Union Movement in Late 19th Century

During 1870 through 1900 workers joined together; responding to the power of their employers caused by the growth of industrialization. The worker did not always have the luxury of leaving after eight hours of work, the right to representation, or the even the right to work in a safe environment. The working people of nineteenth century America had to unite in struggle to achieve the gains that are often taken selfishly and taken for granted today. There were many successes and failures in organized labor; the successes were often obtained through the loss of the worker, often through lost wages, jobs, or even death. The organization structure of the union during 1870 through 1900 went through different cycles and strategies to achieve what they wanted. One of the first effective regional organized unions was the Knights of Labor formed in 1869. The knights took in not only skilled workers but also any worker that could be truly classified as a producer. The knights took their peek in 1885 when strikes against Union Pacific, Southwest System, and Wabash railroads attracted public sympathy and succeeded in preventing a reduction in wages, at this time they boasted a membership of 700,000. 1886 was a troubled year for labor relations. There were nearly 1,600 strikes involving 600,000 workers, with the eight-hour day being the important item for all of the strikes. Failure of some of the strikes and internal conflicts between the skilled workers and the unskilled led to a decline in the Knights popularity and influence. Another organization called the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions created a constitution that other unions could adhere to. This constitution met in Pittsburgh on Nov. 15 1881 and was created by representatives of the cigar makers, the printers, the merchant seamen, steel workers, carpenters and local units of the Knights of Labor. One of the most important items in the constitution created by the FOTLU recommended that the legal eight-hour work day be an objective for every union to achieve. The FOTLU thus accelerated a strong national push for a shorter work week. The AFL grew from 140,000 in 1886 to nearly on million by 1900. With these strengths in numbers they often preferred striking over political action. The struggle for workers rights, wage increases and protests against wage cuts were often unsuccessful resulting in violence and death. Chicago workers were agitating for the eight-hour work day for months. On May 1st and 2nd 1886 were eighty thousand workers went on strike, bringing most of Chicago†s manufacturing to a standstill. On May 3rd a fight between hundreds of strikers and non-union replacements broke out. Chicago police quickly moved in to restore order, leaving four unionists dead and many wounded. Angered by the deadly force of the police a group of anarchists called on workers to arm themselves and participate in the massive protest demonstration in Haymarket Square on May 4. Only 3,000 members assembled and started out peacefully until late evening when someone still not known to this day threw a bomb that killed seven policemen and injured 67 others. Even though no evidence was ever found about who threw the bomb four anarchists were found guilty and sentenced to death. Ever since the Haymarket square symbolized for radicals and trade unionists everywhere the injustice of a capitalistic society but also associated negatively unions as un-American, criminalistic, and violent. Many other activists died or received injuries for their cause all around the country. In July of 1877 strike riots halted the movement of U. S. railroads. After a few weeks of shutting down most of countries railroad system federal troops were sent in to try to end the nationwide strike. This resulted in more violence and death; in Chicago for example federal troops killed 30 workers and wounded over 100. On June 14, 1877 in Pennsylvania ten coal-mining activists were hanged. October 1887 the Louisiana militia shot 35 unarmed black sugar workers striking to gain a dollar-per-day wage and lynched two strike leaders. 1894 federal troops killed 34 American Railway Union members in Chicago attempting to break a strike. July 1892 three hundred Pinkerton guards helped introduce scabs into the workplace by opening fire on striking Carnegie mill steel workers, this resulted in the death of seven guards and eleven strikers. The idea of demonstrations was often to get the attention of management to show that they mean business and can†t be pushed around so easily. New York garment workers won the right to unionize after a seven-month strike. They secured agreements for a closed shop, and firing of all scabs. Striking miners in Idaho dynamited the Frisco Mill. Leaving it to ruins, getting the attention they wanted. The popularity and growth of unions everywhere showed companies that they are not going to walk over their workers as easily as they did in the past. Although union demonstrations resulted in workers being injured, dead or fired they set the way for unions in the future to be successful in their endeavors. These demonstrations were successful in the fact that they showed management and companies that the American worker can unite and be heard as one voice rather than a mass of passive workers that would take any injustice given to them. It is to these unions that we owe many of the benefits and rights we see and use today, such as fighting injustices such as biases and discrimination, winning the right to representation and collective bargaining, and the right for education for every child.

