eChapters

INTRODUCTION

Knowledge is a familiarity with someone or something, which can include facts, information, descriptions, or skills acquired through experience or education. It can refer to the theoretical or practical understanding of a subject. It can be implicit (as with practical skill or expertise) or explicit (as with the theoretical understanding of a subject); it can be more or less formal or systematic.While many would agree that one of the most universal and significant tools for the transfer of knowledge is writing (of many kinds), argument over the usefulness of the written word exists nonetheless, with some scholars skeptical of its impact on societies. People are often internalizing new information which they perceive to be knowledge but in reality fill their minds with false knowledge.

  1.    Gender Sensitization: Change of Attitude of people towards gender equality, gender roles etc.

  2.    Public-Private Partnership: Involvement of private stakeholders with public entreprises

  3.    Information and Communication Technology (ICT): Use of computer. fax, video, telephones in information sharing & transfer of technology.

  4.    Cyber Extension: Use of computers in extension management.

  5.    Broad Based Extension: Farming system use for maximum use of all available resource to maximize profit

  6.    Bottom-up Approach: Planning from lowest level of society.

  7.    ITK (Indegenous Technological Knowledge): Use of farm community knowledge for development

  8.    Market Led Extension: Transfer of technology basing on assured & confirmed market of the product.

DEVELOPMENT OF WOMEN AND CHILDREN IN RURAL AREAS (DWCRA)

Objectives

  1.    To raise the income level of women poor households.

  2.    Formation of groups of 10-15 women in rural poor for developing of services.

Salient features

  1.    Each group is given one time grant of Rs.25,000/-as revolving fund for infrastructure, purchase of raw materials, marketing, child care etc.

  2.    Fund is in ratio of 50:50 between Central and State government.

  3.    Provision of setting up of District Supply and Marketing Society for women producers.

DISTRICT RURAL DEVELOPMENT AGENCY (DRDA)

Objective

To professionalise the DRDA so that they are able to effectively manage the antipoverty programmes of the Ministry of Rural Development and interact effectively with other agencies.

Salient Features

•   The DRDA is visualized as a specialized agency capable of managing the anti-poverty programmes and to effectively relate these to the overall efforts of poverty eradication in the district.

•   The DRDA role will be to facilitate the implementation of the programmes, to supervise, oversee and monitor the progress, to receive and send progress reports and maintaining accounts of funds received for various rural development programmes.

•   DRDAs also need to develop synergies among different agencies for the most effective results.

•   The Chairman Zilla Parishad would be the chairman of the governing body of the DRDA.

COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT (CD)

Meaning of Community Development

Community development is an exclusive term. It is used frequently to encompash every efforts towards the advance of community interest.

Community

A community is a group of people who live in a particular geographical area and have an interest on each other and have a purpose of making a living.

Development

It means growth or maturation. It is gradual and sequencial phases of changes. Example: Life from child to death

Definition of Community Development

1. It is bringing forth the potential abilities and qualities of a group of people who live together in a common territory or region and who have an interdependent relationship with each other.

2. Community Development is a continuous process of social action by which the people of community do the following things.

(a)   Define their common and group needs.

(b)   Organize themselves formally and informally for democratic planning and action.

(c)   Make group and individual plans to meet their need and solve their problems.

(d)   Execute their plans with maximum reliance upon their own resources.

(e)   Supplement their resources from outside community when necessary with services and materials.

3. Carl Taylor’s Definition

Community Development is a method by which people in villages are involved in helping to improve their own economy through their own effort. Thereby, they are effective working groups in the programme or national development.

RURAL DEVELOPMENT

Meaning

The word “Rural” comes from the word “Rurale” which means close to nature and environment, and “Development” means growth or maturation.

Rural development is utilization, protection and enhancement of the natural, physical and human resources to make long-term improvements in rural living conditions. It involves provision of jobs and income opportunities while maintaining and protecting the environment of rural areas.

General Definition

1)     It is based on an operational approach with practicalities with the people covering maximum end users for maximum economic return.

2) Definition by Axinn

R.D. is a process of change among the rural people through change in environment, technology institutions and attitude to eliminate the poverty and improve the way of life.

3) Definition by Miller

R.D. is based on the following components

a)     Development of human resource - It includes the development of rural people by providing education to the rural children and employment to rural youth, socio-economic condition of village can be improved.

b)     Expansion of physical resources - Construction of infrastructures like roads, schools, colleges, post office, bank etc will improve the rural condition.

c)     Extension of communit’s control over the resources.

OBJECTIVE OF EXTENSION EDUCATION

Objective

Objectives are expression of the ends towards which our efforts are directed.

The objective of extension is to develop the rural people economically, socially and culturaly by means of education. Overall, these objectives are divided into 4 types they are :

a)   Material objective

b)   Educational objective

c)   Social and cultural objective

d)   Developing leadership objective

a) Material objective

According to National Commission on Agriculture (1976). Agriculture extension aims at improving the efficiency of human capital, an effort to rapidly increase the rate of agricultural production. It also seeks to import necessary skill to farmer to understand the improved agricultural operation and improve the their own income, own resource and also the money value.

b) Educational objective

Extension education also aims at development of individual to change in behaviour by identifying their knowledge, skill, attitude and action. It aims at increasing the knowledge of people to analyse their past, present and expected future situation, to become aware of problem identification, solution and also realising their felt and unfelt need.

