28 research outputs found

    Countries of UN, SCО and BRICS: INDIA

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    Предлагаемое пособие охватывает круг проблем, связанных с отражением положения Индии в геополитическом пространстве мира, а также отражением индийской ментальности в английском языке и особенностей закрепления в неродном языке национально своеобразных форм мировидения индийского народа - носителя индийского варианта английского языка. В пособии показана роль английского языка в истории народов Индии и индийского государства - в смене политических режимов, развитии культуры, религии, образовании и т.п., рассмотрены закономерности эволюции индийского варианта английского языка, неоднородность языковой политики на территории Индии, современные проблемы общения в условиях полиэтнического социума и многоязычия. Данное пособие представляет материал по курсу английского языка для студентов факультетов международных отношений и политологии, изучающих английский язык и историю Индии

    Washington University Magazine, Fall 2007

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    https://digitalcommons.wustl.edu/ad_wumag/1181/thumbnail.jp

    Biocapital : the constitution of post-genomic life

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    Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Program in Science, Technology and Society, 2002.Includes bibliographical references (p. 485-497).(cont.) In the process, this thesis intervenes in social theoretical debates not simply around the nature and production of knowledge and value, but also around the place of larger belief-systems - relating to religion, nation and ethics - in such productive enterprises. It simultaneously intervenes in conceptual debates within cultural anthropology regarding methodological questions that surround the undertaking of comparative ethnographic projects of powerful sites of knowledge production and value generation in a globalized world.This thesis is concerned with tracking and theorizing the co-production of an emergent technoscientific regime - that of biotechnology in the context of drug development - with an emergent political economic regime that sees the increased prevalence of such research in corporate locales, with corporate agendas and practices. Hence biocapital, which asks questions of the implications for life sciences when performed in corporations, and for capitalism, when biotechnology becomes a key source of market value. The methodology followed in this dissertation is multi-sited ethnography. I study a range of actors - including academic and industrial scientists, entrepreneurs, venture capitalists and policy makers - in two distinct national environments, the United States and India, as they shape and come to terms with these emergent technologies and emergent political economies. I attempt, through such a study, to theorize biocapital, drawing primarily upon Marxian and Foucauldian understandings of life, labor and value, and upon literature in Science and Technology Studies, that has constantly drawn attention to the constructed, contingent and politically consequent nature of technoscientific activity.by Kaushik Sunder Rajan.Ph.D

    The ethics and governance of stem cell clinical research in India

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    India is rapidly becoming established as a major player in the stem cell sector. However, concerns have been raised about the use of unproven stem cell therapies and the exploitation of parents for cord blood banking. This study aims to explore the nature of stem cell activities, how key stakeholders generate expectations around them and frame the ethical issues they raise, and why the biomedical governance system is unable to regulate these emerging practices. The study involved a survey, documentary analysis and qualitative interviews with key scientists, clinicians, representatives of firms and policymakers. The thesis observes that, unlike international commentaries which largely focus on embryonic stem cell treatments, in India it is adult and cord blood stem cells which are dominant in research and clinical settings. Expectations are configured on the basis that stem cells have the potential to: solve the problem of organ shortage; help patients with ailments; provide affordable health care; and establish India as a global player. The creation of expectations is ethically problematic given the potential health risks and economic exploitation of both native and international patients. However, the ethically contested activities are justified by clinicians on the basis that the Helsinki Declaration allows to use an experimental therapy; there are many 'desperate patients' demanding these treatments; and adult stem cells are safe. To date, the government of India appears to be unable to prevent these activities. Contrary to suggestions in previous literature and by some informants that new legislation is needed to address the problem, this thesis finds that state-led mechanisms for biomedical governance lack the ability to implement existing oversight measures. This implementation gap is partly because other forms of governance are not strong enough and partly because there are high expectations at state level aimed at establishing India as a global player in the stem cell sector