Analysis of Kraft Foods

[pic] Kraft Food Analysis of Kraft Food Kraft Foods is an American food and beverage multinational company. It produces and markets many brands to more than 170 countries, and 12 of its brands earn more than $1 billion worldwide annually (â€Å"Kraft Foods†, 2011). Most of the food products which we consume everyday belongs to this company. For instance, some of well-known brands are Jacobs and Maxwell, Milka and Toblerone, Tang and Cipso. It is the successful and popular leading food companies of the world. So, Kraft Foods will be reviewed in terms of values and promises that it communicates with consumers and employees, communication and job satisfaction respectively. Values of the company are shared among its employees. First value of the company is its employees. The company highlights the importance of its employees and their contribution to the company. It emphasized that hardworking and passionate workers, who constantly seeks ways to make content consumers by finding innovation, make the company what it was. After it, Focus, Passion, Speed, Teamwork and Trust are listed as the most important values of company. Those five values describe fundamental structure of organizational process. Firstly, focus on what is needed to improve the business and focus on what is important to make customers happy is like starting point of the process. Generating innovation according to needs is second value of the company. After focus and innovation, Passion which is motive of making better outcome in each work, the next value in order to reach the most desired outcome. You can manage focus, innovation and passion, but you also have a speed as a fourth value of company in order to compete with other food companies. As it is known in the beginning of the paragraph, employees are the key agents who make the name of brand. So, it is normal that fifth value is the teamwork. The final value of it is trust which is the fundamental block of teamwork and organizational communication. Firstly, the company promises to be open and inclusive, because it sees this value as a critical value to create a high-performing organizational culture. Being open to different perspectives make innovation easy and better. It claims that openness and inclusiveness to diversity are so embedded into their way of doing business and into every department of it. They constitute its blocks of organizational culture. Taking into account every possible different perspectives and evaluate them is one of promises which the company gives to its employees. Also, it guarantees that discrimination or harassment based on age, race, disability, national origin, religion, sex, sexual orientation or any other legally protected status are not allowed. If the company is able to approach diversity in a positive manner, this gives workers feeling of recognition and makes them more motivated. When we want to give concrete example, 43% of their mployees are women and 35% of management team is constituted by females. It shows us that there is no gender discrimination on hiring and it opens up to gender diversity. Secondly, it promises employees that they will be work in an international environment. For instance, they can be participated into European/International projects. Other than it, they can join into short-term overseas assignments, and then join into l onger-term assignments when they develop in their career path. Moreover, the company assures training and development programs for employees in order to reach their best level of expertise. These programs are like job training, cross functional projects and corporate training programs. It also promises giving feedback about how employees’ outcome contributes to the business in general. It is obvious that the promises of the company are motivating factor for employees. When we take into account both values and promises of the company, we can conclude that we are open to all ideas, we can discuss about them in a participative context, we can decide collectively and finally we deliver what we decided to others in order to make them be aware of what is going on the company. Their motto is â€Å"We discuss. We decide. We deliver. † The company uses variety of internal communication channels. Social and sports activities are among the practices which HR department prefer to use as internal communication channels. Employees can join sports teams and organized social events including a winter ski day, summer golfing day and a winter family fun day during the holidays. Those enjoyable events are organized by the company-subsidized social committee. They make work atmosphere better and improve communication among workers. It also creates a sense of equity, because every employee has equal access to them. In addition to this, employees can have a chance of socializing and increasing interaction with their co-workers by providing richly physical workplace which contains the fitness facility with free membership, employee lounge with foosball and television, quiet room for meditation and reflection, and a nap room for employees who need a quick break during the day, cafeteria with healthy menus and subsidized meals. While those places offer many opportunities for employees, they can facilitate the internal communication at the same time. The company thinks that every people has different ways of absorbing news and information, every people can use different channels, therefore the company must use very different channels to communicate with its employees. The Kraft Foods is relatively very successful in this issue. It uses face-to-face communication activities such as town hall meetings and lunch-and-learn sessions. Moreover, it has its corporate intranet and internal blog sites. Newsletters, news magazines and e-business updates are also available for employees. The company is also in Facebook. It shares company news. Their community involvement projects and sustainability efforts are announced here. The most important application of it is that some of the Kraft Foods team join to talk about their own areas of expertise to enable information sharing and facilitates internal communication. One of internal communication channel of the company which is very popular is iPhone. Kraft employees use their iPhones for sending email, organizing calendar, and saving contacts. Kraft employees can listen to audio messages, dubbed â€Å"Kraft Casts,† from the CEO and other executives on their iPhones. They are so useful to stay up-to-date on the latest corporate strategies and branding initiatives. It can be also very effective to improve [pic][pic][pic] downward communication. It makes easy information flow from top people in the company like CEOs to all employees. Learning company future strategies or plans by reading from a bulletin is less visual and live compared to by listening and watching from iPhone. There have been many community involvement projects within organization. Employees organized national and international charitable organizations with the support of company. For instance, in my view, the welfare activities serve two functions for the company. Firstly, they can make employees from all levels of organization together. They are one of social events and internal communication channels. They can work for an interdependent goal cooperatively during these charities. Employees from different departments can have a contact with each other and can improve their social relationships with co-workers. In this way, internal communication among employees can be facilitating thanks to them. [pic][pic][pic] Secondly, they can also become an external communication channel for the company. We can encounter much news in the social media when the company performs a charitable activity or subscribes to a relief fund. The company can communicate its brand externally thanks to this news. They can make contribution to the respectability, reliability of company, and at the same increases brand awareness at the same time. In sum, we can consider charitable organizations as both internal and external communications channels. Employer brand of the company is one of external communication channels of it. It can communicate itself through its brand name. While it creates its brand with what it did in the market, the brand creates the company at the same time. There is a reciprocal relationship between two. It can tell the reputation and image of the company in the market via its brand. At the same time, this external communication channels can be a motivating factor for the employees and for the upcoming new employees. The more famous and prestigious brand is, the more people want to work in this company. Its reputation in the market will attract the new employees. Upward communication is less applied in organizations than downward communication. Although there is an open and inclusive workplace for generating diverse ideas, we can not know whether this freedom is also seen in performance evaluation of managers by subordinates. There is not available information about whether subordinate appraisals of managers are applied or are not. Appraisals of supervisors which are done by the subordinates can give feedback about the performance of supervisors. If they take into account these feedbacks, they can be more effective in their working process and managing process. As employees start to recognize that heir feedback is taken into account, upward communication can be also provided. On the other hand, the company has spread all around the world. For instance, one manager who is from Europe can supervise the employees who are from very different and far away country. Thanks to the ways the Internet enables communications like teleconference, a manager can work for a far away office of the company (Waltner, 2010). Although it has so me advantages like company can choose best manager by basing on performance, not basing on location, it can be a barrier to upward communication. While networks for teleconference are available more easily when there is a meeting between senior managers from different departments, it can accessed more difficulty when more subordinate employee need it to communicate with managers. Moreover, the other factor is cultural differences. How much employees want to share their ideas about managers can be change according to culture. For instance, in more collectivistic culture, people can think that making criticism about a person can be perceived as offense by him. So, they don’t want to share its views about him in order to conform existing situation. They can fear of being evaluated negatively by their managers if they give negative feedback about their managers. So, suggestion or complaint boxes can be a good solution for those employees. Attitude surveys are one possible ways of improving upward communication. However, if the results of those surveys about the performance and effectiveness of manager are not taken into account by managers, they have no value (Aamodt, 2010). So, managers also organize a time for discussing the feedback with employees face to face. Although Kraft Foods has those kinds of surveys like many international companies, in my view, it can not effectively discuss its result with subordinates. Because, some employees have still reported some upward communication problem in a website that employees can report reviews about their company anonymously. One of employees says that there is low level of employee participation in decision making. Also, he suggested that the company should take into account the employee surveys (Kraft Foods Employee Review, 2011). Along with that comment, Kraft should initiate more democratic and participative style of management. It can improve upward communication if employees are able to generate ideas or share their concerns about process by including in the decision-making process. The company has all of the channels of communication which are essential in downward communication like bulletin boards, annual reports, newsletters, annual fact sheets or intranets. Although much of communication in organization is downward when compared with upward and although most of channels are available, still downward communication can not reach perfect level. For instance, although the company has a policy manuals or annual reports, they can not function properly, because they have a very technical language. Employees have to read themselves. Interactive meetings to discuss about current company news can be more effective than only transmitting corporate news and facts through written material. For instance, although Kraft Foods Senior Financial Analyst says that the company has many benefits, he suggests that it should improve communication and especially downward communication from middle management (Kraft Food Employee Review, 2011). Although the company has many channels, still some managers don’t really share essential things with employees. Some of them don’t set a proper guideline for what employee will do to achieve its goals. They don’t healthy share about what, when and how employees will do a task. They think that employees have already known those things, because they are their work. They have a problem in taking employees’ perspectives. So, people managerial positions can be received training programmes to improve their communication skill with their subordinates and make them aware of needs and strivings of their subordinates. Do employees really satisfied with their jobs? For instance, Dieter Follens who is the manager of Product Costing Coffee in Kraft Foods Europe said about the company is that it did not provide only a job for him, but it also provides a career in Finance for him. He had worked as an assistant with internal controls, a financial analyst, a cost controller, finance manager in our European Union (EU) Office after Belgium, and product cost manager respectively. This shows us that Kraft Foods provides employees job rotation. It is one of motivating factors of the company. They can satisfy the needs of growth and challenge. Employees feel less boredom and feel more motivated to their jobs. Also, they can understand better how they contribute to the development of the company (Robbins & Judge, 2011). Understanding the effectiveness of individual outcome and the significance of task which are among five core dimensions of Job Characteristic Model explains the satisfying effects of job rotation. Also, Mr. Follens indicated that awareness of contributing to the the growth f company make him satisfied and engaged with job, an even he added that when contribution took place in different ways, then satisfaction turns into real pleasure for him. His comments obviously showed us that job rotation and changes in the job characteristics make workers satisfied. This is the example of satisfied employee. It is impossible to expect that all employees feel and think same things about the company and their position. Also , Dieter works in organizational part of the company. We can analyze Kraft Food Company as focusing separately on white collar workers and blue collar workers. It is a big multinational manufacturing company in the field of food and beverage, so most of its employees are blue collars, in other words, they are hourly workers. While flexile work options were useful for professional employees, they are not good for manufacturing ones. Therefore, employee dissatisfaction was observed among hourly workers in 2001 and 2002 surveys. Fast Adapts Program was prepared in order to decrease the dissatisfaction. It provided workers shift-swapping, single-day vacations and job sharing. Changes in work options make increase in the level of satisfaction one year later (Executive Office of the President Council of Economic Advisers, 2010). The underlying factor that made this improvement was the autonomy, because it offered plant managers the autonomy in deciding the best suitable flexible work options for their own plant and implementing them. One empirical study showed that when the perceptions of nurses about opportunity of structural empowerment changed, changes in psychological empowerment and so in job satisfaction were observed. It means that employees feel more motivated to work and satisfied with their job when they can make work related decisions that will affect themselves (Laschinger, Finegan, Shamian, & Wilk, 2004). We can also form a relationship between this employee empowerment strategy and the Job Characteristic Model. It proposes that any job has five basic dimensions: Skill variety, task identity, task significance, autonomy, feedback. The most relevant dimension to the empowerment programs in Kraft Foods is the autonomy. It can be defined as the degree of freedom which job offer employees about scheduling the work and deciding procedures to implement it. This freedom makes employees more satisfied and intrinsically motivated to job over time by providing to them experienced responsibility and recognition (Robbins & Judge, 2011). We can observe the same pattern in workers of Kraft foods. There are basic key motivators for employees. As in the most companies, compensation and benefits are among key motivator factors of Kraft Foods. For instance, Canada Kraft offers great financial benefits like bonuses for some employees (depending on the position), new employee referral bonuses (up to $1,000 for some positions), and year-end bonuses (to $100,000). Also, it provides health benefits plan including fertility drug treatments. In addition to this, it offers an employee store with discounted food products, dinner catering services (called the â€Å"Kraft Kafe 5 O'Clock Solutions† to take home meals). Also, it provides maternity leave with 100% of salary for 17 weeks. Performance management is one of motivator factors of Kraft Foods. For instance, employees receive individual performance reviews every 6 months in Kraft Canada (Yerema & Leung, 2011). In order to evaluate employees better, managers enroll training programs how to make effective performance reviews. Also, performance evaluation is not only based on one manager’s views, but also it is based on co-workers and other managers who know the employee. In addition to this, it takes a consultant service to make employee satisfaction and engagement surveys better and professionally. In relation to performance management, the most important motivating factor of the company is the training and skills development opportunities for employees. Two motivators are very much related to each other. As the company makes proper performance management, it can organize better training programs according to developmental needs of employees. For instance, Kraft Canada offers tuition subsidies for courses that are related to employees’ position for the development of them. Moreover, it provides professional accreditations; in-house training programs; online training programs; new employee orientation program. In addition to this, the company offers skills development outside the position of employees in Kraft test kitchens like food tastings, cooking classes and culinary presentations. Also, Kraft Foods North America (KFNA) promotes intranet provides professional development resources for its employees including access to training and mentoring. Values and ethics are among key motivator factors of the company. There is an available 15 pages document of Codes of conduct and Kraft Foods Rules of Behavior in the website of the company. It is also translated so many other languages in order to communicate its compliance and values correctly and efficiently with employees from different nations. It states 10 rules which all employees have to be obeyed. For instance, one of the most important rules of it is behaving people fairly. There are some missing motivating factors for employees in the company like clear career path. For instance, Cristina Monterrey who is Human Capital Senior Manager at PricewaterhouseCoopers emphasized that Pwc provide a clear career path to employees. Each employee knows what will be his position in five years. Thanks to this knowledge about their future work life, employees feel more secure and certainty. In this way, employees feel more committed to their work and companies. Other than themselves, an agent helps them organizing their future. Worries about future which can cause stress destroyed in this way and employees work passionately. But, in the case of Kraft Foods, although it provides feedback about performance and training programs according to these feedbacks, there is no available information about a structured career program for employees. In order to make employees more motivated, career plans can be provided for them. Kraft Foods Category Planner in Glenview said that Kraft Foods is a lucrative place to work, but the employees earn every cent they make due to extremely long work hours (Kraft Food employee review, n. d. ). Although he reported that there were lots of opportunities, he paid attention to work load especially for employees with a family. Long work hours can create stress problems, because employees can not balance their work and family life properly. Long hours can be a fundamental dissatisfying factor and it can harm performance along with effect of stress. In my view, there can be some modifications in work schedule. For instance, they can provide alternative or flexible work schedules. Employees start to feel more control over their work by deciding their own working hours. This autonomy and positive effect of change on family life can make employees more motivated to their jobs. References Aamodt, M. G. (2010). Industrial/Organizational Psychology. USA: Wadsworth Cengage learning. Executive Office of the President Council of Economic Advisers. (2010). Work-life Balance and the Economics of the Workplace Flexibility. Kraft Foods. (2011). In Wikipedia. Retrieved November 19, 2011, from http://en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Kraft_Foods. Kraft Foods Employee Review (2011). Retrieved from http://www. glassdoor. com/Reviews/Kraft- Foods-Reviews-E13294. htm. Laschinger,H. K. S. , Finegan, J. E. , Shamian, J. , & Wilk, P. (2004). A longitudinal Analysis of the Impact of Workplace Empowerment on Work Satisfaction. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 25, 527–545. Robbins, S. P. , & Judge, T. A. (2011). Organizational Behavior. New jersey: Pearson. Yerema, R. and Leung, K. (2011). Chosen as one of Canada's Top 100 Employers and Greater Toronto's Top Employers for 2012. Retrieved from http://www. eluta. ca/top-employer-kraft-canada. Waltner, C. (2010). Networking Communications for the Global Corporation: An Interview with Kraft Foods CIO, Mark Dajani. Retrieved from http://newsroom. cisco. com/feature-content? type=webcontent&articleId=5305212. [pic][pic][pic][pic][pic][pic][pic][pic][pic][pic][pic][pic]

