Rural Novel in India: Reading Village through Shrilal Shukla’s Raag Darbari

India has been a nation of villages that make the basic construct of our civilization. Over a period of time the villages or their clusters have evolved into towns, and further into cities. Even today more than eighty percent of Indians live in villages. Novel, being the ‘slice of life’, has over a period of time, touched upon the life of the rural India in different shades. From Munshi PremChand, Mulk Raj Anand, R. K. Narayan down to Shrilal Shukla the Indian novelists have potently brought in the panorama of life on the literary canvas in the best of patterns. Shrilal Shukla’s Raag Darbari (1968) is one of the best literary records of real power politics, which shows the traces and trajectories of administration and politics in rural U.P. villages somewhere around the late 1950’s. Raag Darbari presents a fictional story of a village Shivpalganj, which symbolizes a typical Indian village. Shivpal Ganj is situated in Rae Bareli District, South East of Lucknow. It depicts the struggle for power in the key village institutions viz. Co-operative Unions, the Village Council and in the College, as well it portrays the perverted caste system, distorted social values, corruption in administration and politics, use of muscle power, etc, the picture of which is still not much different even after fifty years of the publication of this novel. The proposed paper is an analytical study of the village lives both from the angle of its simplicity and complexity with special reference to Shrilal Shukla’s Raag Darbari

9/11 Literature: The Birth of New Narratives

After the Twin Tower attack in USA popularly known as 9/11 Attack, when Al- Qaida terrorists hit WTC towers, Pentagon and Shanksville, PA gave birth to the new narrative known as ‘9/11 Literature’. This literature is a representation of the feelings from the people who actually witnessed the event, those who saw it on television or Internet or who listened from their relatives or friends. This literature is taken over by the writers, poets, playwrights, film-makers, etc. figuring out the perspectives of both, the American and Afghanistan civilians. This literature talks about the sufferings, pain, loss of American society, damage to American Social life, culture and economy, as well as the fear and misery of ‘Other World’; devastation of Afghanistan’s, Culture, Economy and Civilization. This paper is an attempt to understand the reasons behind the evolution of 9/11 literature, the widening of the literary horizon to provide a platform to express deep anguish and pain of the sufferers of 9/11 attack and increase the national awareness. It discusses the role of 9/11 literature in infusing new narratives and counter narratives, debates between Orientals and Occidentals, and introspection of the policies of the West and unnecessary interferences in East. In general the necessity for the promotion of an impetus to a new thought process for a better world

Simulation of the intermittent cutting action of a bandsaw blade

Bandsawing is a preferred method used by steel stockholders and steel users in industry for cutting-off to size in the primary and secondary processes. The state-of- the-art features in current industrial bandsaw machines have transformed this method for cutting-off stock to size into a hi-tech operation capable of storage and handling. This method is particularly suitable for use in engineering factories involved in fast, highly automated mass-production techniques, providing the user with continuous batches of cut-to-length materials. Bandsaw machines have now superseded power hacksaws and circular saws in cutting rate and lower kerf loss due to better computer- controlled saw machines and improved blade designs (bi-metal HSS, carbide tipped). Although, there have been some new developments in bandsaw blades (tooth geometry, band material etc.) there are continuous new demands made on the bandsaw blades by materials engineers, challenged with introducing new materials to satisfy the needs of the design engineers, e.g. aerospace industry. There is therefore a need to improve the bandsaw blade. In order to do this we need to have an understanding of the mechanics of the cutting process associated with bandsawing and the various parameters affecting cutting forces, specific cutting energy, metal removal rates etc. One of the primary problems in evaluating metal bandsaws and developing newer variants, including new saw tooth materials, their heat treatment, or special tooth forms and quality, has been the use of costly and time consuming sawing tests. Furthermore, there are no simple ways of quantitatively evaluating the performance and life of these bands during sawing. Traditional method used by machine operators to assess the performance of blades only give global data, which is difficult to apply to individual teeth. Therefore there is a need to develop "time compression" test methods for evaluating the performance of bandsaw blades to replace full bandsaw blade testing. The work presented in this thesis is on the development of a single tooth testing method to simulate the intermittent cutting action of a bandsaw blade. Cutting tests have been performed to assess the testing method by comparing single tooth test results to full bandsaw blade test results. The test method developed is capable of producing scientific data for bandsawing associated with forces, metal removal rate and specific cutting energy when cutting a variety of workpiece materials at different speeds and feeds. Thus, it can be used as a substitute to full bandsaw blade testing. The cutting data for the workpiece materials tested using the single tooth test method was obtained in 25% of the full bandsaw blade evaluation time. This represents a significant saving in time and cost, which should prove useful to design engineers when designing and testing new prototype bandsaw blades for the future needs of the steel and manufacturing industry involved in metal cutting

SYNTHESIS OF BENTONITE NANOCLAY AND INCORPORATION OF CASSIA FISTULA LEAF EXTRACT TO FORM ORGANOBENTONITE: CHARACTERIZATION AND ITS BIOMEDICAL APPLICATIONS

