There are about 8.5 million workers employed in the construction sector in India. Construction workers constitute a major portion of the unorganized labour and are characterized by their casual nature of employment, temporary relationship with the employer, prolonged and uncertain working hours, lack of safety and health measures, and inadequacy of basic amenities and welfare facilities. There are many legislation clauses providing safeguards for contract workers in India. Construction safety has been made legally enforceable after the enactment of The Building and Other Construction Workers (Regulation of Employment and Conditions of Service) Act in 1996 and the Central Rules in 1998. This paper details various statutory provisions for construction safety in India with specific reference to the BOCW Act, Central Rules, and State Rules.

The NegFry model used for timing the chemical control of potato late blight was validated in field trials at Bonin in the years 2001-2002 (4 trials). In these trials the number of fungicide treatments recommended by NegFry was about 34.5% lower (on average) than the number of treatments in a routine spraying scheme. This reduction was mostly the results of a delay in the time of the initial fungicide application and longer spraying intervals recommended by Negfry.