WHO IS THE IDENTIFIABLE VICTIM?--CASTE INTERACTS WITH SYMPATHY IN INDIA

Earlier studies have documented an “identifiable victim effect”-- people donate more to help individual people than to groups. Evidence suggests that this is in part due to an emotional reaction to the identified recipients, who generate more sympathy. However, stereotype research has shown that low-ranking groups are often not seen sympathetically; indeed stigmatized groups can be targets of “dehumanized” perception, perceived with disgust. We conducted an internet survey experiment among Indian participants, crossing the identification treatment with the group membership of the recipient. We indicate group membership of identified recipients subtly, with names that connote a social rank. We found an identifiable recipient effect for generically Indian, high caste, and Muslim recipients, but the effect was reversed for low caste recipients. Participants were as willing to donate to statistical low caste recipients as to statistical high caste recipients, but were less willing to donate to identified low caste recipients.However, an identifiable victim effect was seen for all recipient groups among participants open to a love marriage, a coarse indicator of rejecting caste hierarchy in favor of shared humanity. To our knowledge, this is the first study demonstrating that the identifiable victim effect interacts with the identity of the victim.identifiable victim effect; stereotypes; out-groups; caste; Dalit; pro-social behavior; India

“Even when class conditions are equalised, caste seems to have an independent effect on future life outcomes” – Ashwini Deshpande

In November Professor Ashwini Deshpande presented a new paper on caste, class and social mobility to an audience of academics and researchers at the South Asia Centre. After the seminar she spoke to Sonali Campion about the survey design for the paper, its initial findings and the challenge of measuring social mobility among women

Double jeopardy? Caste, affirmative action, and stigma

This paper presents the results of an attitude survey administered to university students in India that attempts to delineate the social-psychological mechanisms of 'externalization' and 'internalization' to understand the possible consequences of stigma associated with caste-based affirmative action (AA). Despite a significant gap in entry scores at admission to a higher educational institution, no significant differences are found in the effort and academic attitudes between students from beneficiary groups and those who get admission through non-reserved/open seats. On a range of questions that evaluate externalization and attitudes towards AA, there are clear and significant differences between caste groups that reveal the presence of stigma through the externalization mechanism; that is, the tendency of peers to evaluate beneficiary performance prejudicially, indicating the prevalence of discriminatory attitudes towards students from target groups. However, there is no evidence of internalization; that is, students from beneficiary groups internalizing their peers' low evaluation, resulting in low self-esteem and lower performance. These findings suggest the need for establishing an antidiscriminatory apparatus inside higher educational institutions to counter stigmatizing attitudes and micro-aggressions against those admitted on the basis of AA

DOES AFFIRMATIVE ACTION AFFECT PRODUCTIVITY IN THE INDIAN RAILWAYS?

Our objective in this paper is to shed some empirical light on a claim often made by critics of affirmative action policies: that increasing the representation of members of marginalized communities in jobs – and especially in relatively skilled positions – comes at a cost of reduced efficiency. We undertake a systematic empirical analysis of productivity in the Indian Railways in order to determine whether increasing proportions of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes in railway employment – largely a consequence of India's affirmative action policies – have actually reduced productive efficiency in the railway system. We find no evidence that higher percentages of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes in the railway labour force have reduced productivity. Indeed, some of our results suggest that the opposite is true, providing tentative support for the claim that greater labour force diversity boosts productivity.affirmative action; labour force; productivity; Indian railways

Identity, Perceptions and Institutions: Caste Differences in Earnings from Self-Employment in India

Using data from two rounds of the Employment-Unemployment Survey of the National Sample Survey for 2004-5 and 2009-10, we investigate the relationship between social identity, specifically caste identity in India, and perceptions of self-worth as measured by the amounts that individuals consider as remunerative earnings from self-employment. We also investigate if institutional change (e.g. a policy intervention such as an employment guarantee program, or change in the ruling party in power) mitigates this relationship. Finally, we examine the relationship between caste identity and actual earnings, and how institutional change can influence it. Our main finding is that caste identity in contemporary India does shape perceptions of self-worth. Among the fully self-employed, we find that controlling for other characteristics, lower-ranked groups earn lower amounts and perceive lower amounts as being remunerative. Further, institutional factors alter self-perceptions differentially for different caste groups, but in more nuanced ways than our ex-ante beliefs

