Thermal indices in relation to crop phenology and fruit yield of apple

Field experiments were conducted on gravel sandy soil of research farm of Horticultural Research Station, Seobag in Kullu valley with ten varieties of apple for three seasons (2008-2010). In the first crop season all the varieties matured within 157-188 days, while in the second and third seasons the crop matured with 159-179 and 156-187 days, respectively. The mean GDD accumulation from bud burst to fruit set was from 382 to 419° D and to maturity 2310 to 2957° D. The varieties, Mollice and Starkrimson consumed the lowest and highest GDD for attaining physiological maturity in different seasons among all varieties. But Commercial and Tydeman consumed the lowest and highest GDD for fruit setting. The photo thermal index (PTI) in all the varieties and seasons varied from 7.2 to 16.8 and 13.2 to 18.4° D/day at flowering and reproductive stages respectively.

Analysis of rainfall and temperatures for climatic trend in Kullu valley

Kullu valley is famous for tourism and agricultural activities but recently it has assumed importance for studies on climatic variability. There is an increasing trend in minimum and maximum temperatures but no trend in annual rainfall. The slope of regression line for annual rainfall was negative at Bajaura and positive at Katrain but both were non significant. The coefficient of variation for annual rainfall (22 %) and for monsoon rainfall (33 %) was showing the consistence of annual and southwest monsoon rainfall but, a shifting of monsoon from its wettest months was observed. The rainfall was most variable during post monsoon season at Bajaura and in winter at Katrain. The decreasing rate in rainfall was higher during the recent period than the decadal period. Monthly, seasonal and annual average minimum temperature was showing decreasing trend at Bajaura and an increasing trend at Katrain, but, maximum temperature is increasing at both the stations. The minimum temperature was most variable during the winter season whereas the maximum temperature was during summer. Higher the altitude higher the variability in minimum temperature but lower the altitude higher the variability in maximum temperature. Both maximum and minimum temperatures were showing a higher rate of increasing during the recent period.

WILD ROSEHIPS (ROSA MOSCHATASYN BRUNONII): SUSTAINABLE LIVELIHOOD OPTION AMONG WOMEN IN NORTH WESTERN HIMALAYA OF KULLU VALLEY, HIMACHAL PRADESH, INDIA

The paper describes the status of wild rosehips (Rosa moschata syn brunoni) in the Northwestern Himalayan district of Kullu Valley, Himachal Pradesh, India. Research work was carried out with the Women Saving and Credit Groups in the rural parts of the district which emerged as a sustainable livelihood option in the region while conserving natural resources.

N. K. Roerich’s Contribution to the Knowledge of the East

The article deals with activities of a famous Russian artist and public figure Nikolai K. Roerich in the field of Oriental studies. N.K. Roerich read law at the St Petersburg University, however he also attended the lectures at the faculty of history. His genuine interest in history later revealed in numerous studies in archaeology, ethnography, folklore, general and cultural history of the Eastern counties. As a scholar, he visited Altay, Mongolia, India and Tibet, lived there and conducted his research. He was also instrumental in organizing two complex research expedition to Central Asia and Manchuria. Besides he took part in short term expeditions to Western Himalaya as part of the work of the Himalayan Research Institute. This Institute was founded by the Roerich family and was based in the Kullu valley (India). During his expeditions he collected vast material, which comprised historical sources of different art and nature. This material was subsequently researched by himself as well as by his elder son the Orientalist scholar George (Yurii) Roerich. Nikolaj Roerich developed a unique research method, which combined purely academic and artistic approach.

