Mapping a Colonial Borderland: Objectifying the Geo-Body of India's Northeast

India’s Northeast frontier is at the margins of three study areas: South Asia, Southeast Asia, and East Asia. This paper attempts a history of “mapping” in its broader sense as a cultural universal over a relatively long period. It is not a history of cartography, but focuses on the interface between cartography and cosmography, which were, in turn, shaped by imperial power and geographical knowledge. This approach offers a high-altitude view of this Asian borderland as the imperial frontier of both the Mughals and the British, and the national fringe of Republican India. The authors argue that imperial geographical discourses invested the colonial Northeast (British Assam) with a new kind of territorial identity. Surveyors and mapmakers objectified the “geo-body” of this borderland in a spatial fix and visualized it as a Northeast-on-the-map. Cartographic territoriality naturalized traditional frontiers into colonial borderlands, which, in turn, forged national boundaries.

Environmental and genetic control of arsenic accumulation and speciation in rice grain:comparing a range of common cultivars grown in contaminated sites across Bangladesh, China, and India

The concentration of arsenic (As) in rice grains has been identified as a risk to human health. The high proportion of inorganic species of As (As(i)) is of particular concern as it is a nonthreshold, class 1 human carcinogen. To be able to breed rice with low grain As, an understanding of genetic variation and the effect of different environments on genetic variation is needed. In this study, 13 cultivars grown at two field sites each in Bangladesh, India, and China are evaluated for grain As. There was a significant site, genotype, and site by genotype interaction for total grain As. Correlations were observed only between sites in Bangladesh and India, not between countries or within the Chinese sites. For seven cultivars the As was speciated which revealed significant effects of site, genotype, and site by genotype interaction for percentage As(i). Breeding low grain As cultivars that will have consistently low grain As and low As(i), over multiple environments using traditional breeding approaches may be difficult, although CT9993-5-10-1-M, Lemont, Azucena, and Te-qing in general had low grain As across the field sites.

Letter from George Cran regarding a Christian mission in India, 1803.

George Cran was the son of a farmer in the parish of Forgue in Aberdeen Shire, Scotland. He became a member of the church at Huntley, Scotland where his devotion to God inspired him to become a Sunday school teacher. He subsequently became a member of the London Missionary Society. In 1801 he was sent to study at the seminary in Gosport, England where he spent two to three years. His desire was to preach Christ to the “heathens”. Messrs. Ringeltaube, Des Granges and Cran were designated to work in India. No ships for the East India Company would grant passage to missionaries due to the open hostility of the government therefore they set sail from Copenhagen on April 20, 1804 and reached Tranquebar on December 5th, 1805. Cran and Des Granges were designated to supervise the churches in Tinnevelly and they were to begin a mission among the northern Circars. This would have meant that they would have to work in two different places which would have separated them by over 500 miles. The society didn’t seem to be aware of the vast hindrances that the missionaries had to face. Cran and Des Granges decided instead to work in Vizagapatam where they were welcomed by many of the European residents. They conducted English services for which they were paid a monthly salary by the governor. They also conducted services for the natives and opened a school for native children. By November of 1806 a mission house had been built and a “charity” school for Eurasian children was opened. Cran and Des Granges were also diligently studying the native language and they began to translate the Bible into Telugu (spoken by the Hindus who live along the lower basins of the Kistna and Godaveri Rivers). In November of 1808 Cran was almost killed by a fever which left him severely weakened. He was only partially recovered, but accepted an invitation by the general who commanded the local district to accompany him on a journey around the province. The journey proved to be too much for Cran and he died on January 6th, 1809. He is buried at Chicacole, India. He is remembered for his successful work at Vizagapatam and his translation of the Bible. The fact that it was 27 years after the arrival of Cran before a single native was converted attests to the fact that this was a very difficult undertaking. The London Missionary Society was formed in 1795 in England by evangelical Anglicans and nonconformists. It is a non-denominational society and now forms part of the Council for World Mission. with information from The Voice of God to the Churches a Sermon on the Death of George Cran, Augustus Des Granges and Jonathan Brain by David Bogue and The History of the London Missionary Society 1795-1895 by Richard Lovett

L'India nell'immaginario occidentale

L'Inde a constitué un lieu de voyage pour beaucoup d`écrivains occidentaux, en particulier, pendant les années 60-70, pour cinq intelllectuels éuropéens et americains, qui ont voyagé et écrit différents textes. Pasolini, Moravia, Paz, Ginsberg et Duras ont parlé de l'Inde en utilisant différents languages pour décrire leur réncontre avec l'Autre au délà des catégories binaires occidentales.