Perils of Texting Essay

Cell phones have become a staple of modern society. Nearly everyone has them, and people carry and use them at all hours of the day. For the most part, this is a good thing: the benefits of staying connected at any time and at any location are considerable. But if you’re like most Americans, you may regularly talk on the phone or even text while at the wheel of a car. This dangerous behavior has resulted in increasing numbers of accidents and fatalities caused by cell phone usage. The trend shows no sign of slowing down. In 2003, a federal study of 10,000 drivers by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) set out to determine the effects of using cell phones behind the wheel. The results were conclusive: talking on the phone is equivalent to a 10- point reduction in IQ and a .08 blood alcohol level, which law enforcement considers intoxicated. Handsfree sets were ineffective in eliminating risk, the study found, because the conversation itself is what distra cts drivers, not holding the phone. Cell phone use caused 955 fatalities and 240,000 accidents in 2002. Related studies indicated that drivers that talked on the phone while driving increased their crash risk fourfold, and drivers that texted while driving increased their crash risk by a whopping 23 times. Since that study, mobile device usage has grown by an order of magnitude, worsening this already dangerous situation. The number of wireless subscribers in America has increased by around 1,000 percent since 1995 to nearly 300 million overall in 2010, and Americans’ usage of wireless minutes increased by approximately 6,000 percent. This increase in cell phone usage has been accompanied by an upsurge in phone-related fatalities and accidents: In 2010, it’s estimated that texting caused 5,870 fatalities and 515,000 accidents, up considerably from prior years. These figures are roughly half of equivalent statistics for drunk driving. Studies show that drivers know that using the phone while driving is one of the most dangerous things you can do on the road, but refuse to admit that it’s dangerous when they themselves do it. Of users that text while driving, the more youthful demographic groups, such as the 18–29 age group, are by far the most frequent texters. About three quarters of Americans in this age group regularly text, compared to just 22 percent of the 35–44 age group. Correspondingly, the majority of accidents involving mobile device use behind the wheel involve young adults. Among this age group, texting behind  the wheel is just one of a litany of problems raised by frequent texting: anxiety, distraction, failing grades, repetitive stress injuries, and sleep deprivation are just some of the other problems brought about by excessive use of mobile devices. Teenagers are particularly prone to using cell phones to text because they want to know what’s happening to their friends and are anxious about being socially isolated. Analysts predict that over 800 billion text messages will be sent in 2010. Texting is clearly here to stay, and in fact has supplanted phone calls as the most commonly used method of mobile communication. People are unwilling to give up their mobile devices because of the pressures of staying con nected. Neurologists have found that the neural response to multitasking by texting while driving suggests that people develop addictions to the digital devices they use most, getting quick bursts of adrenaline, without which driving becomes boring. There are interests opposed to legislation prohibiting cell phone use in cars. A number of legislators believe that it’s not state or federal government’s role to prohibit poor decision making. Auto makers, and some safety researchers, are arguing that with the proper technology and under appropriate conditions, communicating from a moving vehicle is a manageable risk. Louis Tijerina, a veteran of the NHTSA and Ford Motor Co. researcher, notes that even as mobile phone subscriptions have surged to over 250 million during the past decade, the death rate from accidents on the highways has fallen. Nevertheless, lawmakers are increasingly recognizing the need for more powerful legislation barring drivers from texting behind the wheel. Many states have made inroads with laws prohibiting texting while operating vehicles. In Utah, drivers crashing while texting can receive 15 years in prison, by far the toughest sentence for texting while driving in the nation when the legislation was enacted. Utah’s law assumes that drivers understand the risks of texting while driving, whereas in other states, prosecutors must prove that the driver knew about the risks of texting while driving before doing so. Utah’s tough law was the result of a horrifying accident in which a speeding college student, texting at the wheel, rear-ended a car in front. The c ar lost control, entered the opposite side of the road, and was hit head-on by a pickup truck hauling a trailer, killing the driver instantly. In September 2008, a train engineer in California was texting within a minute prior to the most fatal train  accident in almost two decades. Californian authorities responded by banning the use of cell phones by train workers while on duty. In total, 31 states have banned texting while driving in some form, and most of those states have a full ban for phone users of all ages. The remaining states are likely to follow suit in coming years as well. President Obama also banned texting while driving for all federal government employees in October 2009. Still, there’s more work to be done to combat this dangerous and life-threatening practice. Sources: Paulo Salazar, â€Å"Banning Texting While Driving,† WCBI.com, August 7, 2010; Jerry Hirsch, â€Å"Teen Drivers Dangerously Divide Their Attention,† Los Angeles Times, August 3, 2010; www.drivinglaws. org, accessed July 2010; www.drivinglaws.org, accessed July 7, 2010; Matt Richtel, â€Å"Driver Texting Now an Issue in the Back Seat,† The New York Times, September 9, 2009; Matt Richtel, â€Å"Utah Gets Tough With Texting Drivers,† The New York Times, August 29, 2009; Matt Richtel, â€Å"In Study, Texting Lifts Crash Risk by Large Margin,† The New York Times, July 28, 2009; Matt Richtel, â€Å"D rivers and Legislators Dismiss Cellphone Risks,† The New York Times, July 19, 2009; Tom Regan, â€Å"Some Sobering Stats on Texting While Driving,† The Christian Science Monitor, May 28, 2009; Katie Hafner, â€Å"Texting May be Taking a Toll on Teenagers,† The New York Times, May 26, 2009; and Tara Parker-Pope, â€Å"Texting Until Their Thumbs Hurt,† The New York Times, May 26, 2009. Questions to be answered: 1. Which of the five moral dimensions of information systems identified is involved in this case? 2. What are the ethical, social, and political issues raised by this case? 3. Which of the ethical principles described are useful for decision making about texting while driving?

Corporate finance Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Corporate finance - Research Paper Example Here in this paper a critical analysis will be done on whether the financial markets are efficient or not. Different theories will be discussed for further analysis. Additionally future probabilities of global financial crisis will also be discussed. It will be done on a step by step basis. According to the theory of Eugene Fama, markets efficiencies are totally dependent upon information. The hypothesis has mainly three versions. Those versions are Strong, Semi Strong and Weak. Strong form of EMH comments that prices reflect all available public information and also hidden information. Semi strong of EMH states that prices reveal only existing and changing publicly available information. Weak version of EMH tells that prices of traded assets show only publicly available information (Quiry, Fur, Salvi, Dallochio and Vernimmen, 2011). The efficient market hypothesis considers that every investor take all present information in the same manner. This consideration faces lots of oppositions, as stock valuation have some difficulties with this assumption. It is often being noticed that some investors are interested in undervalued stocks and some investors are interested towards growth potentials. It shows that there are huge differences between the ways of thinking of two i nvestors. It is clearly against the theoretical foundations of EMH theory (Ferran and Ho, 2014). It also indicates that with the help of this model ascertaining the worth of stock is impossible under efficient market. As far the efficient market hypothesis, no investor is ever able to gain greater profitability in compared to others, through the equal amount of already invested funds. It further clarifies that equal ownership of information means investors can only achieve same returns. But this assumption is also not true in different cases as there are very wide ranges of returns. It

What is visual arts Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

What is visual arts - Assignment Example The paper "What is visual arts" analyzes the phenomenon of visual arts. Pearls, money, gold – embody the wealth and vanity, everyday pleasures of life. Scales in the woman’s hand is a semantic and geometrical approach to composition. Such scales could be found in every house of Nederland. Every province had its currency and weight measures. In order to determine the value of coin, the sellers bit it to economize. Scales were very often associated with conscience like flaring heart. â€Å"A shimmering blue cloth, open boxes, two strands of pearls, and a gold chain lie on the sturdy table. Soft light comes in through the window and illuminates the scene. The woman is so pensive that the viewer almost hesitates to intrude on her quiet moment of contemplation†. There is a big picture of the Last Judgment, the one picture is in another picture that is tool often used by Vermeer. The scales are empty, the gold is just patches of light. A woman weighs neither pearls nor gold or her own deeds waiting for the Last Judgment. She is establishing the balance between the pleasures of life and the rules set by the Church. â€Å"Vermeer emphasized this message through his superbly refined composition and lighting. The hand holding the balance, for example, occupies a position directly in front of the frame’s dark corner, while the scales are set off against the bare plaster wall—an effect that Vermeer created through subtle spatial manipulation†. Black Lines by Vasiliy Kandinsky is another perfect example of visual art.

Literacy Autobiography Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Literacy Autobiography - Essay Example Plenty of dimensions have been attached to literacy. Cultural values play an important role in helping a person to acquire literacy. Even though literacy is encouraged in most of the cultures, some cultures seem to have disbelief in the power of literacy. For example, women in fundamental Muslim societies are denied the opportunity to acquire literacy. In one of the recent shocking incidents, a teenage Pakistani girl, Malala was attacked by the Muslim fundamental groups for her efforts to spread education among Muslim girls in Pakistan. However, most of the other cultures including that one mine are encouraging literacy among all kind of people. In fact my culture or community is giving more attention educating even the old people. It should be noted that literacy helps people to become self-sufficient in all respects. Illiterate people forced to depend others more than literate people. For example, it is difficult for an illiterate person to fill official documents or read newspaper s. Such people always depends others for knowing things happening around them. We are living in a world in which the technological growth is taking place at a rapid pace. Many of the technologies in the past have given way for new technologies. For example, huge growth has been observed in mobile technologies in recent times. Instead of ordinary mobile phones, touchscreen phones or smartphones are currently conquering the market. The capabilities of smartphones are unimaginable. It is impossible for an illiterate person to operate a modern smartphone. My literacy in terms of technology is pretty good. I have already learned many things about computers and its operations. My knowledge in computer technologies is definitely helping me to operate most of the modern electronic equipment such as smartphones, television sets, digital cameras, etc. It would have been impossible for me to operate these things if I was an illiterate person. It is unimaginable for me to lead a life in which I should seek the help of others in operating a mobile phone or camera. Such a scenario would have been a real shame for me. At present, I am able to operate my smartphones and iPad with very much ease. It helps me chat with my friends and relatives through internet and social media. Moreover, these equipment helps me to stay connected to the external world all the time with the help of internet. My iPad is helping me immensely in my studies. My iPad helps me to avoid writing notes, and carrying a bunch of books into the classroom. If I was in illiterate in terms of technology, still I would have carried heavy note books and text books into the class room. In short, my literacy in technology is helping me in reducing my workloads immensely and also in standing tall among my friends and relatives. Fortunately, I belong to a community or culture which has open mind towards literacy. In fact, my community is encouraging education at all levels. It keeps a liberal attitude towards litera cy. Adult education is given special emphasizing in my community. I remember a massive literacy campaign conducted in my native place few couple of decades before. The purpose of this literacy campaign was to educate all the people in that place in reading and writing. This campaign helped my home town to become 100% literate within three months. Now all the people including the farmers, laborers and old people in my home town are capable of reading and writi

Border security issues (week 10) Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Border security issues (week 10) - Essay Example Drones are radio-controlled aircrafts or ships or in unmanned aerial vehicles abbreviated as UAV (NOVA, 2013). According to Jones (2013), currently, the law enforcement agency officials say that such spy programs are useful when it comes to border surveillance, even when they are costly. Jones points out that each drone goes for $18 million and its support systems (Jones, 2013). Such activities carried out at the border by the law enforcement agencies are helpful because they are the key to protecting the American citizens. Nonetheless, there is an extent to which such technology is useful. Using this technology to threaten individual privacy rights as guaranteed by the American constitution is not the solution to defeating terrorists and drug gangs at the border. On a domestic level, drones are used when there are criminal investigations as a way of finding missing persons, when there are natural disasters and monitoring hostage situations. Drones should not be used on Americans who are not criminals to check their travel patterns, banks that they visit and carrying out searches on people’s neighborhoods and houses without court orders. According to Cornwell (2013), domestic drones look like small helicopters and radios. Though they are flown by hobbyist, there is a possibility that they have cameras that are used to capture people (Cornwell, 2013). According to Cornwell (2013), domestic drones can take pictures of people’s backyards because the Federal Aviation Administration approved t he use of more than 1,400 drones in 2006. This abuses the privacy rights that Americans are entitled to as citizens. Cornwell, L. (2013, April 08). Drone regulations: Spying concerns prompt states to consider legislation. The Huffington Post. Retrieved from

Basel III Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Basel III - Essay Example When the housing bubble collapsed before the financial crisis, the asset-backed securities loss value and many banking firms faced insolvency and required federal bailouts. This paper will review the Basel Accords and the economic impact on banks because of the Basel Accords. Basel I and II background Basel I, which centered mainly on credit risk, came into existence in 1988 and became legally enforceable in the G10 nations in 1992 (Barron, J 2011). The goals of Basel I was to mandate that banks preserve enough capital to absorb losses without creating universal difficulties. Basel I was criticized for being inadequate in its assessment of assets to risk categories because assets with different risk composition would be categorized into the same risk groups. The Basel III established the amount of reserves required by banks to avert losses and cushion the financial industry against possible future financial catastrophes. Basel II was created in June 2004 after concerns arose with Bas el I because of the regulatory arbitrage. Basel II was seen as a more risk-sensitive standard that applied bank’s own approximates of risk in deciding minimum capital demands. Basel II placed measures on the amount and usage of a bank’s capital to cover the risks they experienced. One of the fundamental modifications suggested by Basel II is the heightened sensitivity of a bank’s capital obligations to the risk of its assets: the quantity of capital that a bank has to capture is to be directly associated to the riskiness of its underlying assets (Drumond, I 2009). Because Basel II connected the riskiness of banking institution lending with the funds it held, basically making higher risk transactions have elevated reserve requirements than lower risk ones (Barron, J 2011). A chief concern of the Basel II imitative was the practice of securitization. Banks grouped risky loans into asset-backed securities and sold the securities to investors. This practice allowed the banks to move the risky assets off their balance sheets. This process allowed financial institutions to decrease their capital obligations, take on increasing risks and augment their leverage ('FOCUS: The Business Impact of Basel III' 2010).