A Case Study on Effective Use of Active Learning Strategies to Increase Learner Engagement in Digital Marketing Course

The usage of active learning approaches for the delivery of courses can enhance the learning ability of students. This case study establishes the effectiveness of active learning strategies and benefits in grasping the curriculum which is a central concept of student-centered learning, derived from the productive approach. This study focuses on the Course in Digital Marketing where there is a scope to enhance and encourage active participation of students to explore and configure recent tools such as Blogger, Google Ads, Facebook Ads manager, small SEO tools to name a few. The students can analyze and review the performance of advertising campaigns with the Analytics tool and suggest improvement plans based on performance metrics. The active learning approach enhances their interpersonal, and communication skills and a chance for employability in the field of marketing or have their own business ventures

THE EMERGENCE OF TIME PROGRAMMED DRUG DELIVERY SYSTEM: CHRONOTHERAPY OF CARDIO VASCULAR DISEASES

Time programmed drug delivery system is a system that promises to deliver a drug at a point of time when it is most required, as it is programmed beforehand. Though the delivery system is a boon to the pharmaceutical research due to its desired release profile feature and application to numerous disease areas like hypercholesterolemia, asthma, cardiovascular disease, peptic and duodenal ulcers and cancers of various categories, its special significance is due to its potential applications in chronotherapeutic drug delivery, where the pinnacle aim of devising this drug delivery system is to obtain a programmed release at desired time points, with a lag time where no drug is released. Lot of work is being carried out lately, to understand the relationship between the rhythmicity in disease symptoms and the biological clock, but a special mention is required in case of diseases associated with cardiovascular functions. Cardiovascular system works on a frequency cycle and it resonates hour to hour with the biological clock except in cases of disturbances from any external stimuli, which leads to CVSdisorders. Correcting the rhythmicity of the frequency cycles of heart, which are apparently in sync with the master clock, can be done or achieved by delivering the drug exactly at the point of time when it is needed the most. This will minimize the side effects and maximize the benefits of the administered dose. This review focuses on the importance of circadian rhythm and chronotherapy in the management of CVSand overall physiology, scientific evidences of their relationship, role and importance of PDDS in formulation management and finally the work done in this direction and the marketed chronotheraptics delivery systems available for CVS disorders

Bad Karma or Discrimination? Male-Female Wage Gaps among Salaried Workers in India

We use nationally representative data from the Employment-Unemployment Surveys in 1999-2000 and 2009-10 to explore gender wage gaps among Regular Wage/Salaried (RWS) workers in India, both at the mean, as well as along the entire wage distribution to see "what happens where". The gender log wage gap at the mean is 55 percent in 1999-2000 and 49 percent in 2009-10, but this change is not statistically significant. The Blinder-Oaxaca and the Machado-Mata-Melly decompositions indicate that, in both years, the bulk of the gender wage gap is unexplained, i.e. possibly discriminatory. They also reveal that over the decade, while the wage-earning characteristics of women improved relative to men, the discriminatory component of the gender wage gap also increased. In fact, in 2009-10, if women were 'paid like men', they would have earned more than men on account of their characteristics. In both years, we see the existence of the "sticky floor", in that gender wage gaps are higher at lower ends of the wage distribution and steadily decline thereafter. Over the ten-year period, we find that the sticky floor became stickier for RWS women. Machado-Mata-Melly decompositions reveal that, in both years, women at the lower end of the wage distribution face higher discriminatory gaps compared to women at the upper end

Implementation of Customized UTP Algorithm for Attack Detection in Multitier Web Applications

Internet services and application have gained lots of importance in our daily life such as banking, travel and social networking. Personal information from any of the remote location can be communicated and managed with the help of Internet. Due to their omnipresent use for daily task, web applications have been target for attack. To deal with increasing demand and data complexity web services and applications have moved to a multitiered design. The idea is to detect attacks in multitier architecture to model the network behavior of user sessions across both the front-end web server and the back-end database. The attacks like SQL injection, cross site scripting attack, privilege escalation attack and direct DB attack can be monitored with both the web and subsequent database requestusing customized UTP algorithm, which an independent system cannot do