Access to care for the poor living with chronic disease in India : an analysis of selected national health policies

Cette recherche sur les barrières à l’accès pour les pauvres atteints de maladies chroniques en Inde a trois objectifs : 1) évaluer si les buts, les objectifs, les instruments et la population visée, tels qu'ils sont formulés dans les politiques nationales actuelles de santé en Inde, permettent de répondre aux principales barrières à l’accès pour les pauvres atteints de maladies chroniques; 2) évaluer les types de leviers et les instruments identifiés par les politiques nationales de santé en Inde pour éliminer ces barrières à l’accès; 3) et évaluer si ces politiques se sont améliorées avec le temps à l’égard de l’offre de soins à la population pour les maladies chroniques et plus spécifiquement chez les pauvres. En utilisant le Framework Approach de Ritchie et Spencer (1993), une analyse qualitative de contenu a été complétée avec des politiques nationales de santé indiennes. Pour commencer, un cadre conceptuel sur les barrières à l’accès aux soins pour les pauvres atteints de maladies chroniques en Inde a été créé à partir d’une revue de la littérature scientifique. Par la suite, les politiques ont été échantillonnées en Inde en 2009. Un cadre thématique et un index ont été générés afin de construire les outils d’analyse et codifier le contenu. Finalement, les analyses ont été effectuées en utilisant cet index, en plus de chartes, de maps, d'une grille de questions et d'études de cas. L’analyse a tété effectuée en comparant les barrières à l’accès qui avaient été originalement identifiées dans le cadre thématique avec celles identifiées par l’analyse de contenu de chaque politique. Cette recherche met en évidence que les politiques nationales de santé indiennes s’attaquent à un certain nombre de barrières à l’accès pour les pauvres, notamment en ce qui a trait à l’amélioration des services de santé dans le secteur public, l’amélioration des connaissances de la population et l’augmentation de certaines interventions sur les maladies chroniques. D’un autre côté, les barrières à l’accès reliées aux coûts du traitement des maladies chroniques, le fait que les soins de santé primaires ne soient pas abordables pour beaucoup d’individus et la capacité des gens de payer sont, parmi les barrières à l'accès identifiées dans le cadre thématique, celles qui ont reçu le moins d’attention. De plus, lorsque l’on observe le temps de formulation de chaque politique, il semble que les efforts pour augmenter les interventions et l’offre de soins pour les maladies chroniques physiques soient plus récents. De plus, les pauvres ne sont pas ciblés par les actions reliées aux maladies chroniques. Le risque de les marginaliser davantage est important avec la transition économique, démographique et épidémiologique qui transforme actuellement le pays et la demande des services de santé.

A Tangled Web? Asking the Gender Question in the Multilateral Development Banks’ Law and Justice Policies in India

Over the course of the last two decades, IFIs (most prominently the World Bank) have begun acknowledging the centrality of human development as an essential element of the economic development process if the growth aimed at is to be holistic and sustainable. Strikingly, there is no agreement on the manner in which this approach is to be achieved, especially in the field of gender and development. This paper focuses on the issue of whether the Multilateral Development Banks’ policies have truly attempted at implementing their stated model of gender mainstreaming through their programmes and projects in India, with a specific focus on the legal sector, since that sector has both instrumental and intrinsic value for gender rights advocates. This article will aim at reviewing their approach towards rule of law projects and the manner in which gender equality norms have or have not been addressed within that framework; it will end with recommendations as to the necessary issues which gender programmes must address within the rule of law framework in order to achieve the Millennium Development Goal of gender equity.

A Diagnostic and Modeling Study on the Onset of Summer Monsoon over South Asia

This study focuses on the onset of southwest monsoon over Kerala. India Meteorological Department (IMD) has been using a semi-objective method to define monsoon onset. The main objectives of the study are to understand the monsoon onset processes, to simulate monsoon onset in a GCM using as input the atmospheric conditions and Sea Surface Temperature, 10 days earlier to the onset, to develop a method for medium range prediction of the date of onset of southwest monsoon over Kerala and to examine the possibility of objectively defining the date of Monsoon Onset over Kerala (MOK). It gives a broad description of regional monsoon systems and monsoon onsets over Asia and Australia. Asian monsoon includes two separate subsystems, Indain monsoon and East Asian monsoon. It is seen from this study that the duration of the different phases of the onset process are dependent on the period of ISO. Based on the study of the monsoon onset process, modeling studies can be done for better understanding of the ocean-atmosphere interaction especially those associated with the warm pool in the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea.