IMPORTANCE OF CONTEMPORARY ARTIST NICHOLAS ROERICH'S ART WITH REFERENCE TO HIMALAYAN PAINTING

English : The Himalayas where the sages reside. This was the creation of Vedas. The snow-clad mountain ranges, their depths, high mountains, enchanting atmosphere, waterfall silver falls, pink weather attracts any visiting artist. When Nicolas Roerich came to India in 1924, this atmosphere of the Himalayas captivated him and he spent twenty years in the Kullu Valley and made the Himalayas the subject of his depiction. It has been said realistically about Rorik's portrayal of the Himalayas. Till date, no painter of the world has depicted the Himalayas with so much acumen, such a profound vision and specialty. '' Hindi : हिमालय जहां ऋषियों का आवास है। यही वेदो की रचना हुई। हिमाच्छादित पर्वत श्रृंखलाऍ उनकी गहराइयॉ, ऊॅचे पहाड़ मनमुग्ध करने वाल वातावरण, झरते रजत प्रपात, गुलाबी मौसम यहॉ आने वाले किसी भी कलाकार को अपने ओर आकर्षित करता है। निकोलस रोरिक जब 1924 में भारत आये तो हिमालय के इस वातावरण ने उन्हें मुग्ध कर लिया और उन्होने बीस वर्श कुल्लु घाटी में व्यतीत किये और हिमालय को अपने चित्रण का विषय बनाया। ''रोरिक के हिमालय चित्रण के विषय में यथार्थ-रूप से यह कहा गया है। आज तक संसार के किसी चित्रकार ने हिमालय का चित्रण इतनी पटुता, इतनी गहन दृष्टि और विशेषता के साथ नहीं किया है। ''1

The Many Faces of a Himalayan Goddess

Haḍimbā is a major village goddess in the Kullu Valley of the West Indian Himalayan state of Himachal Pradesh, a mountainous, rural area known as the Land of Gods. This book is an ethnographic study of Haḍimbā and her dynamic, mutually formative relationship with her community of followers. It explores the part played by the goddess in her devotees’ lives, particularly in their encounters with players, powers, and ideas both local and external, such as invading royal forces, colonial forms of knowledge, and, more recently, modernity, capitalism, tourism, and ecological change. Haḍimbā is revealed as a complex social agent, a dynamic ritual and conceptual compound, which both mirrors her devotees and serves as a platform for them to reflect on, debate, give meaning to, and sometimes resist their changing realities. The goddess herself, it emerges, also changes in the process. Drawing on diverse ethnographic and textual materials gathered during periods of extensive fieldwork from 2009 to 2017, this study is rich with myths, accounts of dramatic rituals, and descriptions of everyday life in the region. The book employs an interdisciplinary approach to tell the story of Haḍimbā from the ground up, or rather from the center out, portraying the goddess in varying contexts that radiate outward from her temple to local, regional, national, and indeed global spheres. The resulting account makes an important contribution to the study of Indian village goddesses, lived Hinduism, Himalayan Hinduism, and the rapidly growing field of religion and ecology.

Confronting the Global

As local residents report and scientific evidence shows, the Kullu Valley is warming up. This chapter analyzes practitioners’ interpretations of and engagement with the changing climate, as well as Haḍimbā’s centrality to their reasoning in this regard. It presents the holistic worldview held by Haḍimbā’s devotees, namely their notions about dharma and cosmic interconnectedness and the ways this worldview underlies their thoughts about and actions concerning the changing climate. It also traces how villagers associate the weather irregularities with the socioeconomic transformations that have taken place in their lives in recent years, following the introduction of modernity, capitalism, and tourism in the region, as well as their creeping doubts concerning the very validity of their holistic worldview. The chapter illustrates both the continuities and the shifts in how followers perceive Haḍimbā’s command over the weather and her agency more broadly.

Negotiating National Hinduism

The chapter explores a heated controversy that has developed in the Kullu Valley in recent decades, as blood sacrifices to Haḍimbā have come under severe theological, moral, and very practical attack. These sacrifices have turned into an arena for struggle over matters of cosmology, society, ethics, religious freedom, and political sovereignty. In the process, Haḍimbā’s own character has become part of the debate, as has her devotees’ perception of themselves and how they present themselves to others. Sacrifice to the goddess—its performance as well as its accompanying theological discourse—has thus become an arena in which local identity, of divine and human actors alike, is presented, debated, and reconstructed in ways that are mutually formative and closely intertwined.