8 research outputs found

    We Deliver: The Condition of the Woman Academic in India Today

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    This auto-ethnographic essay draws upon Foucault’s Archaeology of Knowledge to discuss the condition of Indian women in the Humanities in academia today. While acknowledging the encouragingly gender-inclusive projections in India’s National Education Policy vision statement from 2020, I argue for more probing engagement with the concrete reality of being a woman teacher and researcher in the increasingly competitive and corporatized milieu of higher education. My methodology has been a close reading of the NEP’s vision statement to analyze recurrences of terms and concepts as pointers to its discursive field. I argue that this policy statement implicitly envisions an empowered new-age Indian woman teacher, notionally mother to all her pupils, aiding their awakening intuitively from the very heart of her experiences, skills, and memories. Against this somewhat idealized feminine ecology of the NEP in principle and spirit, I juxtapose the actual everyday choices and struggles of women in academic positions. Does the decolonization of education in spirit also impart actual transformative agency to women academics? Will women be listened to? Not one essential woman, but heterogeneous women—women across different strata, identities, professional spaces, and ideologies? Above all, my essay probes the challenges and dividends of transitioning to a more home-grown teaching and research methodology derived from current Western academic models. For instance, what forms and lines of interdisciplinarity could best serve the interest of quality control in research and teaching? In the third and last section, I argue that women are equal contributors in the discourse of academics in the future. We are committed stakeholders that can help enhance collective performance and efficiency in ways that are commensurate and compatible with our particular needs, contexts, restraints, aptitudes, and encumbrances. I conclude my essay by urging colleagues in academia, women and men, to recognize that we can truly deliver on this challenge only in a spirit of intellectual, ethical, and interpersonal collaboration and collegiality

    A retrospective analysis of serological & molecular testing data on dengue fever in Kolkata & adjacent districts during 2016-2019

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    Background & objectives: Regional Virus Research and Diagnostic Laboratory established at ICMR-National Institute of Cholera and Enteric Diseases (NICED) regularly receives samples for dengue screening and serotyping from patients of acute febrile illness (AFI) from Kolkata and adjacent districts. In this study, data over a three year period (August 2016-July 2019) was retrospectively analyzed to provide insight into the epidemiological trends of dengue fever in this region. Methods: Serological screening of dengue was performed by detection of NS1 antigen and/or immunoglobulin M (IgM) antibody. Dengue serotyping was done by conventional or real-time reverse transcriptase–PCR. The data were analyzed to describe the distribution of dengue with respect to age of patient, duration of fever on the day of blood collection and month of the year. Zip codes were used for spatial plotting. Results: Out of the 24,474 samples received from Kolkata and its adjacent districts (Hooghly, Howrah, North and South 24 Parganas), 38.3 per cent (95% confidence interval: 37.7-38.9%) samples were screened positive for dengue. The correlation between age and dengue positivity was found to be weak. A combination of dengue NS1 antigen and dengue IgM antibody detection may be a better option for detecting dengue positivity compared to a single test. Most AFI cases were tested from August to November during the study period, with maximum dengue positivity noted during September (45.9%). The predominant serotype of 2016, dengue virus serotype 1 (DENV-1), was almost entirely replaced by DENV-2 in 2017 and 2018. Interpretation & conclusions: Dengue continues to be an important cause of AFI in the region and round-the-year preventive measures are required for its control. Serotype switching is alarming and should be monitored routinely

    Abstracts of National Conference on Biological, Biochemical, Biomedical, Bioenergy, and Environmental Biotechnology

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    This book contains the abstracts of the papers presented at the National Conference on Biological, Biochemical, Biomedical, Bioenergy, and Environmental Biotechnology (NCB4EBT-2021) Organized by the Department of Biotechnology, National Institute of Technology Warangal, India held on 29–30 January 2021. This conference is the first of its kind organized by NIT-W which covered an array of interesting topics in biotechnology. This makes it a bit special as it brings together researchers from different disciplines of biotechnology, which in turn will also open new research and cooperation fields for them. Conference Title: National Conference on Biological, Biochemical, Biomedical, Bioenergy, and Environmental BiotechnologyConference Acronym: NCB4EBT-2021Conference Date: 29–30 January 2021Conference Location: Online (Virtual Mode)Conference Organizer: Department of Biotechnology, National Institute of Technology Warangal, Indi
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