerment where a majority of the respondents (71.6%) were under the medium level of empowerment followed by the equal percentage of the low and high level of empowerment (14.2%). The composite score of empowerment of women is also encouraging. However, efforts are needed to bring women empowerment from medium level to a higher level. There is also a need to uplift a section of women who are still in the lower category of empowerment.

Chilli is one of the most important spice crops in India. The present study was undertaken to forecasts the prices of chilli (dry) in different markets of India using various techniques. ARIMA model (1,1,1) was identified as the best model to forecast prices in Byadagi market. According to the forecasts the price of chilli per quintal would be ranging from Rs. 6,394 to Rs. 6,546 for the months from April to July 2013. The model (1,0,1) was selected for forecasting prices of chilli in Nagpur market. The forecasts indicated that the prices of chilli per quintal would be ranging from Rs. 5,364 to Rs. 5,200 for the months from April to July 2013. The models (1,1,0) (1,1,1) were selected for forecasting prices of chilli in Virudhunagar market. The forecasts revealed that the prices of chilli per quintal would be in the range of Rs. 5,473 to Rs. 5,456 for the months commencing from April to July 2013.