This paper uses Public Choice analysis to examine the case for and experience with Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs). A PPP is a contractual platform which connects a governmental body and a private entity. The goal is to provide a public sector program, service, or asset that would normally be provided exclusively by a public sector entity. This paper focuses on PPPs in developed countries, but it also draws on studies of PPPs in developing countries. The economics literature generally defines PPPs as long-term contractual arrangements between a public authority (local or central government) and a private supplier for the delivery of services. The private sector supplier takes responsibility for building infrastructure components, securing financing of the investment, and then managing and maintaining this facility.

However, in addition to those formed through contracts, PPPs may take other forms such as those developed in response to tax subvention or coercion, as in the case of regulatory mandates. A key element of PPP is that the private partner takes on a significant portion of the risk through a schedule of specified remuneration, contingency payments, and provision for dispute resolution. PPPs typically are long-term arrangements and involve large corporations on the private side, but may also be limited to specific phases of a project.

The types of PPPs discussed in this paper exclude arrangements which may result from government mandates such as the statutory emission mandates imposed on automobile manufacturers and industrial facilities (e.g., power plants). It also excludes PPP-like organizations resulting from US section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code, which provides tax subsidies for certain public charities, scientific research organizations, and organizations whose goals are to prevent cruelty to animals or erect public monuments at no expense to the government. This paper concludes that an array of Public Choice tools are applicable to understanding the emergence, success, or failure of PPPs. Several short case studies are provided to illustrate the practicalities of PPPs. 

Agroforestry holds the key in providing alternative economically viable livelihood development and to support mountainous farmers to adapt to climate change. Innovative agroforestry interventions integrating animal production, horticulture etc into cropping systems exist that can help farmers improve yields and build resilience for supporting livelihoods particularly among marginal communities. But, the lack of knowledge, technical know-how and other information among the farmers are major barriers in adoption of agroforestry. Millions of the farmers of mountainous regions are already wrestling with water scarcity, which would be more severe in climate change scenario. The Himalayan regions are have been considered to be highly sensitive to climate change. Indeed, Innovative agroforestry interventions have the potential to conserve natural resources, improve productivity and provide resilience to climate change. The present paper highlights the need for developing innovative agroforestry interventions to promote various alternate livelihood options through diversification, adoption of high yielding varieties and development of innovative products from forest resources.  Of these spice based agroforetry, silvi-medicinal systems, Van silk cultivation, bamboo and ringal cultivation  and development and use of farm resources based products like  bamboo based composite structures, Seabuckthorn herbal tea, Ghingaroo juice  (Crataegus crenulata) and incense products etc holds a promising potential to be explored as better options for future scenario.

It increased the demands on ground-water supplies that prolonged drought and improper maintenance of water resources. So it is necessary to evaluate ground-water resources in the hard rock terrain. In recent years, Remote-Sensing methods have been increasingly recognized as a means of obtaining crucial geoscientific data for both regional and site-specific investigations. This work aims to develop and apply integrated methods combining the information obtained by geo-hydrological field mapping and those obtained by analyzing multi-source remotely sensed data in a GIS environment for better understanding the Groundwater condition in hard rock terrain. In this study, digitally enhanced Landsat ETM+ data was used to extract information on geology, geomorphology. The Hill-Shading techniques are applied to SRTM DEM data to enhance terrain perspective views, and extract Geomorphological features and morphologically defined structures through the means of lineament analysis. A combination of Spectral information from Landsat ETM+ data plus spatial information from SRTM-DEM data is used to address the groundwater potential of alluvium, colluvium, and fractured crystalline rocks in the study area. The spatial distribution of groundwater potential zones shows regional patterns related to lithologies, lineaments, drainage systems, and landforms. High-yielding wells and springs are often related to large lineaments and corresponding structural features such as dykes. The results show that the combination of remote sensing, GIS, traditional fieldwork, and models provide a powerful tool for water resources assessment and management, and groundwater exploration planning.

Attempts were made in the present study to design and develop skeletally modified ether linked tetraglycidyl epoxy resin (TGBAPSB), which is subsequently reinforced with different weight percentages of amine functionalized mullite fiber (F-MF). The F-MF was synthesized by reacting mullite fiber with 3-aminopropyltriethoxysilane (APTES) as coupling agent and the F-MF structure was confirmed by FT-IR. TGBAPSB reinforced with F-MF formulation was cured with 4,4’-diamino diphenyl methane (DDM) to obtain nanocomposite. The surface morphology of TGBAPSB-F-MF epoxy nanocomposites was investigated by XRD, SEM and AFM studies. From the study, it follows that these nanocomposite materials offer enhancement in mechanical, thermal, thermo-mechanical, dielectric properties compared to neat (TGBAPSB) epoxy matrix. Hence we recommend these nanocomposites for a possible use in advanced engineering applications that require both toughness and stiffness.

Infrastructure development is critical to delivering growth, reducing poverty and addressing broader development goals, as argued in the World Bank Report Transformation through Infrastructure (2012). This paper surveys the literature of the linkages between infrastructure investment and economic growth, discusses the role of infrastructure in the participation of global value chains and in supporting economic upgrades, highlights the challenges faced the least developed countries and provides policy recommendations. It suggests that addressing the bottlenecks in infrastructure is a necessary condition to provide a window of opportunity for an economy to develop following its comparative advantage. With the right conditions, good infrastructure can support an economy, particularly a less developed economy, to reap the benefit through the participation in the global value chains to upgrade the economic structure.

This research study explores the addition of chromium (Cr⁶⁺) ions as a nucleating agent in the alumino-silicate-glass (ASG) system (i.e., Al₂O₃-SiO₂-MgO-B₂O₃-K₂O-F). The important feature of this study is the induction of nucleation/crystallization in the base glass matrix on addition of Cr⁶⁺ content under annealing heat treatment (600 ± 10 °C) only. The melt-quenched glass is found to be amorphous, which in the presence of Cr⁶⁺ ions became crystalline with a predominant crystalline phase, Spinel (MgCr₂O₄). Microstructural experiment revealed the development of 200–500 nm crystallite particles in Cr⁶⁺-doped glass-ceramic matrix, and such type microstructure governed the mechanical properties. The machinability of the Cr-doped glass-ceramic was thereby higher compared to base alumino-silicate glass (ASG). From the nano-indentation experiment, the Young’s modulus was estimated 25(±10) GPa for base glass and increased to 894(±21) GPa for Cr-doped glass ceramics. Similarly, the microhardness for the base glass was 0.6(±0.5) GPa (nano-indentation measurements) and 3.63(±0.18) GPa (micro-indentation measurements). And that found increased to 8.4(±2.3) (nano-indentation measurements) and 3.94(±0.20) GPa (micro-indentation measurements) for Cr-containing glass ceramic.