Nutrient Dynamics in the EEZ of the West Coast of India with Special Reference to the Oxygen Minimum Zone and Denitrification

The present work aims at deciphering the processes that control the nutrient distribution along the EEZ (Exclusive Economic Zone of India) of the west coast of India and to bring out its linkage with primary and secondary productivity. This work assume utmost importance as very few studies have hitherto focused entirely on the EEZ of the west coast of India to address the biochemical responses brought about by monsoons. The present study examines the seasonal variations in physicochemical parameters and associated primary biological responses along the west coast of India. This study targets to measure and understand the shelf ocean exchange in a typical coastal upwelling region of the southeast Arabian Sea, and the influence of convective mixing along the northern part of the west coast of India. The study focuses more directly on coastal upwelling along the southwest coast of India, within the EEZ. The effects of coastal upwelling, eddy formation and the offshore advection are apparent in the present investigation. This has consequences to fisheries and climate, in energy transfer to the food chain and the increased sequestering of carbon in the ocean. The study also focuses on the Oxygen Minimum Zone (OMZ) and dentrification observed along the EEZ of the west coast of India on a seasonal scale. In the study, an attempt is also made to demarcate the geographical boundaries of the denitrification zone in the EEZ of India and on the nature and magnitude of these variations, on a seasonal and inter annual scales

Texture Mineralogy and Geochemistry Of Sediments From The Coastal Plains Between Kodungallur And Chellanam Central Kerala India

The present study addresses to understand the sedimentological properties of the coasts of kodungallur and chellanam, central Kerala to bring out the relationship between the textural, mineralogical and geochemical characters with that of the respective environment. The grain size study of the beach ridge sediments from different pits has been investigated at close intervals, which enables to understand the grain size variations with depth. The sediment samples from various pits of the beach ridges indicate that the sediments range primarily from medium to very fine sand, well to moderately sorted, fine to coarse skewed and leptokurtic to platykurtic. The study area is considered as a prograding coast. Variations in grain size down the pit give three phases of beach building activities i.e.; a coarsening upward sequence in the bottom layers, a fining upward in the middle and coarsening upward in the top. Beach ridges are formed by swash built sediments with cross bedding and setting lag type sediments with seaward dipping/horizontal units. Geochemical signatures in the study area have been brought out through the analysis of major and trace elements. Iron is significantly enriched and its control over many trace elements is evident. Copper, chromium, cobalt, lithium, lead and zinc show decreasing trend with depth, while sodium, potassium,strontium,nickel and organic carbon increases. The association of many trace elements with organic carbon has also been established. Dissolution of trace elements in anoxic environment, at depth and reprecipitation in the oxic layers, at near or subsurface, are the major mechanism that brought out the variation of certain environmentally sensitive elements

Marine Engineering Training in India -A Pedagogic Introspection

Indian marine engineers are renowned for employment globally due to their knowledge, skill and reliability. This praiseworthy status has been achieved mainly due to the systematic training imparted to marine engineering cadets. However, in an era of advancing technology, marine engineering training has to remain dynamic to imbibe latest technology as well as to meet the demands of the shipping industry. New subjects of studies have to be included in the curriculum in a timely manner taking into consideration the industry requirements and best practices in shipping. Technical competence of marine engineers also has to be subjected to changes depending upon the needs of the ever growing and over regulated shipping industry. Besides. certain soft skills are to be developed and improved amongst the marine engineers in order to alter or amend the personality traits leading to their career success.If timely corrective action is taken. Indian marine engineers can be in still greater demand for employment in global maritime field. In order to enhance the employability of our mmine engineers by improving their quality, a study of marine engineers in general and class IV marine engineers in particular was conducted based on three distinct surveys, viz., survey among senior marine engineers, survey among employers of marine engineers and survey of class IV marine engineers themselves.The surveys have been planned and questionnaires have been designed to focus the study of marine engineer officer class IV from the point of view of the three distinct groups of maritime personnels. As a result of this, the strength and weakness of class IV marine engineers are identified with regard to their performance on board ships, acquisition of necessary technical skills. employability and career success. The criteria of essential qualities of a marine engineer are classified as academic, technical, social, psychological. physical, mental, emergency responsive, communicative and leadership, and have been assessed for a practicing marine engineer by statistical analysis of data collected from surveys. These are assessed for class IV marine engineers from the point of view of senior marine engineers and employers separately. The Endings are delineated and graphically depicted in this thesis.Besides. six pertinent personality traits of a marine engineer viz. self esteem. learning style. decision making. motivation. team work and listening self inventory have been subjected to study and their correlation with career success have been established wherever possible. This is carried out to develop a theoretical framework to understand what leads a marine engineer to his career attainment. This enables the author to estimate the personality strengths and weaknesses of a serving marine engineer and eventually to deduce possible corrective measures or modifications in marine engineering training in India.Maritime training is largely based on International Conventions on Standard of Training. Certification and Watch keeping for Seafarers 1995. its associated Code and Merchant Shipping (STCW for Seafarers) Rules 1998. Further, Maritime Education, Training and Assessment (META) Manual was subjected to a critical scrutiny and relevant Endings of thc surveys arc superimposed on the existing rule requirement and curriculum. Views of senior marine engineers and executives of various shipping companies are taken into account before arriving at the revision of syllabus of marine engineering courses. Modifications in the pattern of workshop and sea service for graduate mechanical engineering trainees are recommended. Desirable age brackets of junior engineers and chief engineers. use of Training and Assessment Record book (TAR Book) during training etc. have also been evaluated.As a result of the pedagogic introspection of the existing system of marine engineering training in India. in this thesis, a revised pattern of workshop training of six months duration for graduate mechanical engineers. revised pattern of sea service training of one year duration and modified now diagram incorporating the above have been arrived at. Effects of various personality traits on career success have been established along with certain findings for improvement of desirable personality traits of marine engineers.

