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There is world-wide generation of food waste daily in significant amounts, leading to depletion of natural resources and deteriorating air quality. One-third of global food produced is wasted laterally with the food value chain. Carbon footprint is an efficient way of communicating the issues related to climate change and the necessity of changing behavior. Valorization or utilization of food wastes helps in resolving issues related to environment pollution. Reduction in the carbon footprint throughout the chain of food supply makes the whole process eco-friendly. Prevailing food waste disposal systems focus on their economic and environmental viability and are putting efforts into using food waste as a resource input to agriculture. Effective and advanced waste management systems are adopted to deal with massive waste production so as to fill the gap between the production and management of waste disposal. Food waste biorefineries are a sustainable, eco-friendly, and cost-effective approach for the production of platform chemicals, biofuels, and other bio-based materials. These materials not only provide sustainable resources for producing various chemicals and materials but have the potential to reduce this huge environmental burden significantly. In this regard, technological advancement has occurred in past few years that has proven suitable for tackling this problem.

Millets, resilient and nutritionally rich crops, are increasingly recognized for their potential in sustainable agriculture. Ammonium transporter (AMTs) gene family significantly contribute to the absorption and transport of NH 4 + form of nitrogen in plants. The information about the structure and function of ammonium transporter genes in millet species is lacking. The millet crops such as pearl millet, proso millet, finger millet, sorghum, foxtail millet and green foxtail millet exhibit genetic variation in AMTs, which can be harnessed to improve NUE. Thus, genomic sequences of the six millet species were used and a total of 53 AMT genes were identified. Further, comprehensive analysis of chromosomal distribution, transmembrane structure prediction, presence of exons and introns, domain and motif organization, phylogeny, and synteny analysis were carried out. The phylogenetic analysis illustrated that millet AMTs belong to two subfamilies AMT1 and AMT2 (AMT2/AMT3/AMT4). Ka/Ks analysis showed that segmental duplications have contributed considerably in the evolution of millet AMTs. Phylogenetic classification of members of Poaceae using the amino acid sequences of AMT1.1 genes confirms the speciation patterns shown by matK gene sequence. Promoter analysis of millet AMTs showed presence of cis-elements related to light response, anaerobic induction, growth hormones, drought stress, biotic stress and several endogenous signals related to plant growth and development. This research provides insights into the structural and functional aspects of ammonium transporter genes in millets, and will serve as a foundation for utilizing AMTs for devising NUE strategies. Graphical abstract

Amid concerns of a global learning crisis, foundational literacy and numeracy (FLN) has become a recent focus area for low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). For instance, in 2021, India launched one of the world’s largest initiatives to achieve universal foundational literacy by 2026–27. Given that the term “foundational literacy” was largely absent from earlier policy discourse in India, little is known about how this idea was made salient to become a current policy priority. Through a corpus-based critical discourse analysis of 90 documents and reports published by government and non-state actors, we identify several discursive strategies used to prioritize FLN as a policy priority in India. These include using science and evidence-based discourse to produce legitimacy for foundational literacy; building consensus by projecting common sense; and producing a temporality of emergency and crisis towards immediate action. We emphasize that the foundational literacy discourse in India is highly political. In particular, we argue that such crisis-driven policy narratives and discourses are not so much tied to specific literacy approaches as they are to larger agendas of privatization and political consensus in education.

