‘Development Has Gone Crazy’:The Gujarat Model of ‘Unequal’ Development through Neoliberalism and Hindutva

Since the mid 1990s, the western Indian state of Gujarat has been continuously led by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), a Right-wing Hindu nationalist political party. The BJP has aggressively pursued Right-wing religious ideologies, while, on the economic front, it has taken on board neoliberal policies. The outcome of this mix came to be referred to as the ‘Gujarat model of development’, as the state delivered impressive figures in the economy, although at the cost of human development indices. The article shows that the intensified adoption of Hindutva and neoliberalism has resulted in unequal development across regions, sectors of the economy and industries, as well as across the axes of class, caste and religion. As unequal development is inherent in both the ideologies of neoliberalism and Hindutva, each of them further exacerbates societal inequalities across multiple spheres without addressing these

The ‘peri-urban turn’:A systems thinking approach for a paradigm shift in reconceptualising urban-rural futures in the global South

With the rapid pace of urbanization, urban sprawl has become a prevalent phenomenon, particularly in the global South, leading to the emergence of peri-urban spaces where rural-urban interfaces occur. These peri-urban areas exhibit dynamic and continuous interactions among social, economic, and environmental systems, offering valuable insights for fostering resilient futures. However, this aspect remains largely unexplored in current research due to a lack of innovative methodological approaches that effectively capture the complementarities, potentialities, and contestations inherent in the dynamics of peri-urban areas. We contend that peri-urbanisation needs to be reconceptualized as an alternative socio-spatial framework that extends the predominantly Eurocentric discourse on counterurbanisation, making it more inclusive of the emerging urban-rural transformations in the global South. By doing so, we can better understand and address the complex dynamics and challenges associated with peri-urban areas and develop strategies to foster resilience in these contexts

Comparison of the Immune Responses to COVID-19 Vaccines in Bangladeshi Population

Background: The adaptive immune response is a crucial component of the protective immunity against SARS-CoV-2, generated after infection or vaccination. Methods: We studied antibody titers, neutralizing antibodies and cellular immune responses to four different COVID-19 vaccines, namely Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna Spikevax, AstraZeneca and Sinopharm vaccines in the Bangladeshi population (n = 1780). Results: mRNA vaccines Moderna (14,655 ± 11.3) and Pfizer (13,772 ± 11.5) elicited significantly higher anti-Spike (S) antibody titers compared to the Adenovector vaccine AstraZeneca (2443 ± 12.8) and inactivated vaccine Sinopharm (1150 ± 11.2). SARS-CoV-2-specific neutralizing antibodies as well as IFN-γ-secreting lymphocytes were more abundant in Pfizer and Moderna vaccine recipients compared to AstraZeneca and Sinopharm vaccine recipients. Participants previously infected with SARS-CoV-2 exhibited higher post-vaccine immune responses (S-specific and neutralizing antibodies, IFN-γ-secreting cells) compared to uninfected participants. Memory B (BMEM), total CD8+T, CD4+ central memory (CD4+CM) and T-regulatory (TREG) cells were more numerous in AstraZeneca vaccine recipients compared to other vaccine recipients. Plasmablasts, B-regulatory (BREG) and CD4+ effector (CD4+EFF) cells were more numerous in mRNA vaccine recipients. Conclusions: mRNA vaccines generated a higher antibody response, while a differential cellular response was observed for different vaccine types, suggesting that both cellular and humoral responses are important in immune monitoring of different types of vaccines