Unmasking the Exception: Covid and the Creation of Enemy in India

In the contemporary political context, a state of exception refers to the ways by which the major liberal democracies are driven by the growing accretion of discriminatory executive power, increasingly evading existing legislative and juridical institutions. Italian thinker Giorgio Agamben’s work becomes more relevant here. Agamben theorizes the state of exception and claims that it has become a dominant paradigm of government in contemporary politics. Agamben challenges the responses the state had while immediately dealing with the Covid-19 pandemic, which is merely normalizing the state of exception as it actually produced a policification of the municipalities and areas in the guise of tackling the virus. The Indian state like others has upholded the concept of lockdown as the only measure to fight the pandemic but the interesting aspect is the designing of enemies to deal with the problem. The paper argues that the Indian state has used the pandemic to blatantly create the “other” in a way pursued the agenda of exception. The method is qualitative, especially focusing on discourse analysis. The conclusion demonstrates that the measures taken by apparently the largest democracy in the name of fighting Covid establishes Agamben’s argument that the world is transforming into a gigantic concentration camp

Unmasking the Exception: Covid and the Creation of Enemy in India

In the contemporary political context, a state of exception refers to the ways by which the major liberal democracies are driven by the growing accretion of discriminatory executive power, increasingly evading existing legislative and juridical institutions. Italian thinker Giorgio Agamben’s work becomes more relevant here. Agamben theorizes the state of exception and claims that it has become a dominant paradigm of government in contemporary politics. Agamben challenges the responses the state had while immediately dealing with the Covid-19 pandemic, which is merely normalizing the state of exception as it actually produced a policification of the municipalities and areas in the guise of tackling the virus. The Indian state like others has upholded the concept of lockdown as the only measure to fight the pandemic but the interesting aspect is the designing of enemies to deal with the problem. The paper argues that the Indian state has used the pandemic to blatantly create the “other” in a way pursued the agenda of exception. The method is qualitative, especially focusing on discourse analysis. The conclusion demonstrates that the measures taken by apparently the largest democracy in the name of fighting Covid establishes Agamben’s argument that the world is transforming into a gigantic concentration camp

Microglial activation induces neuronal death in Chandipura virus infection

Neurotropic viruses induce neurodegeneration either directly by activating host death domains or indirectly through host immune response pathways. Chandipura Virus (CHPV) belonging to family Rhabdoviridae is ranked among the emerging pathogens of the Indian subcontinent. Previously we have reported that CHPV induces neurodegeneration albeit the root cause of this degeneration is still an open question. In this study we explored the role of microglia following CHPV infection. Phenotypic analysis of microglia through lectin and Iba-1 staining indicated cells were in an activated state post CHPV infection in cortical region of the infected mouse brain. Cytokine Bead Array (CBA) analysis revealed comparatively higher cytokine and chemokine levels in the same region. Increased level of inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS), cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2), Nitric Oxide (NO) and Reactive Oxygen species (ROS) in CHPV infected mouse brain indicated a strong inflammatory response to CHPV infection. Hence it was hypothesized through our analyses that this inflammatory response may stimulate the neuronal death following CHPV infection. In order to validate our hypothesis supernatant from CHPV infected microglial culture was used to infect neuronal cell line and primary neurons. This study confirmed the bystander killing of neurons due to activation of microglia post CHPV infection

Graph theoretic network analysis reveals protein pathways underlying cell death following neurotropic viral infection

Complex protein networks underlie any cellular function. Certain proteins play a pivotal role in many network configurations, disruption of whose expression proves fatal to the cell. An efficient method to tease out such key proteins in a network is still unavailable. Here, we used graph-theoretic measures on protein-protein interaction data (interactome) to extract biophysically relevant information about individual protein regulation and network properties such as formation of function specific modules (sub-networks) of proteins. We took 5 major proteins that are involved in neuronal apoptosis post Chandipura Virus (CHPV) infection as seed proteins in a database to create a meta-network of immediately interacting proteins (1st order network). Graph theoretic measures were employed to rank the proteins in terms of their connectivity and the degree upto which they can be organized into smaller modules (hubs). We repeated the analysis on 2nd order interactome that includes proteins connected directly with proteins of 1st order. FADD and Casp-3 were connected maximally to other proteins in both analyses, thus indicating their importance in neuronal apoptosis. Thus, our analysis provides a blueprint for the detection and validation of protein networks disrupted by viral infections

Role of plant secondary metabolites in combating pest induced stress in brinjal (Solanum melongena L.)