Inclusive education examines the ways in which educational policies and practices construct and respond to difference. Policies and practices for inclusive education challenge the spatial segregation of difference, emphasizing approaches for children with and without disabilities to learn together in the same school and classroom. However, there is little examination of the ways in which time and temporality segregate, exclude, and constrain responses to difference in schools and classrooms. In this dissertation, I examine inclusive education through a temporal lens. Further, as an approach originating in the global North, there is a need to examine the global and local tensions involved in inclusive education as a practice in the global South. I conducted ethnographic case studies at school-NGO partnerships across the two sites in India through a comparative case study approach, carrying out 78 interviews with teachers, 75 classroom observations, eight teacher workshops, and 16 interviews with NGO staff over eight months of fieldwork. The dissertation demonstrates how teachers’ inclusive practices and sensemaking around dis/ability and inclusion can be located within temporal structures that constrain teacher actions. I demonstrate how the operations of time in policies, schools, and classrooms exclude children in three ways, becoming out of pace, out of sync, and out of age. I highlight the two temporal responses to dilemmas of difference in enacting inclusive education described by teachers: inclusion as uniformity to achieve curriculum times and inclusion as a means to respect individual times. I propose the notion of dhyāna as a culturally sustaining concept to understand the contexts within which the dilemma of difference is determined and resolved in the Indian context. Further, teachers navigate their past experiences and schemas of whole classroom teaching and teacher-centered pedagogy and the futures of inclusive child-centered pedagogy introduced by the NGO. I argue that in this tussle between the past and future, the present material, structural, and temporal conditions of teachers’ work are obscured. Overall, this dissertation serves to balance the spatial turn in inclusive education, highlights the functioning of temporal biases and their interactions with difference, and outlines the limitations and possibilities of teachers enacting inclusion.

Phenolic compounds (PCs) are abundant throughout the plant kingdom, which occurs in inexpensive resources, such as waste from food processing industries and agriculture activities. This has increased their extraction and subsequent utilization during the past few years. Natural phenolic compounds (Flavonoids and non-flavonoids) have grown more appealing from a technical standpoint, in addition to their usage in pharmaceuticals or as an additive in nutraceuticals, they also have potential in polymer technology. PCs have health-promoting qualities that can be attributed to their strong antioxidant activity and free radicals scavenging activity. These antioxidant properties protect against the action of oxidative species and are linked to the lower incidence of chronic non-communicable diseases such as diabetes mellitus, cardiovascular diseases, cancer, and neurodegenerative conditions. The extraction of phenols from food processing wastes has been studied using a variety of extraction procedures, most of which rely on the usage of organic solvents. Furthermore, there is currently a growing demand for environmentally friendly and affordable methods that produce polyphenol extracts with slightly harmful impacts on the environment. The employment of greener technologies like microwave-assisted extraction (MAE), deep eutectic solvent (DES) extraction, ultrasound-assisted extraction (UAE), supercritical fluid extraction (SFE), subcritical water extraction (SBWE), pressurized liquid extraction (PLE) and enzymatic extraction processes are examined in detail in this review which focuses on contemporary novel and feasible techniques for recovering useful PCs from food processing wastes. Further, how the greener extraction of PCs from food waste and its application in different industries can be integrated into a circular bioeconomy is also summarized.

There remains continuous infiltration of refugees from Bangladesh to different parts of India to this day. The problem has become a major threat the the security in the country. If the influx is not stopped or the deportation and detection of foreigners is not taken up, the issue could worsen. Assam and the northeast of India have become a second frontier after Kashmir, chosen by intelligence agencies of Bangladesh and Pakistan to destabilize India. Adapted from the source document.

Gastroretentive drug delivery system is novel drug delivery systems which has an upper hand owing to its ability of prolonged retaining ability in the stomach and thereby increase gastric residence time of drugs and also improves bioavailability of drugs. An optimized level of drug bioavailability can be reached by judicious gastric retention. The floating drug delivery system is a novel approach for the same. It is needed for drugs that have an absorption window in the stomach or in the upper small intestine. This method does not affect the rate of gastric emptying over a prolonged time. Microballoons are emerging as the most promising gastro retentive floating drug delivery system as it overcome many limitations of conventional drug delivery. The review includes the classification, advantages, disadvantages, method of preparation and future aspects of microballoons.

Pregabalin is used for treating pain caused by neurologic diseases such as neuralgias as well as seizures. In the present work, fast dissolving tablets of Pregabalin were prepared by direct compression method with a view to enhance patient compliance, for the treatment of epilepsy. Fast dissolving tablets were disintegrated in the mouth and were dissolved within a matter of few seconds without need of water. Fast dissolving tablets (FDTs) were prepared using different concentration of superdisintegrants and evaluated for the pre-compression parameters. The prepared tablets were evaluated for post compressional evaluation. It was observed that wetting time of formulations containing Crospovidone was least and tablets showed fastest disintegration. The drug release from fast dissolving tablets (FDTs) increased with increasing concentration of superdisintegrants and was found to be highest with formulations containing Crospovidone.