Extension

Extension is that type of education which is stretched out to people in rural areas far and near, beyond the limits of education institutions to which the formal type of education is usually confined.

Education

Education is a process of bringing about desirable changes in the behaviour of human being.

Formal education: The hierarchically structured, chronologically graded ‘education system’, running from primary school through the university and including, in addition to general academic studies, a variety of specialised programmes and institutions for full-time technical and professional training.

Informal education: The truly lifelong process whereby every individual acquires attitudes, values, skills and knowledge from daily experience and the educative influences and resources in his or her environment - from family and neighbours, from work and play, from the market place, the library and the mass media.

Non-formal education: Any organised educational activity outside the established formal system - whether operating separately or as an important feature of some broader activity - that is intended to serve identifiable learning clientele and learning objectives.

Abstract

Human Resource Management (HRM) is an essential function of every organization. Information Technology (IT) application has made such ‘human resource management’ function easy, to a great extent. Now a day, IT has been used widely across the organizations to perform different functions like, Recruitment, training, maintenance and development etc. Human Resource Information System (HRIS) is one of the latest contributions of IT to the area of human resource management, which is going to revolutionise management in 21st Century. Technology has brought changes in the existing working styles of organisations. By the introduction of HRIS, it enhances the efficiency of the organisation by changing the traditional way of working. In Human Resource Information Systems, many organizations use employee data in traditional ways. These can create conflict with the rights and interests of employees, with external stakeholders, and with society at large. The present paper discusses such issues. Other soft issues like, challenges and possible solutions are also discussed.

Abstract

Training is essential but expensive. Hence, training impact is a crucial measure. National Agricultural Research System (NARS), India employs about 30000 scientists. To effectively manage such huge scientific-capital, Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) establishedCentres for Advanced Faculty Training (CAFT) and National Academy of Agricultural Research Management (NAARM). CAFT train faculty of State Agricultural Universities (SAUs), while NAARM trains scientists of ICAR institutes and SAUs. Assessing impact of these training programmes becomes essential. Application of knowledge, skills and attitude (KSA) acquired during training back at job environment is training-transfer that addresses learning, behaviour and results levels of training impact. This chapter critically analyses training-transfer of NAARM and CAFT programmes, suggests empirical framework to enhance impact of NAARM and CAFT programmes and thus contributes to literature. Policy strategies suggested in this paper hold wider applicability.

Introduction

Training is the crucial and expensive component of HRD, intended to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of performance of the members of organization through planned learning efforts, transfer of such learning at work place and in turn improvement of the organizational performance. Given such objectives, most of the training programmes fail to inculcate the transfer component in trainees (Subedi 2004). Hence, there is an increasing concern over training transfer at work place and the resultant improved organizational performance in terms of productivity, efficiency, effectiveness and turn over etc (Howard 1995, Huselid 1995, Martocchio and Baldwin 1997 and Salas et al.. 2000, Thayer1997).

Improving the skill set of individuals is an important agenda of any development organization. The individuals may be anyone in the system who is directly or indirectly connected to the system.  Agriculture System is a complex and multi-stakeholder system with farmers as the axis of the wheel with other stakeholders’ forms part of spokes of the wheel. The scope for capacity building or training of every stakeholder has been peaking tremendously given the ever changing nature of the profession. The public and private training Institutions are vying with each other for conducting trainings in order to sustain the existence of the Institutions. Though a few institutions are really trying hard to take the technologies in real terms to the farming community, the following observations are very difficult to be masked.

1. Introduction

With the advent of globalization and subsequent economic liberalization, the focus of Indian agriculture is shifting from “subsistence” to “commercial” mode, where farming is viewed as a “business” rather than “life-support” system of poor farmers. Enabling farmers “decision-making” capacity is a primary driver of success in the market-oriented agriculture. This “commercial focus” has brought tremendous changes in the “nature” and “mode” of extension work. On the other hand, extension work organizations in developing countries like India, are being impacted by sharp decline in public sector funding, rapid technological innovations especially in the Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs), and the shift to a knowledge-based workforce. These developments created new opportunities for the extension workers to perform the information dissemination, capacity building and technology application more effectively. 

Agricultural colleges and universities were first formed in the belief that farm production could be increased as a result of the systematic application of current technology and agricultural research findings. The mission of these early educational institutions was to scientifically study agriculture with the participation of the farming community; to carry the results to a broad range of farmers who could use them; and to train farmers, extension workers, agricultural teachers and researchers so that agricultural production could continue to be increased on a sustained basis. In many of the developing countries, agricultural education and training have failed to adapt and respond to the realities of rural societies. In response to the urgent need to review and adjust teaching and training in agriculture at all levels. The training is an important tool to overcome the problem faced by the rural people all over the world. The availability of the resource is the crucial determining factors to strengthen the training Programme for the needy people.