Brinjal or eggplant (Solanum melongena L.) is known as a vegetable of diet because it contains high moisture and low calorific value. It is also a good source of antioxidants and phytonutrients. Brinjal is widely grown in the South and South-East Asian countries and is the second most important vegetable in India. It belongs to the Solanaceae family. Shoot and fruit borer (Leucinodes orbonalis) pest of brinjal is the most widespread one and it has the ability to affect any of the developmental stages of brinjal. Plants and their insect herbivores have had a long and intimate evolutionary association that has resulted in many complex interactions mediated by specialized plant metabolites like phenolics, alkaloids, terpenoids, cyanogenic glycosides etc. Frequent and excessive use of insecticides has become a common practice now which only increases the probability of resistance development and resurgence of pest. Hence to develop an effective approach to combat this pest understanding of its feeding mechanism and chemistry of its interaction with the fruit is necessary. The importance of the secondary metabolites in the field of chemical biology and in pest management is discussed in this study

Fast Approximate Clearance Evaluation for Rovers with Articulated Suspension Systems

We present a light-weight body-terrain clearance evaluation algorithm for the automated path planning of NASA's Mars 2020 rover. Extraterrestrial path planning is challenging due to the combination of terrain roughness and severe limitation in computational resources. Path planning on cluttered and/or uneven terrains requires repeated safety checks on all the candidate paths at a small interval. Predicting the future rover state requires simulating the vehicle settling on the terrain, which involves an inverse-kinematics problem with iterative nonlinear optimization under geometric constraints. However, such expensive computation is intractable for slow spacecraft computers, such as RAD750, which is used by the Curiosity Mars rover and upcoming Mars 2020 rover. We propose the Approximate Clearance Evaluation (ACE) algorithm, which obtains conservative bounds on vehicle clearance, attitude, and suspension angles without iterative computation. It obtains those bounds by estimating the lowest and highest heights that each wheel may reach given the underlying terrain, and calculating the worst-case vehicle configuration associated with those extreme wheel heights. The bounds are guaranteed to be conservative, hence ensuring vehicle safety during autonomous navigation. ACE is planned to be used as part of the new onboard path planner of the Mars 2020 rover. This paper describes the algorithm in detail and validates our claim of conservatism and fast computation through experiments

Modulation of neuronal proteome profile in response to Japanese Encephalitis Virus infection

In this study we have reported the in vivo proteomic changes during Japanese Encephalitis Virus (JEV) infection in combination with in vitro studies which will help in the comprehensive characterization of the modifications in the host metabolism in response to JEV infection. We performed a 2-DE based quantitative proteomic study of JEV-infected mouse brain as well as mouse neuroblastoma (Neuro2a) cells to analyze the host response to this lethal virus. 56 host proteins were found to be differentially expressed post JEV infection (defined as exhibiting ≥1.5-fold change in protein abundance upon JEV infection). Bioinformatics analyses were used to generate JEV-regulated host response networks which reported that the identified proteins were found to be associated with various cellular processes ranging from intracellular protein transport, cellular metabolism and ER stress associated unfolded protein response. JEV was found to invade the host protein folding machinery to sustain its survival and replication inside the host thereby generating a vigorous unfolded protein response, subsequently triggering a number of pathways responsible for the JEV associated pathologies. The results were also validated using a human cell line to correlate them to the human response to JEV. The present investigation is the first report on JEV-host interactome in in vivo model and will be of potential interest for future antiviral research in this field

Network analysis reveals common host protein/s modulating pathogenesis of neurotropic viruses

Network analysis through graph theory provides a quantitative approach to characterize specific proteins and their constituent assemblies that underlie host-pathogen interactions. In the present study, graph theory was used to analyze the interactome designed out of 50 differentially expressing proteins from proteomic analysis of Chandipura Virus (CHPV, Family: Rhabdoviridae) infected mouse brain tissue to identify the primary candidates for intervention. Using the measure of degree centrality, that quantifies the connectedness of a single protein within a milieu of several other interacting proteins, DJ-1 was selected for further molecular validation. To elucidate the generality of DJ-1’s role in propagating infection its role was also monitored in another RNA virus, Japanese Encephalitis Virus (JEV, Family: Flaviviridae) infection. Concurrently, DJ-1 got over-expressed in response to reactive oxygen species (ROS) generation following viral infection which in the early phase of infection migrated to mitochondria to remove dysfunctional mitochondria through the process of mitophagy. DJ-1 was also observed to modulate the viral replication and interferon responses along with low-density lipoprotein (LDL) receptor expression in neurons. Collectively these evidences reveal a comprehensive role for DJ-1 in neurotropic virus infection in the brain

Unmasking the Exception: Covid and the Creation of Enemy in India

In the contemporary political context, a state of exception refers to the ways by which the major liberal democracies are driven by the growing accretion of discriminatory executive power, increasingly evading existing legislative and juridical institutions. Italian thinker Giorgio Agamben’s work becomes more relevant here. Agamben theorizes the state of exception and claims that it has become a dominant paradigm of government in contemporary politics. Agamben challenges the responses the state had while immediately dealing with the Covid-19 pandemic, which is merely normalizing the state of exception as it actually produced a policification of the municipalities and areas in the guise of tackling the virus. The Indian state like others has upholded the concept of lockdown as the only measure to fight the pandemic but the interesting aspect is the designing of enemies to deal with the problem. The paper argues that the Indian state has used the pandemic to blatantly create the “other” in a way pursued the agenda of exception. The method is qualitative, especially focusing on discourse analysis. The conclusion demonstrates that the measures taken by apparently the largest democracy in the name of fighting Covid establishes Agamben’s argument that the world is transforming into a gigantic concentration camp