Impact of ‘Open Data’ and its Effectiveness forPakistan Social Issues: Learning fromthe UK Experience

Developmental projects are essential ingredients of prosperity and well-being. Every nation has to ensure that her people are living in a perfect and safe sociopolitical environment. However, it varies from region to region and place to place. UK as a country is a big economy which is capable of giving its people the type of security they need. For this purpose, various types of strategies have been emphasized which enable the government to look for the benefit of its people. Open data system is one of these important developments which have been initiated by the UK government to provide huge access to databases. It improves their learning and knowledge, and gives the opportunity to think ‘out of box’. It also enables people to polish their learning skills and take things out of their resources and utilize them fully. Although, there is some compulsion on the use of private data sources, yet it is necessary to know that not all data are confidential. The research looks into the pros and cons of using open data systems and to assess its impacts on the social and political development in UK. The use of open data system is not only beneficial for the people to perform their daily life tasks, it is important to evade corruption and foster great accountability of national institutions. So, there remains feeble chance of witnessing corruption in the society that could cause chaos in the nation. The use of open data systems is important for boosting up innovation and creativity for a developing country like Pakistan. Open data system has been seen playing a big part in establishing a trend of innovative growth pushed by the availability of these resources. The influence and impact of ‘Open Data’ has largely been observed during the recent Coronavirus pandemic (Covid-19) where the government has utilized the data to tackle the disease in Pakistan.

Taxonomic and Nutritive Validation of Fodder Grasses of Central Punjab, Pakistan

The grasses have acquired a sufficient scientific attention and belong to largest plant family (Poaceae). The world’s dry land is enclosed about one-third by the Poaceae members and a great number of people rely profoundly on cereal grasses. Moreover this is predominantly true for the grasses that they are the part of exclusive animal feed as well. Fertile plain of Central Punjab Pakistan is rich with fodder grasses and from centuries the local inhabitants of this area have been using their regional grasses for ruminant feeding. However little or no information was available about the nutritional potential of these ethnobotanically used grasses. Moreover grasses always faced difficulties in identification because of their more or less identical leaf shapes, indefinite variations in stem branching pattern and reduced floral parts. Hence this study took an initiative to establish a nutritive data bank of these ethnobotanically used fodder grasses along with provision of taxonomically viable tools for their identification.Data regarding ethnobotanically used grass fodder species was collected by using snowball technique to identify key informants, whereas semistructured questionnaires, face-to-face interviews and site visits were used for describing the fodder grasses. For taxonomic evaluation classical taxonomic parameters (morphological, anatomical and palynological) were employed. In order to develop a nutritional profile proximate analysis (moisture, dry matter, ash, organic matter, crude proteins, fats, neutral and acid detergent fibre, lignin, cellulose, hemicellulose) and anti-nutritional analysis (total phenols, total tannins, condensed tannins) in combination to mineral and digestibility analysis were determined. Besides their nutritional evaluation, the legitimacy of ethnobotanical knowledge of local inhabitants of Central Punjab Pakistan about these fodder grasses was also verified. Data analysis was done by using SPSS 22 software. This software was used for descriptive statistics and interpretation of associations among studied parameters. Microsoft Excel was used to present data as % values and graphs. Overall results reported 53 fodder grasses which were grouped into high (A), medium (B) and low priority (C) groups. Group A grasses were reported as not only the most abundant but also the most palatable forages to all types of ruminants. Taxonomic data provided some valuable identification tools whereas nutritional results suggested that majority (77%) of these fodder grasses can be regarded as good quality fodders because of their high protein (up to 169g/kg) and digestible nutrients with low fibre (≤ 601.65g/kg), lignin (≤ 50.24 g/kg) and anti-nutrients (total phenols ≤ 87.32 g/kg, total tannins ≤ 77.81 g/kg, condensed tannins ≤ 61.23 g/kg). A positive relationship was identified between ethnobotanical knowledge and nutritional results for certain fodder grasses. Spearman correlation showed that ranking of species based on ethnobotanical preferences was highly correlated with the laboratory results of individual grass species with ‘r’ values for CP (0.85), NDF (-0.76), ADF (-0.72) and ADL (-0.62). The resilient complementarities between ethnobotanical preferences and nutritive analysis suggested the incorporation of these ethnobotanically used fodders into modern ruminant feeding system. These findings are significant for appropriate fodder selection and development of supplements for the sustainable and economically viable livestock industry.