Marketing Financial Services Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Marketing Financial Services - Assignment Example Al, 1995). Marketing of the financial service is quite a recent phenomenon even in developed nations of the world. The financial services industry plays a vital role in safeguarding the prospects of economic development around the globe (Ennew & Waite, 2006). The banking sector is increasingly faced with issue of service quality. Since it is quite difficult to differentiate between money and the financial services, banks are therefore continually working to enhance the service quality so that the competitive edge can be maintained. However, the most critical factor associated with improvement of service quality is determination of the service quality characteristics that are considered as important by consumers. It also becomes important to consider the elements of the service quality that are important for different group of consumers (Stafford, 1996). It has been found that the service has increased worldwide significantly in general terms. However, the financial services have expe rienced a less encouraging future. The reason behind this has been the market saturation that has led to search for the growth opportunities. To enhance the growth opportunities two approaches seem to be viable. ... The most important thing to be considered is that M&S lends the consumers’ savings to other M&S customers in the UK. The money is lent in the form of personal loans or through M&S Credit Card (Marks and Spencer, n.d.). It was in the year 2004, when M&S Money became part of the HSBC Group; however it continued to operate under M&S Money brand. The company has around 1500 employees. It is headquartered at Chester where the group actively supports its local community. It endeavors to focus its effort both voluntarily and financially on schools and charities. The company has wide range of products catering to wider group of people all around the globe. The insurance products of the company have won many awards. Other products include loans and saving products. Its mission is to cater to the needs of various groups of people by providing them financial solutions that are both simple and underpinned by the core values of Marks and Spencer which are quality, value, innovation, servic e and trust. The company’s most attractive product has been the credit card which allows the customers to shop for 15 months with no interest to pay. Travel money is another product of M&S where 0% commission is levied on foreign currency and on foreign travelers’ cheque. Loans such as personal loans and car buying loans are also few of the other products of the company. SWOT Analysis The company is the best loan provider in the UK and provides several other products. It is the top choice of most of the customers in the country (Docstoc, 2010). M&S Money has received various awards. Recently in the year 2011, the company received award for the best travel insurance providers and the best pet insurance provider. It also received Defaqto 5 Star Rating in

Problem based learning activity Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Problem based learning activity - Essay Example In our initial meeting, we spoke about the locations of the schools. We discussed the education area of Lamar, the administration governing the schools and the number of schools in the region. From our research, we found out that Lamar city consists of five schools ;Primary School, Elementary School, Middle School, High School, and Lamar Career & Technical Center. We also discussed the history of the area. In this discussion, we talked about where people work in agriculture, ranches, and trading. We found out that the area is known for being the home of President Harry Truman. It is located about 292 miles west St. Louis in a beautiful agricultural land with 5.43 square miles area. The population of the area is approximately 4500 with 95% being whites while the rest are from different ethnicities; 0.7% African Americans, 0.3% Asians, 0.6% Native Americans. In our second meeting, we had an intention of creating a plan for improving weaknesses in the education system by collecting data on internal documents, exam results and curricula. This was important in helping us identify the subjects that needed improvement, making a three-year plan for professional development and offering solutions to the current problems. By studying the data for different subjects during the last three years and the effect on students’ comprehension, we could determine the current problems with the system. Moreover, the study would help us find a solution to solve the current problems. Comparing information from different areas was very beneficial in terms of identifying problems and making suggestions. In the third meeting, we discussed the results of our data research on the previous two meetings. We realized that half of the students in grades 3 to 8 had bad results in English. In mathematics, we identified that at least half of the students had good results. However, less than half of the students had good results

Business Plan Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Business Plan - Essay Example Its business objectives are as follows: 1. To be able to launch and operate Cafe Blends with the aid of a bank loan amounting to $ 250,000 with a payback time of one year. 2. To create a unique menu of in house coffee blends that would propel the brand to popularity, beating the market of the already established coffee shops in the city. 3. To expand with two more stores in neighboring cities at the start of its second year. II. COMPANY OVERVIEW Cafe Blends will operate its first coffee shop along the Business District of Dallas, Texas. It will have fully operational dine in area with 10 indoor tables, four sets of which are accentuated with couches, and four outdoor tables. The store will be furnished in such a way that the atmosphere will be cozy and homely, giving its customer a relaxed feel. The thrust is to service healthy coffee by providing blend options to the market, served by the best service crew in the city. Management plans to capture the target market by segmenting its menus, basing on the country source of the raw materials. Coffee sources will vary. There will be coffee to be imported from Brazil, as well as from Asia. Brazil, being the world’s largest coffee producer (Third World Network 2010), is known for its good coffee ingredients. III. PRODUCTS AND SERVICES The Product Development Team will be tasked to conduct researches to ensure that the raw materials being exported will serve the needs of the company to create a menu that will be both exotic and familiar to the target market. On top of this, there will also be specialty house blends. Coffee products include latte, decaf, cold coffee and frappe. Moreover, apart from coffee, specialty tea and pastries will also be served. The menu will be a dynamic one, with a specialty drink and pastry for the day to be highlighted in the menu board. Initially, there will be coffee and tea (both hot and cold), and pastries that would complement the drinks. Eventually, other snack products such as cold sandwich and pasta will also be offered. The diversity of the products will be the key in obtaining loyal customers. Customers will be able to satisfy their cravings for good food at Cafe Blends Coffee Shop. Management is committed to deliver best healthy food in a convenient location using the excellent customer service. Cafe Blends will also offer reasonably-priced products compared with the other coffee shops in the area. IV. MARKET ANALYSIS AND PLAN The primary target market is the coffee lovers, 18 to 40 years old, who are either at the last years in the university or already embarking on a career. This group needs coffee and complementary food as both for nurturing and as a tool for social activities. The older students may need coffee as an aid for their studying needs, or a place to stay while they prepare for their homework and studies. With their limited time and budget, they will also look a place that offers reasonably prices and with good service. The young profes sionals market will also be a target market, as they need to socialize and find comfortable places to meet up with friends. They may also need a place where they could hang out, check on their laptops or just chill. Cafe Blends aim to cater to their needs by ensuring a good cozy atmosphere conducive for small talk, quiet reading or for relaxation. Moreover, the healthy options are perfect for this group of people who are also conscious of the food they take. They will express

French vs. British treatment of Native Americans Essay Example for Free

French vs. British treatment of Native Americans Essay North America experienced a great wave of immigration a few hundred years after its discovery. Inspired by adventure, riches, and the desire to escape political and religious oppression, Europeans came to the continent. Two of the immigrations that took place were those of the French and British. Upon arriving at North America, they did not encounter savages, but rather a skilled and organized people. Both countries took to the indigenous people differently, however. While the French treated the indigenous people with respect and as people with whom they could trade and coexist, the British treated them as an obstacle in the way of their conquest. The European intruders depended on the help and good nature of the indigenous people, who provided them with food and guides. During this same time period both the Iroquois and the Indian allies of New France suffered great losses of population in the face of epidemics and disease. English colonizers took advantage of this and used this opportunity to push their way west. Very land hungry, the English showed no respect for the Indians and demanded large amounts of land, as many of them hoped to develop lives as farmers. At one point British troops invaded Cherokee country, burning homes and crops and forcing the Cherokees to surrender. The French were more likely to develop trade relations than to settle permanently on native lands. Their settlement of the indigenous lands in Canada occurred more gradually. Despite the disputes over land, European settlers helped the Indian economy. Tribes that traded were at a vast advantage to those who did not. At first, European trade brought advantages such as weapons, cloth, and kettles. The fur trade in particular made many tribes more aggressive. By doing so the Indian nations successfully used the European nations. The Iroquois Confederacy formed an alliance with Britain in which they were to cut the French out of the fur trade. At the same time they negotiated treaties and traded with the French. The Iroquois tried to maintain a neutral balance between the French and British. Both nations feared that Iroquois power might tip the scales in favor of their rivals, so they heeded the threats of the powerful Indians. Many Northeast peoples, however, resented British restrictions on trade. Due to fur trading and the goods they received, many tribes developed more nomadic ways of life based on the movements of bison  herds. The French were open and accepting of the Indians in a social and religious standpoint. During this time period there were a great number of French and Indian marriages. One of the most famous is that of John Rolfe and Pocahontas. By taking the time to learn their languages, habits, and culture, the French made a great attempt to integrate themselves into Indian society. The British were very hostile and made little to no attempt to get along with the Indians. As Anglicans, they did not believe in the Indians animistic religion. One of the aspects of Indian culture that dismayed the British was the fact that the head female had the control over the tribe. This is in direct conflict of the British who were very sexist in their belief that the males were in control and the females were of little importance. While the French put forth an effort, the British simply attempted to rid themselves of their problem. The Native Americans were at a disadvantage in North America after the colonists arrived; they were outnumbered and outmaneuvered. The European colonists came to North America to fulfill their hopes and dreams, but in reality conquered the indigenous people of the continent. While the French generally respected and coexisted with the Indians, the British treated them as an obstacle with whom they could use for themselves. The conquest of the Native Americans by Europeans forever changed the continent.