A Study on the Transport and Distribution of Atmospheric Aerosols and its Influence on Regional Meteorological Parameters over the Indian Subcontinent

This doctoral thesis addresses the growing concern about the significant changes in the climatic and weather patterns due to the aerosol loading that have taken place in the Indo Gangetic Plain(IGP)which includes most of the Northern Indian region. The study region comprises of major industrial cities in India (New Delhi, Kanpur, Allahabad, Jamshedpur and Kolkata). Northern and central parts of India are one of the most thickly populated areas in the world and have the most intensely farmed areas. Rapid increase in population and urbanization has resulted in an abrupt increase in aerosol concentrations in recent years. The IGP has a major source of coal; therefore most of the industries including numerous thermal power plants that run on coal are located around this region. They inject copious amount of aerosols into the atmosphere. Moreover, the transport of dust aerosols from arid locations is prevalent during the dry months which increase the aerosol loading in theatmosphere. The topography of the place is also ideal for the congregation of aerosols. It is bounded by the Himalayas in the north, Thar Desert in the west, the Vindhyan range in the south and Brahmaputra ridge in the east. During the non‐monsoon months (October to May) the weather in the location is dry with very little rainfall. Surface winds are weak during most of the time in this dry season. The aerosols that reach the location by means of long distance transport and from regional sources get accumulated under these favourable conditions. The increase in aerosol concentration due to the complex combination of aerosol transport and anthropogenic factors mixed with the contribution from the natural sources alters the optical properties and the life time of clouds in the region. The associated perturbations in radiative balance have a significant impact on the meteorological parameters and this in turn determines the precipitation forming process. Therefore, any change in weather which disturbs the normal hydrological pattern is alarming in the socio‐economic point of view. Hence, the main focus of this work is to determine the variation in transport and distribution of aerosols in the region and to understand the interaction of these aerosols with meteorological parameters and cloud properties.

An Analysis of Work Related Stress Factor in Selected Industries in Kerala ,India

Occupational stress is becoming a major issue in both corporate and social agenda .In industrialized countries, there have been quite dramatic changes in the conditions at work, during the last decade ,caused by economic, social and technical development. As a consequence, the people today at work are exposed to high quantitative and qualitative demands as well as hard competition caused by global economy. A recent report says that ailments due to work related stress is likely to cost India’s exchequer around 72000 crores between 2009 and 2015. Though India is a fast developing country, it is yet to create facilities to mitigate the adverse effects of work stress, more over only little efforts have been made to assess the work related stress.In the absence of well defined standards to assess the work related stress in India, an attempt is made in this direction to develop the factors for the evaluation of work stress. Accordingly, with the help of existing literature and in consultation with the safety experts, seven factors for the evaluation of work stress is developed. An instrument ( Questionnaire) was developed using these seven factors for the evaluation of work stress .The validity , and unidimensionality of the questionnaire was ensured by confirmatory factor analysis. The reliability of the questionnaire was ensured before administration. While analyzing the relation ship between the variables, it is noted that no relationship exists between them, and hence the above factors are treated as independent factors/ variables for the purpose of research .Initially five profit making manufacturing industries, under public sector in the state of Kerala, were selected for the study. The influence of factors responsible for work stress is analyzed in these industries. These industries were classified in to two types, namely chemical and heavy engineering ,based on the product manufactured and work environment and the analysis is further carried out for these two categories.The variation of work stress with different age , designation and experience of the employees are analyzed by means of one-way ANOVA. Further three different type of modelling of work stress, namely factor modelling, structural equation modelling and multinomial logistic regression modelling was done to analyze the association of factors responsible for work stress. All these models are found equally good in predicting the work stress.The present study indicates that work stress exists among the employees in public sector industries in Kerala. Employees belonging to age group 40-45yrs and experience groups 15-20yrs had relatively higher work demand ,low job control, and low support at work. Low job control was noted among lower designation levels, particularly at the worker level in these industries. Hence the instrument developed using the seven factors namely demand, control, manager support, peer support, relationship, role and change can be effectively used for the evaluation of work stress in industries.