    The ethics and governance of stem cell clinical research in India

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    India is rapidly becoming established as a major player in the stem cell sector. However, concerns have been raised about the use of unproven stem cell therapies and the exploitation of parents for cord blood banking. This study aims to explore the nature of stem cell activities, how key stakeholders generate expectations around them and frame the ethical issues they raise, and why the biomedical governance system is unable to regulate these emerging practices. The study involved a survey, documentary analysis and qualitative interviews with key scientists, clinicians, representatives of firms and policymakers. The thesis observes that, unlike international commentaries which largely focus on embryonic stem cell treatments, in India it is adult and cord blood stem cells which are dominant in research and clinical settings. Expectations are configured on the basis that stem cells have the potential to: solve the problem of organ shortage; help patients with ailments; provide affordable health care; and establish India as a global player. The creation of expectations is ethically problematic given the potential health risks and economic exploitation of both native and international patients. However, the ethically contested activities are justified by clinicians on the basis that the Helsinki Declaration allows to use an experimental therapy; there are many 'desperate patients' demanding these treatments; and adult stem cells are safe. To date, the government of India appears to be unable to prevent these activities. Contrary to suggestions in previous literature and by some informants that new legislation is needed to address the problem, this thesis finds that state-led mechanisms for biomedical governance lack the ability to implement existing oversight measures. This implementation gap is partly because other forms of governance are not strong enough and partly because there are high expectations at state level aimed at establishing India as a global player in the stem cell sector

    Responses to Change in the Global Political Economy of Innovation – The Role of Sub-National States in Industrial Transition

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    This dissertation seeks to explore how sub-national levels of the state promote the development of new industrial sectors. To do so this dissertation builds on a series of theoretical perspectives on the role of the state in the economy and develops a unique view of how sub-national states coalesce and contrast within these perspectives. It does so through a series of empirical case studies focused on sub-national jurisdictions in North America that highlight diverse varieties of state actions that contribute, if not lead, industrial transitions and the development of new innovation-oriented industrial sectors. In so doing, the dissertation presents a complex interplay of roles and strategies that highlight the inadequacy of existing theoretical frameworks and the manner in which these frameworks are relevant at the sub-national level. The result contributes significant empirical depth to existing understandings of the role of the state and, in addition, builds new empirical and theoretical understanding of how the sub-national level interacts in processes of economic and industrial transition

    Embodied precarity: the biopolitics of AIDS biomedicine in South Africa

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    This thesis centres on the lives of women who live in Khayelitsha and who receive AIDS biomedicines through South Africa’s public health system. It is tiered across five ethnographic chapters to elucidate a single overarching argument: biopolitical precarity is networked into the permeable body. This argument is based on ethnographic research and seeks to challenge the discursive construction of distance that divorces women’s lives and bodies from the governance of AIDS biomedicines as life-­giving technologies. The multi-­sited ethnography underpinning this thesis was configured to follow the networked threads that weave women’s embodied precarity into the governance of technologies and the technologies of governance. To this end, fieldwork was conducted in South Africa from October 2010 – July 2011 in order to understand the embodied and political dimensions of access to AIDS biomedicine. Thereafter, fieldwork was conducted in Brazil from August 2011 – September 2011 to explore the networked connections spanning activist organisations, government coalitions and economic blocs to move out from the intimate spaces of women’s lives and bodies to locate them in the regional and global spaces of biomedical developments and health policy dynamics. This thesis argues that although it is crucial to anchor technologies in people’s lives, it is also analytically and politically necessary to link people’s lives - and the technologies that sustain them - back into the global assemblage that is networked around the governance of medicine. Therefore, I locate biomedical technologies in social and political contexts of lives of the people with whom I worked in Khayelitsha, and I argue further that their lives also need to be understood as part of a complex network of actors (spanning international organisations, regional coalitions and national governments) and actants (HIV and ARVs) that assemble in dynamic configurations and that are woven into and through the body