Construction Budget Over Runs and Late Project Completion

Construction Budget Over Runs and Late Project Completion Construction projects are graded very successful if the work is completed within budget and to the deadlines agreed in the specification. However, the sad truth is that not all projects are guilty of being successful. Many projects experience failure due to the uncertainties associated with construction projects which include weather, materials, equipment, money and profitability, disagreements between clients, contractors and sub-contractors, statutory regulations, economic and political issues and functionality and purpose. To prevent these failures from constantly occurring, the types of failures need to be addressed so future construction projects do not fall into the same category of unsuccessful Civil Engineering construction projects. It is clear that some of these failures occur regardless of careful planning due to uncontrollable conditions such as climate change, recession, delayed deliveries etc. Therefore addressing the controllable issues, contractors can incorporate the se problems into their specification. By understanding the issues from previous unsuccessful construction projects and correlating the failures, it will be easy to identify the common errors and try to eliminate them from future projects. The research will be based on unsuccessful construction projects by using data from case studies, books, the internet and journals. The constraints and limitation of this paper will depend highly on the data received and analysed by previous sources and their opinion. The paper will also focus on two main factors, budget over runs and late completion. Examples of Budget Over-runs and Late Completion Projects There are many construction projects which have Budget Overruns and Late Completion. A few examples of budget over-run and late completion projects are: Wembley Stadium Sydney Opera House Tfls Jubilee Line Wembley Stadium The Wembley Stadium was a renovation construction project which required the old stadium to be demolished and rebuilt. The main purpose of the new stadium was to increase the capacity of the stadium, be the new home of English football and also host other sports and national events. The original estimated cost of the stadium was  £757m. This value at completion soared to about  £798m. Multiplex (main contractor) reported about  £45m losses in the construction of the New Wembley Stadium. These losses arose due to factors which include: Weather Sub-contractor walkouts (Cleveland Bridge steel company walkout) Sub-contractor disagreements (trade union of workers walkouts) and Changes in design due to failures. Due to the above factors the completion date of the project was pushed back by about three months. [1, 2] Sydney Opera House The Sydney Opera House was built as a performing arts centre and was designed by Jà ¸rn Utzon. The original estimated cost to build the Opera House was AUS $7m in 1957 and expected to be completed in five years. The project was started in 1959 and the value escalated to a massive AUS $102m and was completed in 1973. Not only did the budget over-run to 15 times the original estimate, but it also took 14 years to complete, which is a very late completion. The main factor which affected this project was insufficient planning during the design stage This led to a series of errors during construction, which effectively caused a domino effect. Hence, increasing the cost and pushing back the completion date [3, 4]. Tfls Jubilee Line The London Underground Jubilee Line extension was to link Stratford and the Docklands to Westminster. This project was planned in 1989 and estimated to cost  £1.2billion. The construction started 1993 and expected to take four years. This however was not the case due to a series of setbacks. There are four major causes for these delays: The project was put on hold for 18 months to find funding The movement of the block signalling system caused delays The location of the O2 Centre (Millennium Dome) had not been established and Due to the collapse of Heathrow Express Tunnel, work was put on hold again. This caused many changes to the original design therefore causing the project to be completed in early 1999, which was a twenty months late completion. The cost also increased to  £3.5billion, an astonishing 70% budget over-run [5]. What Are Budget Over-runs? Budget Overrun can be simply defined as when the final cost of the project exceeds the original estimates [6]. In terms of construction, this means the actual cost of the project at completion minus the original tendered cost during the tendering stage. This therefore creates either a positive value or a negative value. If the value is positive, the project is within budget and has created a profit, if the value is negative, the project has created a loss and is referred to as a Budget Over-run. Why Do Budget Over-runs Occur and What Are The Causes? Budget Over-runs occur constantly in construction projects around the world. The main aim of any business (Construction Company) is to make money, however, it is very common in construction to hear companies reporting losses due to budget over-runs. If the project is completed within the budget specified, it can be graded a success. Therefore this is an ideal factor to use, to rate the success of a project. Budget over-runs occur due to many factors, which are sometimes split into two groups, controllable and extent of damages. The types of budget over-runs are caused by: The cost variations between clients and contractors and sometimes a third party e.g. project manager, consultant etc [7]. Poor estimation during tendering process Disagreements with Trade Union of Workers Climate change Late completion Changes in design etc. This shows that the slightest mistake or changes made could increase the cost of the project dramatically. Research carried out around the world on construction projects has shown that: [8] 9 out of 10 projects over-run Between 50 and 100% over runs were common There was a constant correlation of over-run projects for 70 years in each of the 20 nations and 5 continents surveyed. Average construction project costs are about 33%[9] Another source of research carried out by Jahren, et al [10] predicted that the factors which increased the chances of a budget over-run are: Project size Method of delivery Amount of competition Quality of contract documents and Interpersonal relations There have been predictions published in the User Guide (2005), which outlines the common factors which cause budget overruns. These are: Poor Project Management The project manager/management team is employed to control the entire development to run smoothly and efficiently from start to finish for the project. They may or may not cover the costing depending on the clients preference. If the project management is poor, it will create an effect on the entire project and in the User Guide (2005) it is listed as: Lack of planning and co-ordination Poor communication between members of the project team and the project sponsor Failure to identify problems and institute necessary and timely design and programming changes Lack of control over time and cost inputs Lack of end user involvement. Unexpected Ground Conditions The ground conditions on any construction site are key, if the ground is not tested prior to tendering, the costs could escalate out of control, in order to put it right. This effectively will be the contractors responsibility. Although trial pits and bore holes are used to get an idea of the ground conditions, the true site condition will not be exposed until full excavation. From the time the trial pits and bore holes are carried out to the time of excavation, the ground conditions may have changed. Changes in ground condition may cause a redesign and also cause problems for any machines and materials ordered to site. This therefore should be taken into account as these could increase costs. Shortage of Construction Materials When construction is at its peak development stage in a certain areas, locally ordered materials could be in great demand. Some materials maybe required but cannot keep up with the demand, hence causing delays to the project. These materials might be ordered from other areas of the world, but may cost substantially more as it will need to be shipped in and pushing back the completion date due to delays in material deliveries. Therefore to prevent any shortages occurring this will need to be anticipated and added to the cost to prevent budget overruns. Change in Foreign Exchange Rates If specific materials are unavailable in the local market, it will then need to be imported from overseas. This can cause a problem to the budget if there are dramatic changes in exchange rates. This unexpected exchange rate should be taken into account during costing as it will cause an increase in the budget. Inappropriate and/or Inexperienced Contractors Selection of the right contractor is another key decision. The contractor must be suitable for the project as some projects use a wide range of tenders who price the job. Although, the cheapest tender may be very inviting, it does not guarantee quality. The decision should be made on contractors experience, the contractors successful history of completing jobs on time and within budget and also the most competitive price. Research carried out by Yates et al (2003), the contractors tender which is 15% less than the Engineer, it is very likely there will be a budget over-run. The tenders reputation should also be consider. This could be key as some companies may fall into hardship and bankruptcy. This will delay the project considerably and also increase costs as most contractors tend not to takeover other contractors jobs in case of any problems which could arise during later construction. Natural Disasters/Events These are disasters or events which cause inevitable delays and therefore budget issues to the project. The types of disasters/events which may cause delays and cost implications are wars, riots, earthquakes, landslide, fire, political and economic issues, types of projectile, contamination and many other disasters/events. Underestimations Deliberate cost underestimating occurs in order to gain the job. This will result in the project not being completed and the client having to either increase the budget or retender, hence, causing budget over-runs. Research carried out by Fllyvbjjerg showed that big construction projects were common culprits to underestimation and therefore led to the statement, whatever the cause, almost all large public projects contain initial cost estimating errors that result in the need for increased funding to complete the projects'[8]. The underestimation has been split into four major topics by Fllyvbjjerg: Technical These are known as forecasting errors which are errors requiring changes because of imperfect techniques, honest mistakes, inadequate data, inherited problems in predicting the future and lack of experience on the part of forecasters. In this case, the errors occur between the budgeted estimation and the actual cost of construction. [11] Economical The economical issues are split into two groups, public interest and economic self interest. Public interest is where there are promoters and forecasters who underestimate the cost of the project on purpose to give public officials an incentive to cut costs to save public money. Economical self interest is used to create jobs for Engineers and construction companies and shareholders also get involved to make more money. The fact that shareholders get involved tends to influence the forecasting process and therefore makes an impression on the result. [8] Psychological This is known as appraisal optimism. Promoters and forecasters are held to be overly optimistic about project outcomes in the appraisal phase, when projects are planned and decided. [12] By making the cost seem lower than it should be, will effectively cause the budget to over-run. Political Political explanations interpret cost underestimation in terms of interests and power. The political issue arises on the fact that whether forecasters are intentionally biased to serve the interests of project