Are agricultural markets location-optimal? A case study of Gaya District (Bihar)

The thesis of efficiency and optimality of Indian agricultural system has several facets that have called for attention of a number of scholars. Some have proved allocative optimality of resource utilization, the others have proved optimality of distribution of gains from agriculture, while still others have come up with the cases of marketing optimality. However, there is hardly any work that studies location optimality of market centers in any region of India. In this paper we examine if the empirically observed market locations are optimal and as a case study take up the agricultural markets located in Gaya district of Bihar. We have used the location-allocation model for optimality analysis. Our findings reveal that existing locations and arrivals of merchandise at the agricultural markets of Gaya are very close to what might have been if they had been located on the principle of optimality. There are minor deviations, of course. However, as the existing markets have developed in an open region, unlike our cost-optimal locations searched out in a closed region, a discount must be made in favour of the existing locations, and we do not have enough reasons and evidence to conclude that the existing markets are sub-optimally located. We conclude, therefore, that market forces automatically establish location optimality and assert that the existing agricultural markets in Gaya district are location-optimal

Excavation of Silenced Voices: (Re)visiting Menka Shivdasani’s Frazil through the Modern Feminist Discourse of Indian Writing in English

The postmodernist phase of Indian English writing is characterized by the voices of many strong women expressing a feminist exploration of alternative discourses in women’s writing which are distinguished from the patriarchal framework of literary discourse. Along with Kamala Das, Meena Alexander, Imtiaz Dharkar, and Eunice de Souza, Menka Shivdasani is an active voice in contemporary Indian English poetry. Shivdasani is a prolific poet who has written poetry on various social, cultural, religious, and personal issues. Her four poetry collections include Nirvana at Ten Rupees (1990), Stet (2001), Safe House (2015), and Frazil (2018). Through her poetry, she has endeavored to deconstruct the constructed nature of women in patriarchal societies. However, in literary criticism, she has not been explored in detail; thus, Shivdasani deserves to be better known. She is truly an unsung voice in Indian English poetry because of her poetic excellence. The present paper will attempt to (re)visit Shivdasani’s work with particular reference to her recent poetry collection Frazil. The themes it depicts are women’s sensibilities, man-woman relationships, domesticity, myth, culture, religion, memory, loss, and the anxiety of city life. Therefore, the paper will analyze the thematic and structural aspects of her poetry, with assistance from the work of Menka Shivdasani, to move Shivdasani onto the center stage in the postmodernist phase of Indian writing in English

Ecological Memory Consciousness: A Sense of Place Attachment in Uzma Aslam Khan’s The Story of Noble Rot

 In recent years, ecological memory studies have experienced a turning towards place attachment as a significant concern of human consciousness. This growing field of eco-memory studies has notably enriched “our understanding of how memories of ecological change promote a stronger sense of connectedness”1 with place attachment. This attachment functions as the basis for place-based narratives, but these narratives comprise eco-consciousness with nature attachment. Ecological memory refers to a community’s collective knowledge and experiences about its environment, including the natural and cultural elements. Moreover, it highlights significant nomadic cultural practices that uphold cultural unity and produce rural images of places to preserve a shared sense of place value despite being settled far from it. This memory is essential in maintaining the ecological balance of an area and preserving its cultural heritage. In this article we apply ecological memory as a theoretical framework to examine Uzma Aslam Khan’s The Story of Noble Rot (2009), using an ecocritical lens. We affirm that the novel’s progressive moments endorse biodiversity conservation, environmental sustainability, and present a novel depiction of the Cholistan Desert in Pakistan as a place of eco-memory, eco-nostalgia, and eco-trauma, illustrating this canopy location.&nbsp

Decolonial Re-existence through Animist Realism: Water Spirits and Shamanic Mantras in Janice Pariat's Boats on Land

Colonialism's deleterious impact on Indigenous epistemologies has engendered an exigent concern in the project of decoloniality, calling for a re-existence of marginalized cosmovisions. To accomplish this, an epistemic delinking from the paradigm of Eurocentric discourses is imperative in the interest of a comprehensive appreciation and recognition of Indigenous knowledge systems. In this vein, the present study employs the literary trope of animist realism to analyze two short stories from the anthology Boats on Land by the Khasi author, Janice Pariat. Her creative writing explores the animist philosophy of the Khasi community who dwell in the humid tropical State of Meghalaya, India. Through an attentive reading of the animist belief in water spirits and shamanic mantra rituals, this paper critiques colonial narratives of Khasi animist worldviews as "satanic", "supernatural", or psycho-pathological aberrations. The paper presents Khasi animist wisdom as a sophisticated and equitable principle of mutual coexistence and respectful relationality between human and more-than-human realms, replete with spiritual, ecological, and cosmological overtones. Indigenous animist epistemologies are indispensable as sustainable alternatives to the knowledge structures of colonial modernity. The present study contributes to the envisioning of a coexistence of Indigenous and Western knowledge systems in the spirit of mutual recognition and constructive engagement within an evolving epistemological landscape in the ongoing decolonial enterprise

