110 Vulnerability of major natural calamities, viz. floods, droughts, storms, unseasonal torrential rains and hailstorm is quite evident in the subcontinent of India. All these calamities severely distress the farmers because their produce and livestock are exposed to these types of extreme events. Kosi flood that occurred on 18 th August 2008 was declared as ‘national calamity’ and so far, it is the only calamity in the narration of India to be officially declared as such (Lal et al. 2014, 2015). Over 90% of the population affected by calamity was contingent upon agricultural livelihoods distressing 500,000 farmers (Government of Bihar report to World Bank 2010). Livestock is also vulnerable sector during the natural calamities because the life of the livestock is at direct threat during that period and it causes permanent loss of the farmers (Lal et al. 2015). Migration of rural folks in such distressed situation is a common global phenomenon since pre-historic time and the most familiar example is Irish famine (popularly known as the Great Famine or the Great Hunger or Irish Potato Famine). A million people perished during the great Irish famine of mid 1840s and the early 1850s, while emigrants numbered more than half a million, who left Ireland. Grada and O’Rourke (1997) compared migration as disaster relief tool while explicating the lessons learnt from the great Irish famine. The migration due to 2008 flood was clear cut case of ‘environmental refugees’ in which folks could no longer gain a secure livelihood in their native land because of soil erosion, drought, deforestation and various other environmental disasters (Panigrahi 2014). In this backdrop, the present investigation was pursued to find out the push and pull factors for migration of the livestock farmers distressed by natural calamities in India and to identify the predictive variables and its log likelihood to determine future course of migration. MATERIALS AND METHODS Sampling and data collection: Due to 2008 Kosi flood fury, five districts of Bihar were affected, viz. Supaul, Madhepura, Saharsa, Araria and Purnia. Out of which, two districts, viz. Supaul and Madhepura were severely affected and so selected purposively (Government of Bihar report to World Bank 2010). Two distressed blocks from each district and from each block, two villages were randomly chosen. Among these chosen villages, 20 respondents were selected by multistage random sampling making a final sample size of 160 respondents from total eight villages (Table 1). Empirical framework: The analysis was made by the Present address: 1 Ph.D. Scholar (sudhanandlal100 @gmail.com), 2 Principal Scientist and Head (kskadian @rediffmail.com), Dairy Extension Division. 3 Assistant Professor (wawj2017@gmail.com), Department of Rural Development and Agricultural Extension, Ambo University, Ambo, Ethiopia. Indian Journal of Animal Sciences 87 (7): 906–911, July 2017/Article Push and Pull factors of migration amongst livestock rearers distressed by national calamity in India: A Polytomous Universal Model analysis SUDHANAND PRASAD LAL 1 , K S KADIAN 2 and WORKNEH ABEBE WODAJO 3 ICAR-National Dairy Research Institute, Karnal, Haryana 132 001 India Received: 2 December 2016; Accepted: 24 January 2017 ABSTRACT An endeavor was made to figure out push and pull factors of migration amongst livestock rearers distressed by national calamity in India. Reckoning ordinal response of 160 respondents; 86, 38 and 36 respondents were classified as not-adopter, partially adopter and fully adopter of migration, respectively; subsequently coding it into 0, 1 and 2 for the final Polytomous Universal Model (PLUM). Triangulation of different tests was done to justify aptness of PLUM. Predictor variables viz. age, income, livestock-holding [odds ratio (OR), 0.638; 99% CI of Estimate (E) = -.799 to -.101] and skilled work was statistically significant at 1% level but age and livestock-holding was found to be negatively significant. However, remaining 2 explanatory variables viz. expectation level and land holdings increased the probability for migration among farmers. Major push factor of migration was non-availability of work during agricultural lean season and pull factor was expectation of higher income. This plausibly signifies that, if curbing migration from rural to urban region is a policy agenda of government, variables identified through PLUM, viz. age, income, livestock-holding and skilled work should be given due consideration. The researchers conclude that the identified predictive variables could become cornerstone for migratory research work among livestock rearers, as such an investigation is scarce in India and worldwide. Key words: Calamity, Logit, Migration, Ordinal logistic, PLUM https://doi.org/10.56093/ijans.v87i7.72304