Studies on rainfall variability and the influence of orography and land use on the climate of Peninsular India

The present study helped to understand the trend in rainfall patterns at smaller spatial scales and the large regional differences in the variability of rainfall. The effect of land use and orography on the diurnal variability is also understood. But a better understanding on the long term variation in rainfall is possible by using a longer dataset,which may provide insight into the rainfall variation over country during the past century. The basic mechanism behind the interannual rainfall variability would be possible with numerical studies using coupled Ocean-Atmosphere models. The regional difference in the active-break conditions points to the significance of regional studies than considering India as a single unit. The underlying dynamics of diurnal variability need to be studied by making use of a high resolution model as the present study could not simulate the local onshore circulation. Also the land use modification in this study, selected a region, which is surrounded by crop land. This implies the high possibility for the conversion of the remaining region to agricultural land. Therefore the study is useful than considering idealized conditions, but the adverse effect of irrigated crop is more than non-irrigated crop. Therefore, such studies would help to understand the climate changes occurred in the recent period. The large accumulation of rainfall between 300-600 m height of western Ghats has been found but the reason behind this need to be studied, which is possible by utilizing datasets that would better represent the orography and landuse over the region in high resolution model. Similarly a detailed analysis is needed to clearly identify the causative relations of the predictors identified with the predictant and the physical reasons behind them. New approaches that include nonlinear relationships and dynamical variables from model simulations can be included in the existing statistical models to improve the skill of the models. Also the statistical models for the forecasts of monsoon have to be continually updated.

Pertormer’s Rights in India

The overall focus of the thesis involves the performer's rights in india -A study with special reference to the audiovisual industry.The performer is the disseminator of works of literary, dramatic artistic and musical authorship .The challenge of studying the audiovisual industry is the low level of data documentation and transparency in transactions compounded by the low awareness of legal issues. The first five chapters of the study trace the evolution of performers’ rights with particular impetus on three diverse jurisdictions both at the judicial and statutory levels as well as from the collective bargaining platform.The study also seeks to pin point the major obstacles that the performers have had to encounter in their quest for equal rights under the umbrella of intellectual property the world over.the status of the performer through the international instruments - the Rome convention, the WPPT and the envisaged Protocol to the audiovisual performance.A grant of rights to the performer either under Copyright or labor law need not improve matters for the performer unless the institutional grievance redressal is firmly put in place.There is a need for clearer delineation between the definitions of audio and audiovisual fixations. Under the Indian law the terms representing these have been sound records and cinematographs respectivel.Performer and the Philosophy of Intellectual Propertyeffectively. But this is not to deny the fact that these institutions, organizations and practices could very well rise to the occasion when the rights regime comes into force.

Weather and climate of Penisular India modulated by Extrinsic factors- Empirical and Numerical Perspectives

The Doctoral thesis focuses on the factors that influence the weather and climate over Peninsular Indias. The first chapter provides a general introduction about the climatic features over peninsular India, various factors dealt in subsequent chapters, such as solar forcing on climate, SST variability in the northern Indian Ocean and its influence on Indian monsoon, moisture content of the atmosphere and its importance in the climate system, empirical formulation of regression forecast of climate and some aspects of regional climate modeling. Chapter 2 deals with the variability in the vertically integrated moisture (VIM) over Peninsular India on various time scales. The third Chapter discusses the influence of solar activity in the low frequency variability in the rainfall of Peninsular India. The study also investigates the influence of solar activity on the horizontal and vertical components of wind and the difference in the forcing before and after the so-called regime shift in the climate system before and after mid-1970s.In Chapter 4 on Peninsular Indian Rainfall and its association with meteorological and oceanic parameters over adjoining oceanic region, a linear regression model was developed and tested for the seasonal rainfall prediction of Peninsular India.