promoters in getting projects started. This is key in order to start a project quickly, however, there is a legal and moral deception attached this form of underestimation [13]. Change and Variation Orders These are changes to the project and are not part of the outlined work during the agreement of the project. In construction, changes tend to be inevitable and will cause a disruption to the project deadline and also budget. These decisions are therefore discussed prior to any changes being made as it may not suit the client or contractor. Inflation The general definition of inflation in economics is the increase in prices and fall in the purchasing the value of money [14]. This means that if there is an inflation increase, the value of all parts of the project will increase e.g. material costs, machinery hire, wages etc, which in turn increases the budget. To avoid these extra costs, predictions of the market should be checked during the tendering process, by both client and contractors. Acceleration This is where there is a delay but the client demands the project to be completed by the contractor on time, before the completion date or before the agreed extension completion date. Delays Of Completion Time and Payments Delays of completion tend to equal delays of payments, this will cause interest rate repayments to escalate causing the alleged interest trap for both client and contractor. What Are The Overall Effects From Budget Over-runs? It is clear that budget over-runs occur continuously in construction projects around the world. There are many causes for these extra costs which have not been considered during the tendering process. This has caused a bad impression not only on clients but also contractors and end users. The effects on each party is as follows: The client loses faith in the construction industry but in-particular their consultants who are unable to deliver the project on time. This also leads to higher investment being required from the client. The consultants reputation is ruined as they have an inability to control the project budget therefore leaving question marks for winning new projects. Contractors do not make the profits anticipated and failure to complete the jobs leaves their reputation in tatters. The end user will effectively be the one paying the highest price in terms of buying/renting/leasing in order for the shareholders to cover their costs. Overall, its the construction industry that suffers as it causes major headlines in the media for the wrong reasons. Clients will be more cautious before investing in large scale projects which will cause a drop in the construction industry projects due to its feeble reputation. Many construction projects which are accepted by the client will come with a greater risk to the contractor. How To Prevent Future Projects From Budget Over-runs? To prevent future projects from being unsuccessful in terms of budget, the management of costs need to be broken down to show exactly where costs will be greatest and smallest. The estimating, scheduling, accumulating and analyzing costs, and implementing measures to correct construction costing must be adhered to strictly. This will prevent any failures in terms of budget. There is a three step process which can be employed during the planning stage through to the construction stage: Identify the scale of the project (in terms of quality, completion time and budget), Ensure scope is adhered to strictly (in terms of time and budget) Monitor and control the above 2 steps constantly till the completion of the project. A successful project is based on the project manager and contractor working hand in hand to get the greatest efficiency from a project and tend to be based on time, performance and cost. There are many types of key principles and actions which should be followed for a project to be labelled successful and a few are listed below [15]: Good project definition and sound business case, Appropriate choice of project strategy, Strong support for the project and its manager from higher management, Availability of sufficient funds and other resources, Firm control of changes to the authorized project, Technical competence, A sound quality culture throughout the organization, A suitable organization structure, Appropriate regard for the health and safety of everyone connected with the project, Good project communications, Well-motivated staff, Quick and fair resolution of conflict. Risks and uncertainties increase the budget of any project. Therefore, a 10% of the estimated cost contingency plan is usually inputted into many projects to prevent the project from delays and going over budget. Although 10% sounds fairly small, by adding other control systems to the project performance, this value could increase dramatically. However, a good project management costing is more desirable and efficient than a contingency plan. What are Late Completions? In construction projects a late completion is commonly referred to as the time between the actual deadline agreed, to the time the project is completed. This is commonly called a delay in construction and tends to have a major effect on the client, end user, contractor and shareholders. If delays occur in construction projects, the contractor will be subjected to: Additional/Extension time of completion, Immediate termination of contract, Reduced profit or A mixture of the above. This is not always the case, as some delays are not the contractors fault. The other parties involved in the construction stage are, clients, consultants and external influences e.g. suppliers, machinery, mother nature etc. Any delay will create problems between all/some of the parties involved. Why Do Late Completions Occur and What Are The Causes? Delays can be split into three categories, these are: Excusable Delays These are delays which are not caused directly or indirectly by the contractor and in turn the contractor is allowed an extension of time. The excusable delay can also be split into two parts, Excusable With Compensation This is where the contractor is delayed due to the actions of the client, and is given and extension of time and compensated with money for wasted time. An example is if client cannot access the site after the client has approved for the work to start. Excusable Without Compensation This is where the client and contractor cannot be blamed for the delays caused and the contractor is only given an extension of time. An example would be Mother Nature. Non Excusable Delays These are delays caused by the contractor or sub contractor and the contractor is not given any extensions. But the client may get liquidated damages. Concurrent Delays These are delays which occur at the same time. If, and only if two delays or more occur at the same time, then the contractor is entitled to an extension. Delays are caused by the members directly involved in the project and also members indirectly involved in the project. Research was carried out by Odeh and Battaineh (2002) and their finding showed that [17], Client Delays The client caused delays in terms of: Finance and Payments, Constantly Interfering, Indecisive Decisions on Design and Requirements, Very Unrealistic Forced Time Schedule, Minimal Experience of Construction Projects, Minimal Experience of Co-ordination and Communication, Very Poor Employment of Representatives, Inappropriate Feasibility Study. Consultant Delays The consultant causes delays in terms of: Poor Management/Management Team in general, Poor Management of the Contract, Lack of Preparation and Poor Drawings leading to Slow Approval of Drawings, Quality Assurance and Control, Improper Site Investigations and Slow Approval of Tests and Inspections, Poor Consultant Team with Minimal Experience. Contractor Delays The contractor causes delays in terms of: Poor employment of Sub-contractors, Poor Site Management, Inappropriate Construction Methods, Poor Planning including costs, time, budget etc, Terrible Decision Making during Construction, Inadequate Contractor Experience. Material Delays Material cause delays in construction projects in terms of: Overall Quality, Its Demand and Supply, Importing Materials, Inflation Rate of Materials, Late Delivery and Unreliable Suppliers Labour and Equipment Delays Labour and Equipment cause delays in construction projects in terms of: Labour Availability and Productivity, Skilled Labour Availability, Low motivation and morale, Strike Action and Absent Labourers, Equipment Demand and Supply, Frequent Breakdown and Maintenance of Equipment, Improper and Inadequate Equipment. Contract Delays Contract cause delays in construction projects in terms of: Constant Changing of Design, Mistakes and Discrepancies in Contract Documents, Different Party Relationship Breakdowns e.g. disputes, negotiations, breakdown in communication, improper organisation. External Delays External influences cause delays in construction projects in terms of: Climate and Weather Changes, Unexpected Ground Condition Changes, Regular Changes e.g. security codes, I.D.s etc, Complaints and Problems from Neighbours, Inflation of All Materials, War, Riots, and Other Conflicts, Slow Clearance of Site. How To Prevent Future Projects From Late Completions? There are many factors which cause late completions of construction projects. The delays can be caused by direct or indirect actions. Direct actions are delays which can be avoided as these tend to be made by the parties involved. Indirect actions are uncontrollable and therefore by minimising the direct actions, the delay can be kept to a minimum. Research carried out by Nguyen, et al. (2004) on project success factors in large construction projects in Vietnam, Aibinu and Jagboro (2002) on acceleration of site activities and contingency allowances, Koushki, et al. (2005) on what the minimization of time delays and cost overruns would require, and Odeh and Battaineh (2002) on recommendations for improving the situation of construction projects allowed for a table of thirty five methods to be created. These methods would show how to minimise/eliminate delays from construction projects.   Conclusion From the research carried out, it appears that Budget Over-runs and Late Completions are a common aspect of the construction industry. However, it is clear that not all Budget Over-runs and Late Completions are controllable and some are fabricated to seem as over-run and completed late due to the process of tendering. In appears that there is a connection between late completion and budget over-runs hence, these are key factors which need addressing. The most influential effects for over-running and late completion are delays, insufficient finances, loss of reputations and controversial decision making from clients, consultants and shareholders. It is therefore compulsory that all the above measures should be followed, but a few major recommendations must be adhered to in order to make sure the project is always successful. The major recommendations for all parties involved are, Client The client should make sure all finances and payments are available and paid on time, the feasibility study is well planned and accurate as possible, the client should be proactive in decision making and understand what is feasible and what isnt, and the client should recommended a deadline but allow for any anticipated delays. Consultant The consultant should have good people skills, understand the projects objectives and the clients obligations, any misunderstood/discrepancies should be ironed out prior to construction and during the construction stages, this will prevent any major changes required during construction. The management team should be more than adequate and have a good history in the field of the construction project, quality control and assurance procedures should be put in place along with potential disagreement solutions which could arise. Contractor The contractor should tender based on the actual job costs and not the minimum tender in order to gain the contract. The contractor should employ reliable sub-contractors which have a good history in terms of completion and quality, the contractor should have a good management history as well as a good reputation in the type of construction project.