Objective: In this work, methanolic leaf extract from Cassia fistula (known as aragvadha) was incorporated into bentonite nanoclay to form organobentonite. This organobentonite of nanosize was further used for its effective biomedical applications since medicinal clay finds its own advantage over decades.Methods: The bentonite nanoclay was produced by energetic stirring followed by centrifugation and was characterized using scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), and Fourier transform infrared (FTIR). The organobentonite was produced using freeze and thaw method. Antioxidant property was studied using Molyneux method, and thrombolytic activity was analyzed using in vitro clot lysis method.Results: The nanosize of bentonite nanoclay between 57 and 82 nm with irregular to spherical shape was confirmed using SEM analysis. The sharp diffraction peak in XRD analysis shows the crystalline nature of bentonite nanoclay, and FTIR results revealed the successful incorporation of the methanolic extract within the bentonite nanoclay. The organobentonite exhibits 84.5% antioxidant property as well as 31% clot lysis activity when compared to the extract and the bentonite nanoclay.Conclusion: Thus, the non-toxic and inexpensive bentonite nanoclay have a high aspect ratio with multifarious applications in medicine, food, cosmetics, and health products. Through this study, the bentonite nanoclay modified using plant alkaloid (organobentonite) is found to possess good biomedical property

A BIOGENIC APPROACH FOR THE SYNTHESIS AND CHARACTERIZATION OF ZINC OXIDE NANOPARTICLES PRODUCED BY TINOSPORA CORDIFOLIA

Objective: The study mainly focuses on the preparation and characterization of Zinc oxide nanoparticles using an aqueous stem extract of Tinospora cordifolia.Methods: Zinc Oxide nanoparticles were synthesized by a biological method using the stem extract of Tinospora cordifolia using Zinc acetate dehydrate in the presence of Sodium hydroxide. The synthesized Zinc Oxide nanoparticles were characterized using Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM), Energy Dispersive X-ray analysis (EDX) and Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR).Results: SEM results reveal that the shape of Zinc oxide nanoparticles was spherical and the average size ranges from 37-42 nm. EDX analysis provides the elemental composition of Zinc and oxygen present in the ZnO nanoparticles. The weight percentage of Zinc, oxygen and carbon was found to be 62.45, 28.82 and 7.51 respectively. Chemical bond formations were confirmed by using FTIR analysis.Conclusion: Thus the study suggests that Tinospora cordifolia can be used for the synthesis of ZnO nanoparticles in a simple, cost effective and an eco friendly way. It can also serve as an alternative to conventional chemical method.Â

Recovery Time Considerations in Real-Time Systems Employing Software Fault Tolerance

Safety-critical real-time systems like modern automobiles with advanced driving-assist features must employ redundancy for crucial software tasks to tolerate permanent crash faults. This redundancy can be achieved by using techniques like active replication or the primary-backup approach. In such systems, the recovery time which is the amount of time it takes for a redundant task to take over execution on the failure of a primary task becomes a very important design parameter. The recovery time for a given task depends on various factors like task allocation, primary and redundant task priorities, system load and the scheduling policy. Each task can also have a different recovery time requirement (RTR). For example, in automobiles with automated driving features, safety-critical tasks like perception and steering control have strict RTRs, whereas such requirements are more relaxed in the case of tasks like heating control and mission planning. In this paper, we analyze the recovery time for software tasks in a real-time system employing Rate-Monotonic Scheduling (RMS). We derive bounds on the recovery times for different redundant task options and propose techniques to determine the redundant-task type for a task to satisfy its RTR. We also address the fault-tolerant task allocation problem, with the additional constraint of satisfying the RTR of each task in the system. Given that the problem of assigning tasks to processors is a well-known NP-hard bin-packing problem we propose computationally-efficient heuristics to find a feasible allocation of tasks and their redundant copies. We also apply the simulated annealing method to the fault-tolerant task allocation problem with RTR constraints and compare against our heuristics

Estimation of Standby Power Consumption for Typical Appliances

In the past days, many consumers could simply unplug their appliances and go on holidays, assuming that their electricitymeter would just stop. Standby power is a power consumed by an appliance when switched off or not performing its primaryfunctions. Standby power consumption provides good opportunity for reducing both energy consumption and green housegas emissions. Through co-operation among governments, industry and consumers and the co-ordination of internationalpolicies, standby modes can be made more efficient, thereby reducing the overall demand for power.In this paper, standby power consumption of various domestic appliances was determined using an energy cost meter. Theexperimental results shows that the standby power of various house hold electrical appliances is consuming more electricityduring standby mod

Anticipatory anti-colonial writing in R.K. Narayan's Swami and Friends and Mulk Raj Anand's Untouchable

This article uses the term “anticipatory anti-colonial writing” to discuss the workings of time in R.K. Narayan’s Swami and Friends and Mulk Raj Anand’s Untouchable. Both these first novels were published in 1935 with the support of British literary personalities (Graham Greene and E.M. Forster respectively) and both feature young protagonists who, in contrasting ways, are engaged in Indian resistance to colonial rule. This study examines the difference between Narayan’s local, though ironical, resistance to the homogenizing temporal demands of empire and Anand’s awkwardly modernist, socially committed vision. I argue that a form of anticipation that explicitly looks forward to decolonization via new and transnational literary forms is a crucial feature of Untouchable that is not found in Swami and Friends, despite the latter’s anti-colonial elements. Untouchable was intended to be a “bridge between the Ganges and the Thames” and anticipates postcolonial negotiations of time that critique global inequalities and rely upon the multidirectional global connections forged by modernism