    Regulating GMOs in India: pragmatism, politics, representation, and risk

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    At the core of any effort by a nation state to regulate new technologies for public release is an implicit navigation of uncertainty. The case of Bt cotton in India presents a very timely and pragmatic example of how nation states grapple with uncertainty in a regulatory context. While much attention has been given to how government actors form regulation, far less is given to how actors outside of the government spheres act as catalysts for regulatory reform. In practice, it is often these parties that drive regulation as a process. The question is how. This paper outlines the findings of fieldwork conducted in India between March 2007 and July 2009 in addressing this central question: what does regulation really mean in a context where new technologies burdened with uncertain consequences are introduced? How do preferences, decisions, and regulatory norms adapt to this introduction based on the interactions of a multitude of parties acting on multiple framings of understanding what risk means? The conclusion is that regulation – in the context of Bt cotton in India - is far from a set of government policies derived from scientific measures of risk assessment. Civil society, firms, and farmers themselves all have tremendous influence on how a nation state navigates uncertainty in a regulatory context. It is a process forged on risk interfaces, where constructions of risk both complement and oppose one another. The actors involved enter these spaces, invited or otherwise. What the government may have initially imagined as ‘regulation’ is subject to multiple technical, economic, and political framings of risk from each actor. As a result, regulation is a coevolutionary, co-constructed process. This process of negotiating these spaces is what regulation really means

    A Model for Regional Technology-Based Economic Development

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    Technology-based economic development has been a highly sought-after objective for regions in developed and developing countries alike. The wealth created by regional knowledgebased economies like Silicon Valley is an attractive outcome. Without understanding clusterbased economic strategy, the different types of technology-based economic development approaches, the factors that dictate success or failure, and how those factors interrelate within a particular region, then the probability of success is minimal at best. Economic Development is a process and hence lends itself to a Systems Engineering approach, which was chosen as the methodology for analyzing and designing a better model for studying regions around the world to identify Factors that were both common and key to successful regional development. Each region was viewed as a system with inputs and outputs. The challenge in developing a useful system model is the development of the required Factors and Processes to be used. In the development of the model most of the Factors are internal to the system, but many may be affected by external events. The weighting (importance) of these Factors is the topic of much debate. To develop a baseline of Factors the Delphi method was used. Fortunately, a number of world-wide experts agreed to participate in one on one interviews to analyze these Factors, which in itself added a great deal to the body of knowledge of economic development beyond just the Factors. One obvious result was the essentially unanimous opinion of the group that leadership was the most important factor. A less obvious outcome, but one of equal importance was that there are two classes of regional economic development: one for mass job creation and another for the creation of a knowledge-based regional economy. Often regions undertake economic development without understanding this significant difference. While the model developed can be used for either goal it is extremely important that developers know in advance which goal is being pursued, which is also one of the critical outcomes of strong leadership. While all indications are that this model is a major improvement over current approaches, because this is a new approach until this research is followed by additional interviews, and by applying the model to actual regional technology-based economic development environments it\u27s validity remains unproven

    A Model for Regional Technology-Based Economic Development

    Get PDF
    Technology-based economic development has been a highly sought-after objective for regions in developed and developing countries alike. The wealth created by regional knowledgebased economies like Silicon Valley is an attractive outcome. Without understanding clusterbased economic strategy, the different types of technology-based economic development approaches, the factors that dictate success or failure, and how those factors interrelate within a particular region, then the probability of success is minimal at best. Economic Development is a process and hence lends itself to a Systems Engineering approach, which was chosen as the methodology for analyzing and designing a better model for studying regions around the world to identify Factors that were both common and key to successful regional development. Each region was viewed as a system with inputs and outputs. The challenge in developing a useful system model is the development of the required Factors and Processes to be used. In the development of the model most of the Factors are internal to the system, but many may be affected by external events. The weighting (importance) of these Factors is the topic of much debate. To develop a baseline of Factors the Delphi method was used. Fortunately, a number of world-wide experts agreed to participate in one on one interviews to analyze these Factors, which in itself added a great deal to the body of knowledge of economic development beyond just the Factors. One obvious result was the essentially unanimous opinion of the group that leadership was the most important factor. A less obvious outcome, but one of equal importance was that there are two classes of regional economic development: one for mass job creation and another for the creation of a knowledge-based regional economy. Often regions undertake economic development without understanding this significant difference. While the model developed can be used for either goal it is extremely important that developers know in advance which goal is being pursued, which is also one of the critical outcomes of strong leadership. While all indications are that this model is a major improvement over current approaches, because this is a new approach until this research is followed by additional interviews, and by applying the model to actual regional technology-based economic development environments it\u27s validity remains unproven
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