Andaman Island and the historicity of colonial violence: an ecocritical study of Uzma Aslam Khan’s the miraculous true history of Nomi Ali

This study engages with the historical understanding of colonial violence followed by environmental disasters during World War II on Andaman Island. In the mid-twentieth century, the residents of Andaman Island were caught up in a battle between the British and the Japanese empires. These colonisers enslaved the locals, grabbed their land, and pillaged the natural resources. Instead of learning from the indigenous people who had established a community without disrupting the balance of nature, they continued to distract nature and enslavement of the local inhabitants. This research examines a central theme of environmental violence inherent to the colonial project through the shared heterogeneous experience of the Aboriginals. By employing the concept of ‘environmental violence’, this study critiques the violence sabotaged by British and Japanese colonisers to determine the changes in the lives of the fictional characters in Khan’s novel. The findings reveal that Uzma Aslam Khan’s The Miraculous True History of Nomi Ali (2019) might be better considered the historical colonial violence and the rights of the Indigenous people on Andaman Island are the critical components of the activist campaign for the return of their culture, history, and lands. It further reveals that colonial violence is responsible for the perpetuation of recent environmental disasters on Andaman Island

Disparities in Globalization of the World Economies

This paper constructs composite indices of globalization of 131 countries spread over the five continents and classified into World-I, World-II and World-III countries. KOF, the Business Cycle Research Institute in the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich is the source of data used in this study. The Composite Indices of Globalization have been computed by Pena’s method, which attributes the most desirable properties to the indices so constructed. On the basis of these indices, the paper investigates into the trends of globalization and disparities in globalization for a period of 11 years (1999-2009). Disparities have been obtained as the Gini’s coefficient as well as the coefficient of variation. The study finds that in all the three worlds, the trends in globalization are increasing while the trends in the disparities in globalization are decreasing, which suggest global integration and convergence of national economies to a global order. We also find that social indicators of globalization explain the variations in per capita income more potently than economic or political indicators of globalization do

Učinak ampicilina i klorokina na humoralnu imunošku reakciju na goveđi albumin kapsuliran u liposome

Immune suppression resulting from chemoprophylaxis and potential drug interaction were investigated in experimental animals pre-medicated with ampicillin and chloroquine followed by immunization with bovine serum albumin bearing liposomes prepared by the reverse phase evaporation method. The prepared liposomes were evaluated for particle size, entrapment efficiency and in vitro release. Humoral immune response was measured in terms of systemic IgG antibody titre by the ELISA method. The present study showed that 7:3 molar ratio of soya phosphatidylcholine and cholesterol produced liposomes of mean diameter of 235.4 10.3 nm and entrapment efficiency of 41.3 3.2%. Ampicillin significantly (p < 0.05) decreased the antibody titre whereas chloroquine did not reduce the antibody titre significantly. The study will help in programming a new drug management and in characterization of vaccine-drug interaction.Na eksperimentalnim životinjama koje su prvo tretirane ampicilinom i klorokinom a zatim imunizirane goveđim serumskim albuminom s liposomima praćena je supresija imunološkog sustava i potencijalna interakcija lijekova. Liposomi su pripravljeni metodom reverzno-fazne evaporacije, a određena im je veličina čestica, količina supstancije koju mogu inkorporirati i oslobađanje in vitro. Humoralna imunološka reakcija praćena je određivanjem titra IgG antitijela ELISA metodom. Rezultati rada pokazuju da liposomi s fosfatidilkolinom iz soje i kolesterolom u molnom omjeru 7:3 imaju prosječni promjer 235.4 10.3 nm i sposobnost inkorporacije 41.3 3.2%. Ampicilin je značajno (p < 0.05) smanjio titar antitijela, a klorokin nije. Ovi će rezultati biti korisni u programiranju novog režima primjene lijekova i u praćenju interakcije između cjepiva i lijeka