Bio Fertilizer Industry In India

Bio Fertilizer Industry In India Bio-fertilizers are contain live such beneficial microorganisms which on application to seed, root or soil mobilize the availability of nutrients by their biological activity in particular, and help build up the micro-flora and in turn the soil health in general. An increasing number of farmers and agriculturists are turning to the use of bio-fertilizers as these are gentler on the soil as against chemical fertilizers. It is easier to fully appreciate the importance of bio-fertilizers when we know how harmful the chemical fertilizers for the soil and the crops are. Chemical fertilizers are meant to boost the growth of plants and increase the fertility of the soil; however they cause significant damage to the environment and also human health by increasing the day by day concentration of toxic chemical in food. These chemical based fertilizers also make use of nitrogenous fertilizers or chemicals, are expensive and not as conveniently available. Unlike other environmentally harmful chemical fertilizers, bio-fertilizers work on naturally building up the resistance and enhance the nutritional value of the soil and the host plant by adding primary nutrients. Application of high input technologies has resulted in significant increase in agricultural productivity. There is, however, a growing concern about the adverse effects of indiscriminate use of chemical fertilizers on soil productivity and environmental quality. For those looking at organic farming, bio-fertilizers make the perfect choice. A large number of people are realizing the value and benefit of living an eco-friendly life, and therefore the demand for organic products is ever increasing. Using bio-fertilizers is a great way to produce organic products and promote good health. The current research study is based on using the secondary data for the analysis or market of bio-fertilizer in India. Market analysis includes the annual requirement and production of different bio-fertilizers state wise in India and to find the root cause behind tremendous gap between requirement and production. This study will analyse the major bio-fertilizer producing states and identify major government and non government manufacturers. In this report we also analysis the market revenue of bio-agri (bio-fertilizer) and constant increasing demand and growth rate of this industry in India. And also analysis the strategies used by the industry to increase the market of bio-fertilizer. Also, this study will contribute in building a trend analysis for the production of bio-fertilizers in India over the last 10 years. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY In the current scenario one of the major concerns faced by the agriculture industry is the contamination and pollution of soil. The use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides has caused tremendous harm to the environment. There seems to be a growing concern about the adverse effects of indiscriminate use of chemical fertilizers on soil productivity and environmental quality. An answer to this is the bio-fertilizer, an environmentally friendly fertilizer now used in most countries. Bio-fertilizers contain micro-organisms that enrich the nutrient quality of soil. These micro-organisms supply in addition to nitrogen, considerable amount of organic matter enriching quality of soil. Inoculants of these micro-organisms have proved their technical feasibility, economic viability and social acceptability. They are therefore called as `bio-fertilizer. Hence the term `bio-fertilizer may be defined as those fertilizer which containing living or latent cells of efficient strains of the nitrogen fixing, phosphorous solubilising or cellulolytice micro-organism. For those looking at organic farming, bio-fertilizers make. The perfect choice a large number of people are realizing the value and benefit of living an eco-friendly life, and therefore the demand for organic products is ever increasing. Using bio-fertilizers is a great way to produce organic products and promote good health. This research study based on analysing the annual requirement and production of different bio-fertilizers state wise in India identified Tamil Nadu as the major biofertilizer producing state of India. Other regions of production of biofertilizers are Madhya Pradesh, Punjab, Chennai karnataka. The root cause behind tremendous gap between requirement and production is existence of very few Biofertilizer producing organizations and less awareness of benefits of using biofertilizers over chemical fertilizers. This research study also identified the major government and non government organizations producing biofertilizers. Data enlisted in this report contributes in building a trend analysis for the production of biofertilizers in India over the last 10 years. CHAPTER 01 INTRODUCTION SALES MARKETING OF BIOFERTLIZERS IN INDIA INTRODUCTION One of the major concerns in todays world is the pollution and contamination of soil. The use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides has caused tremendous harm to the environment. An answer to this is the biofertilizer, an environmentally friendly fertilizer now used in most countries. Biofertilizers are organisms that enrich the nutrient quality of soil. The main sources of biofertilizers are bacteria, fungi, and Cynobacteria (blue-green algae). The most striking relationship that these have with plants is symbiosis, in which the partners derive benefits from each other.Plants have a number of relationships with fungi, bacteria, and algae, the most common of which are with Mycorrhiza, Rhizobium, and Cyanophyceae. These are known to deliver a number of benefits including plant nutrition, disease resistance, and tolerance to adverse soil and climatic conditions. These techniques have proved to be successful biofertilizers that form a health relationship with the roots. Biofertilizers will help to solve such problems as increased salinity of the soil and chemical run-offs from the agricultural fields. Thus, biofertilizers are important if we are to ensure a healthy future for the generations to come. These micro-organisms supply in addition to nitrogen, considerable amount of organic matter enriching structure of soil. Inoculants of these micro-organisms have proved their technical feasibility, economic viability and social acceptability. They are therefore called as `biofertilizer. Hence the term `biofertilizer or microbial inoculants may be defined as preparations containing living or latent cells of efficient strains of nitrogen fixing, phosphorous solubilising or cellulolytice micro-organism. There is, however, a growing concern about the adverse effects of indiscriminate use of chemical fertilizers on soil productivity and environmental quality. For those looking at organic farming, biofertilizers make the perfect choice. A large number of people are realizing the value and benefit of living an eco-friendly life, and therefore the demand for organic products is ever increasing. Using biofertilizers is a great way to produce organic products and promote good health. Therefore, the current research study is based on analysing the annual requirement and production of different bio-fertilizers state wise in India to find the root cause behind tremendous gap between requirement and production. This study will analyse state wise production of various biofertilizers and identify major government and non government manufacturers meeting the requirements. Results from this research study would draw inference on major government and non government manufacturers as well as find out the major state in India producing biofertilizers. Also, this study will contribute in building a trend analysis for the production of biofertilizers in India over the last 10 years. 1.1 OBJECTIVES: To analyse the annual production and sale of Biofertilizers in India Estimate state wise production and consumption of Biofertilizers Analyse Marketing conditions in the Biofertilizers market of India To predict the future production and consumption by Trend analysis 1.2 RESEARCH PLAN : The study will begin with collecting raw data of all the material available on the internet, published articles, and various journals and thereafter tabulate the data collected to perform an ordered analysis of major biofertilizer producing states of India, check the prevalent trend in the production and sales during the last ten years. Time consideration to collect extensive amount of data would be three months and the research results shall be demonstrated statistically in the form of graphs and charts so as to ease the understanding of the gap between production and availability of biofertilizers in the Indian market. 1.3 METHODOLOGY : This research study is primarily based on extensive secondary research data available in the various published research reports and annual reports of various government and non-government organizations. The study begins with collecting raw data out of all the material available on the internet, published articles, and various journals and thereafter tabulating the data to construct graphs and charts to bring about various analysis of state wise production and sales of the major biofertilizers. 1.4 LIMITATIONS OF THE RESEARCH Since the data collected is secondary data, no primary research results could be utilized deciphering that certain amount of data could be outdated or obsolete. No research study or survey has been conducted till date to rate the top 10 or top 5 Biofertilizer producing companies on India although top 20 companies producing chemical fertilizers can be enlisted. No research study has been conducted to analyze the contribution of sales of biofertilizers to the economy of India. There exist various research gaps to statistically estimate the trend of biofertilizer production since the first year of its commercial production in India. CHAPTER 02 LITERATURE REVIEW 2. ROLE OF BIOFERTILIZERS Biofertilizers have definite advantage over chemical fertilizers. Chemical fertilizers supply not only nitrogen whereas biofertilizers provide in addition to nitrogen certain growth promoting substances like hormones, vitamins, amino acids, etc., crops have to be provided with chemical fertilizers repeatedly to replenish the loss of nitrogen utilized for crop growth. On the other hand biofertilizers supply the nitrogen continuously throughout the entire period of crop growth in the field under favorable conditions. Continuous use of chemical fertilizers adversely affects the soil structure whereas biofertilizers when applied to soil improve the soil structure. The deleterious effects of chemical fertilizers are that they are toxic at higher doses. Biofertilizers, however, have no toxic effects.It may be borne in mind that biofertilizers are no substitute for chemical fertilizers. At present, the use of chemical fertilizers is far below the recommended level. Therefore, the aim and ob ject of spread of biofertilizers technology as a Industry has to build up efficiency in use of chemical fertilizers supplemented by low cost inoculants to the extent possible.Main constraints in spread of biofertilizers as an Industry are production and supply of efficient cultures of microorganisms to farmers well before sowing. Secondly, Quality control aspect and lack of publicity, etc. Besides, whatever biofertilizers are prepared are not reached to farmers prior to sowing. At many places they are given free of cost, which lowers down the importance of product and farmers dont use them carefully. Sometimes, biofertilizers are supplied after expiry date and hence expected results are not obtained. A quality control aspect is the most important in biofertilizers. Now a day most of the products sold in the market are below standard. A few entrepreneurs possess ISI mark for their products. The government has no control over manufacturers of biofertilizers in any of the states of Ind ia. Hence farmers are confused about rates, quality and expiry dates of biofertilizers. Similar is the case of prices; they are varied from place to place. (Panlada Tittabutra, et. Al., 2006) Organic farming has emerged as an important priority area globally in view of the growing demand for safe and healthy food and long term sustainability and concerns on environmental pollution associated with indiscriminate use of agrochemicals. Though the use of chemical inputs in agriculture is inevitable to meet the growing demand for food in world, there are opportunities in selected crops and niche areas where organic production can be encouraged to tape the domestic export market. Bio-fertilizers are being essential component of organic farming are the preparations containing live or latent cells of efficient strains of nitrogen fixing, phosphate solubilizing or cellulolytic micro-organisms used for application to seed, soil or composting areas with the objective of increasing number of such micro-organisms and accelerate those microbial processes which augment the availability of nutrients that can be easily assimilated by plants. Biofertilizers play a very significant role in improving soil fertility by fixing atmospheric nitrogen, both, in association with plant roots and without it, solubilise insoluble soil phosphates and produces plant growth substances in the soil. They are in fact being promoted to harvest the naturally available, biological system of nutrient mobilization (Venkatashwarlu, 2008a). The role and importance of biofertilizers in sustainable crop production has been reviewed by several authors (Biswas et al. 1985; Wani and Lee, 1995; Katyal et al. 1994). But the progress in the field of BF production technology remained always below satisfaction in Asia because of various constraints. It may be noted, only 30 % of Indias total cultivable area is covered with fertilizers where irrigation facilities are available and the remaining 70 % of the arable land, which is mainly rain fed, very negligible amount of fertilizers are being used. Farmers in these areas often use organic manures as a source of nutrients that are readily available either in their own farm or in their locality. The North- Eastern (NE) region of India provides consi derable opportunity for organic farming due to least utilization of chemical inputs. It is estimated that 18 million hectare of such land is available in the NE that can be exploited for organic production. With the sizable acreage under naturally organic/default organic cultivation, India has tremendous potential to grow crops organically and emerge as a major supplier of organic products in worlds organic market (Venkatashwarlu. 2008a) The report of Task Force on Organic Farming appointed by the Government of India also observed that in vast areas of the country, where limited amount of chemicals are used and have low productivity could be exploited as potential areas to develop into organic agriculture. Arresting the decline of soil organic matter is the most potent weapon in fighting against unabated soil degradation and imperiled sustainability of agriculture in tropical regions of India, particularly those under the influence of arid, semiarid and sub-humid climate. Applicatio n of organic manures particularly bio-fertilizers is the only option to improve the soil organic carbon for sustenance of soil quality and future agricultural productivity (Ramesh,2008). 