In India’s National Extension Programme, professional workers constitute the link between the people and the institute created to advance economic and social change upon the character philosophy, technical knowledge and compliance of these workers largely rests for the success of the programme. Hence the quality of these workers and their training is the important element to be dealt with properly and guided wisely.

In early fifties, the Gramsevak / Village Level Workers (VLW’s) served as a key-man in Community Development Programme and therefore, the Government of India aimed at imparting him by better training and supervisory assistance. As a step in this direction, Gramsevak Training Centers were started to impart training to GramSevaks / VLW’s and Extension Officers were appointed in block for better supervisory assistance.

Training helps people to become qualified and proficient in doing some jobs (Dahama, 1979). Usually an organization facilitates the employees’ learning through training so that their modified behaviour contributes to the attainment of the organization’s goals and objectives.
 
Training needs refer to the gaps between desired and expected levels of performance. Needs may be numerous. Besides they also need group, affection, recognition and fulfilment of their talents.

Training need may be defined as difference between existing and desired performance of person(s). In other words it is a gap between job requirement and job performance. That means it is gap between the existing and desired level of competency. Thus, the attitude, knowledge and skills of a person are lower than desired if the gap is significant there is a need for training.

Introduction

Today we are part of a highly complex and dynamic society. The complexity and dynamism are primarily due to the chain of changes induced by the scientific and industrial developments. The impetus provided by the information explosion coupled with scientific and technological developments to human life has triggered several unimaginable developments in the number, structure and functions of formal organizations. Realization of the supremacy of human mind over the tangible and exhaustible organizational resources like money, material and machine has led to the concept of ‘human capital’, which is now being considered as the most critical organizational resource to ensure organizational effectiveness and efficiency. Analogously huge investments are going in towards servicing and developing this critical resource of human capital in organizations. In this context, the concepts of human resource development (HRD) and training assume greater significance. In fact, training has been considered as a potential tool for HRD since ages. However, as a distinct profession, and also as a critical management tool, training is still in its early years. At the same time, there have been significant changes in the way training is conceived, understood and practiced.

INTRODUCTION

Traditional knowledge is the knowledge, innovations and practices of indigenous and local communities around the world. Developed from experience gained over centuries and adapted to the local culture and environment, it is transmitted orally from generation to generation. It tends to be collectively owned and takes the form of stories, songs, folklore, proverbs, cultural values, beliefs, rituals, community laws, local language. Sometimes it is referred to as an oral tradition for it is practiced, sung, danced, painted, carved, chanted and performed down through millennia. Traditional knowledge is mainly of a practical nature, particularly in such fields as fisheries, health, horticulture, forestry and environmental management in general. Appreciation of the value of traditional knowledge is growing. This knowledge is valuable not only to those who depend on it in their daily lives, but to modern industry and farming as well. Many widely used products, such as plant-based medicines, health products and cosmetics, are derived from traditional knowledge. Other such valuable products include agricultural and non-wood forest products as well as handicraft. Traditional knowledge can make a significant contribution to sustainable development.

Introduction

North East India constitutes the states of Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Tripura and Sikkim which reflects ecological and cultural contrasts between the hills and the plains. It is one of the most biodiversity regions in the world, with more than a hundred and fifty tribes forming a melting pot of variegated cultural mosaic of people and races constitute a vital component in this region (Dutta and Dutta, 2005).
 
More than 70% people of the region are engaged in agriculture while rice is the staple food crop (Bhattacharjee and Ray, 2010). The farmers from different ethnic diversity of the region have developed their own systems of cultivation of various crops (Islam et al. 2004). These indigenous traditional knowledge systems are quite endemic to this region (Deka et al. 2006).

INTRODUCTION

Fish are one of the main exploitable resources of the aquatic ecosystems that provide a cheap source of protein which help solving the problem nutritional security particularly NE region of the country. The rapid development of fishing technology in India during the recent years has paved the way for increased production availability of new synthetic materials, evolution of new designs of fishing crafts and gears and avoidance of ignorant harmful fishing techniques etc. It is to be taken into account that any developmental activity adopted should also be base rooted in the objective of uplifting the economy of the fishing communities. This implies that the improvisation of the existing tools and techniques and introduction of new ones to enhance fishing efficiency need a careful study of the traditional infra-technologies. Further selection of fishing methods and gear are influenced by various factors such as physiographic of the water body, nature of fish stock, characteristics of the material from which gear are fabricated and standard of living. Therefore, variation in application of fishing devices can be observed in different type of water bodies, which have characteristic of their own due to unique nature of the water resources of the region.

INTRODUCTION

In the emerging global knowledge economy, a country’s ability to build and mobilize knowledge capital is equally important for sustainable development like the physical and financial capital (World Bank, 1997). The basic component of any country’s knowledge capital is its indigenous technical knowledge (ITK). ITK is the social capital of the local people, their main asset to invest in the struggle for survival, to produce food, to provide for shelter or to achieve control of their own lives. It is the unique, traditional, local knowledge existing within and developed around specific condition of men and women indigenous to a particular geographical area (Ghosh and Sahoo, 2011). It helps to increase the sustainability of development efforts because of its integration process with mutual learning and adaptation, which in turn contributes to the empowerment of local communities.