2.1 WHY TO EXPLORE BIO-FERTILIZERS Indiscriminate use of synthetic fertilizers has led to the pollution and contamination of the soil, polluted water basins, destroyed micro-organisms and friendly insects, making the crop more prone to diseases and reduced soil fertility. Demand is much higher than the availability. It is estimated that by 2020, to achieve the targeted production of 321 million tonnes of food grain, the requirement of nutrient will be 28.8 million tonnes, while their availability will be only 21.6 million tones being a deficit of about 7.2 million tones. Depleting feedstock/fossil fuels (energy crisis) and increasing cost of fertilizers. This is becoming unaffordable by small and marginal farmers. Soil fertility depletes due to widening gap between nutrient removal and supplies. There is a huge concern about such environmental hazards which increases threat to sustainable agriculture. Besides the above facts, the long term use of bio-fertilizers is economical, eco-friendly, more efficient, productive and accessible to marginal and small farmers over chemical fertilizers (Venkataraman and Shanmugasundaram, 1992) . 2.2 Balanced use of Chemical Bio-fertilizers The annual requirement and production of different bio-fertilizers has clearly demonstrated tremendous gap in this area. Thus, a strategy for judicious combination of chemical fertilizers and biofertilizers will be economically viable and ecological useful. It should be recommended that biofertilizers are not a substitute, but a supplement to chemical fertilizers for maximizing not only the yield but also agro system stability. 2.3 Characteristic features of some Bio-fertilizers Rhizobium:- Belongs to family Rhizobiaceae, symbiotic in nature, fix nitrogen 50-100 kg/ha. With legumes only. It is useful for pulse legumes like chickpea, red-gram, pea, lentil,black gram, etc., oil-seed legumes like soybean and groundnut and forage legumes like berseem and lucerne. It colonizes the roots of specific legumes to form tumour like growths called root nodules, which acts as factories of ammonia production. Rhizobium has ability to fix atmospheric nitrogen in symbiotic association with legumes and certain nonlegumes like Parasponia. Rhizobium population in the soil depends on the presence of legume crops in the field. Azospirillum:- Belongs to family Spirilaceae, heterotrophic and associative in nature. In addition to their nitrogen fixing ability of about 20-40 kg/ha, they also produce growth regulating substances. The Azospirillum form associative symbiosis with many plants particularly with those having the C4-dicarboxyliac path way of photosynthesis (Hatch and Slack pathway), because they grow and fix nitrogen on salts of organic acids such as malic, aspartic acid (Arun, 2007a). Thus it is mainly recommended for maize, sugarcane, sorghum, pearl millet etc. They do not, however, produce any visible nodules or out growth on root tissue. Azotobacter-: Belongs to family Azotobacteriaceae, aerobic, free living, and heterotrophic in nature. Azotobacters are present in neutral or alkaline soils and A. chroococcum is the most commonly occurring. species in arable soils.. The number of Azotobacter rarely exceeds of 104 to 105 g-1 of soil due to lack of organic matter and presence of antagonistic microorganisms in soil. The bacterium produces anti-fungal antibiotics which inhibits the growth of several pathogenic fungi in the root region thereby preventing seedling mortality to a certain extent. The isolated culture of Azotobacter fixes about 10 mg nitrogen g-1 of carbon source under in vitro conditions. The occurrence of this organism has been reported from the rhizosphere of a number of crop plants such as rice, maize, sugarcane, bajra, vegetables and plantation crops, (Arun, 2007a). Blue Green Algae (Cyanobacteria) and Azolla -These belongs to eight different families, phototrophic in nature and produce Auxin, Indole acetic acid and Gibberllic acid, fix 20-30 kg N/ha in submerged rice fields as they are abundant in paddy, so also referred as paddy organisms. Most N fixing BGA are filamentous, consisting of chain of vegetative cells including specialized cells called heterocyst which function as micro nodule for synthesis and N fixing machinery. BGA forms symbiotic association capable of fixing nitrogen with fungi, liverworts, ferns and flowering plants, but the most common symbiotic association has been found between a free floating aquatic fern, the Azolla and Anabaena azollae (BGA). Besides N-fixation, these biofertilizers or biomanures also contribute significant amounts of P, K, S, Zn, Fe, Mb and other micronutrient. India has recently introduced some species of Azolla for their large biomass production, which are A.caroliniana, A. microphylla, A. filiculoid es and A. mexicana. Phosphate solubilizers -Several reports have examined the ability of different bacterial species to solubilize insoluble inorganic phosphate compounds, such as tricalcium phosphate, dicalcium phosphate, hydroxyapatite, and rock phosphate. Among the bacterial genera with this capacity are pseudomonas, Bacillus, Rhizobium, Burkholderia, Achromobacter, Agrobacterium, Microccocus, Aereobacter, Flavobacterium and Erwinia. There are considerable populations of phosphatesolubilizing bacteria in soil and in plant rhizospheres. These include both aerobic and anaerobic strains, with a prevalence of aerobic strains in submerged soils. A considerably higher concentration of phosphate solubilizing bacteria is commonly found in the rhizosphere in comparison with non rhizosphere soil (Raghu and Macrae, 2000). The soil bacteria belonging to the genera Pseudomonas and Bacillus and Fungi are more common. The major microbiological means by which insoluble-P compounds are mobilized is by the production of organic acids, accompanied by acidification of the medium. Phosphate absorbers Mycorrhiza (an ancient symbiosis in organic agriculture)- The term Mycorrhiza denotes fungus roots. It is a symbiotic association between host plants and certain group of fungi at the root system, in which the fungal partner is benefited by obtaining its carbon requirements from the photosynthates of the host and the host in turn is benefited by obtaining the much needed nutrients especially phosphorus, calcium, copper, zinc etc., Zinc solubilizers The nitrogen fixers like Rhizobium, Azospirillum, Azotobacter, BGA and Phosphate solubilizing bacteria like B. magaterium, Pseudomonas striata, and phosphate mobilizing Mycorrhiza have been widely accepted as bio-fertilizers (Subba Roa, 2001a). However these supply only major nutrients like zinc, iron, copper etc., zinc being tmost important is found in the earths crust to the tune of 0.008 per cent but more than 50 per cent of Indian soils exhibit deficiency of zinc with content must below the critical level of 1.5 ppm of available zinc (Katyal and Rattan, 1993). There appears to be two main mechanisms of zinc fixation, one operates in acidic soils and is closely related with cat ion exchange and other operates in alkaline conditions where fixation takes by means of chemisorptions, ( chemisorptions of zinc on calcium carbonate formed a solid-solution of ZnCaCO3), and by complexation of organic ligands (Alloway, 2008). The zinc can be solubilized by microorganisms viz., B. subtilis, Thiobacillus thioxidans and Saccharomyces sp. These microorganisms can be used as bio-fertilizers for solubilization of fixed micronutrients like zinc (Raj, 2007). The results have shown that a Bacillus sp. (Zn solubilizing bacteria) can be used as bio-fertilizer for zinc or in soils where native zinc is higher or in conjunction with insoluble cheaper zinc compounds like zinc oxide (ZnO), zinc carbonate (ZnCO3) and zinc sulphide (ZnS) instead of costly zinc sulphate (Mahdi et al. 2010). Potential role of bio-fertilizers in agriculture Nitrogen-fixers (NFs) Phosphate solubilizers (PSBs) The incorporation of bio-fertilizers (Nfixers) plays major role in improving soil fertility, yield attributing characters and thereby final yield has been reported by many workers (Subashini et al. 2007a; Kachroo and Razdan, 2006; Son et al. 2007). In addition, their application in soil improves soil biota and minimizes the sole use of chemical fertilizers (Subashini et al. 2007a). Under temperate conditions, inoculation of Rhizobium improved number of pods plant-1, number of seed pod-1 and 1000-seed weight (g) and thereby yield over the control. The number of pods plant-1, number of seed pod-1 and 1000-seed weight (g) recorded were 25.5, 17.1 and 4.7 per cent more over the control, respectively which was statistically significant Bhat et al. (2009). In rice under low land conditions, the application of BGA+ Azospirillum proved significantly beneficial in improving LAI and all yield attributing aspects. Grain yield and harvest index also exhibit a discernable increase with use of bio fertilizers (Dar and Bali, 2007). Afzal, (2006) found that seed and straw yield of green gram increased significantly up to single inoculation with Rhizobium under 20 kg N + 45 kg P2O5 ha-1 fertility level. Field trials carried out in different locations have demonstrated that under certain environmental and soil conditions inoculation with azotobacteria has beneficial effects on plant yields. The effect of Azotobacter chroococcum on vegetative growth and yields of maize has been studied by numerous authors (Hussain et al., 1987; Martinez Toledo et al., 1988; Nieto and Frankenberger, 1991; Mishra et al., 1995; Pandey et al., 1998; Radwan, 1998), as well as the effect of inoculation with this bacterium on wheat (Emam et al., 1986; Rai and Gaur, 1988; Tippanavar and Reddy, 1993, Elshanshoury, 1995; Pati et al., 1995; Fares, 1997a). Alkaline phosphatase activity in the peach roots was highest with Azotobacter chroococcum + P fertilizer (Godara et al., 1995). Results of a greenhouse pot experiments with onion showed that application of G. fasciculatum + A. chrooccocum + 50% of the recommended P rate resulted in the greatest root length, plant height, bulb girth, bulb fresh weight, root colonization and P uptake (Mandhare et al. 1998). Inoculation with Azotobacter + Rhizobium + VAM gave the highest increase in straw and grain yield of wheat plants with rock phosphate as a Pfertilizer (Fares, 1997a). Elgala et al. (1995) concluded that with microbial inoculation rock phosphate could be used as cheap source of P in alkaline soils and that combined inoculation could reduce the rate of fertilizer required to maintain high productivity. It is an established fact that the efficiency of phosphatic fertilizers is very low (15-20%) due to its fixation in acidic and alkaline soils and unfortunately both soil types are predominating in India accounting more than 34% acidity affected and more than seven million hectares of productive land salinity/alkaline affected (Yawalkar e t al., 2000). Therefore, the inoculations with PSB and other useful microbial inoculants in these soils become mandatory to restore and maintain the effective microbial populations for solubilization of chemically fixed phosphorus and availability of other macro and micronutrients to harvest good sustainable yield of various crops. Commercial exploitation of phosphatic microbial inoculants can play an important role particularly in making the direct use of abundantly available low grade phosphate possible. Among the bacterial genera with this capacity are pseudomonas, Bacillus, Rhizobium, Burkholderia, Achromobacter, Agrobacterium, Microccocus, Aereobacter, Flavobacterium and Erwinia. Beside N-fixation and P-solubilization, the incorporation of nitrogen fixing bacteria (Azotobacter spp.) under the commercial name cerealien and phosphate dissolving bacteria (Bacillus megaterium) phosphorien has shown the highest degree in inducing the degree of the physiological tolerance to salinity which enables the stressed plants of the Seets cultivar of wheat to be adapted and keep better performance against all applied levels of salinity (3000, 6000 and 9000 ppm). This performance was reflected by the increase in growth, dry matter accumulation, yield as well as chemical constituents. All chemicals constituents including N, P, K+, sugars, proline and were increased as compared to their control treatments in the cultivar Seets. Mohmoud and Mohamad, 2008. Mycorrhizae The fungi that are probably most abundant in agricultural soils are arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi. They account for 5- 50% of the biomass of soil microbes (Olsson et al., 1999). Biomass of hyphae of AM fungi may amount to 54-900 kg ha-1 (Zhu and Miller, 2003), and some products formed by them may account for another 3000 kg (Lovelock et al., 2004). Pools of organic carbon such as glomalin produced by AM fungi may even exceed soil microbial biomass by a factor of 10-20 (Rillig et al., 2001). The external mycelium attains as much as 3% of root weight (Jakobsen and Rosendahl, 1990). Approximately 10-100 m mycorrhizal mycelium can be found per cm root (McGonigle and Miller, 1999). The mineral acquisition from soil is considered to be the primary role of mycorrhizae, but they play various other roles as well which are of utmost important. CHAPTER 03 BIOFERTILIZER SECTORS IN INDIA: OVERVIEW Bio-fertilizers sector in India: An Overview Indian Biotechnology industry is considered as one of the sunrise sectors in India. The industry can be classified into five different segments. Biopharma,Agri-biotech, Bioinformatics, Bio-industrial and Bio services with each concentrating on a particular area. Bio pharma deals with the production of vaccines, therapeutics and diagnostics, while the end products of the biotech industry find two different kinds of buyers. Agri-biotech comprises of hybrid seeds and transgenic crops, biopesticides and biofertilizers. Bio informatics creates and maintains the extensive electronic databases on various biological systems. Bioservices market usually deals with clinical trial, contract research and manufacturing activities. Bio Industrial industry comprises of enzyme manufacturing and marketing companies and these enzymes are used in detergent, textile, food, leather, paper and pharmaceutical industry. Agri-biotech comprises of hybrid seeds and transgenic crops, biopesticides and biofertilizers. Agri-biotech comprises of hybrid seeds and transgenic crops, biopesticides and biofertilizers. t4ind15_fig2.jpg Bio-Agri is deals with the hybrid seeds and transgenic crops, biopesticides and one most important biofertilizer. Biofertilizer market in India growing with the rate of 12% by 2011-12. The first documented production of bio-fertilizers in the form of Rhizobium in India was in 1934 by M.R. Madhok (Yadav Raychaudhuri, 2004), but the first commercial production was initiated only in 1956 at the Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi and Agricultural College and Research Institute, Coimbatore. Growth in production remained very slow till the mid sixties (Tewatia, Kalwe and Chaudhuri, 2007). Introduction of Soybean along with Nitragin Soybean inoculant imported from USA in 1964 was the first major event in bio-fertilizers history of India. Encouraged by the success of Rhizobium inoculation in Soybean, efforts were made to replace the requirement of imported inoculant with locally produced inoculants for soybean in the first phase. This was the extended to other pulses and legu me oilseeds in the second phase. During 1965-1990 around 30 bio-fertilizers production laboratories were set up in the country to meet the demand (Venkataraman Tilak, 1990) and lot of schemes were formulated to popularize their use in different legume crops. Starting from few tonnes, production and consumption increased gradually and reached a moderate figure of 1000MT by 1988-89. During this period Rhizobium inoculants was dominating with other bio-fertilizers also starting to make their presence felt such as Azotobacter. Nineties saw a dramatic surge in bio-fertilizers industry with adding of new bio-fertilizers such as Azotobacter, Azospirillum, PSBs added to the list and total production jump from 1000MT(1989) to 10,000MT (2000) (Dwivedi and Motsara, 2001; Bhattacharya Dwivedi, 2004). The growth of bio-fertilizer started with the initiation of National Project on Development and use of Bio-fertilizers during 1983-84 which continued up