G.J.V. Prasad, ed. India in Translation, Translation in India.

G.J.V. Prasad introduces his new volume by playfully listing the various names used to refer to India, initially derived from the river Sindhu, later called Indus by foreigners, while other names, like Bharat and Hindustan, still persist in everyday speech. He points at the very flexible, and at times contradictory use of the lexicon, with the word Hindustan belonging both to Muslim rule during the Mughal period and to Hindu extreme-right discourse in more recent history. Multilingual India,..

Judith Misrahi-Barak, K. Satyanarayana, and Nicole Thiara, eds., Dalit Text: Aesthetics and Politics Re-Imagined

Seventy years ago, under the aegis of B.R. Ambedkar (1891–1956), the leader who inspired the Dalit movement, caste discrimination and untouchability were abolished from the Indian constitution. Even though the rigid, ritual shunning of Dalits has indeed faded, a July 2020 article from The Economist still reported that “with dismal regularity news stories tell of higher-caste people maiming, raping or murdering Dalits for such slights as daring to sport a moustache, ride a horse or, worst of a..

Exception

Common wisdom expressed in the phrase “the exception confirms the rule” encapsulates the peculiar status of exception: both an oddity and a foil to a source of authority, both a stand-alone, one-of-a-kind object of awe, and an empty vessel waiting to be ascribed meaning. In the field of political science, the “state of exception,” though inherent to all human organizations, has routinely become synonymous with counterterrorism, which threatens the law and human rights in the name of “the idea..

A Pilgrimage to the West: Unsettling Images of India and Canada in Anita Desai’s “Winterscape”

Dans “Winterscape” (2000), Anita Desai met en scène le court séjour à Toronto de deux sœurs indiennes, veuves, venues rendre visite à leur fils et neveu à l’occasion de la naissance de son propre fils. Le titre de la nouvelle fait référence à leur photographie prise lors de leur séjour, alors que, elles-mêmes vêtues de blanc, elles contemplaient l’hiver canadien. Cet article vise à montrer comment ce moment paradigmatique du monde contemporain, marqué par les circulations et les migrations, concentre la difficulté fondamentale qui réside dans l’échange des regards, de l’expérience, de l’histoire, et dans la traduction de ces différences. En recourant à cette image qui fixe la présence de l’Inde sur le sol canadien, la nouvelle impose un moment de suspens qui permet de fabriquer un imaginaire transnational où peut s’élaborer un récit commun

Warwick Research Collective (Sharae Deckard, Nicolas Lawrence, Neil Lazarus, Graeme Mac Donald, Upamanyu Pablo Mukherjee, Stephen Shapiro, and Benita Parry), Combined and Uneven Development: Towards a New Theory of World-Literature

“The periphery is where the future reveals itself” (J. G. Ballard). The epigraph to this impressive new work by the Warwick Research Collective encapsulates the project’s alternative and somewhat idealistic spirit. Such a statement gestures towards revelatory ends and justifies a method relying on Marxist class struggle theory. Yet, giving voice to what is excluded from the center is reminiscent of the projects of both subaltern and postcolonial studies, with which the present book shares sim..

Effect of a legume cover crop (Mucuna pruriens var. utilis) on soil carbon in an ultisol under maize cultivation in southern Benin

Long term fallow is no longer possible in densely populated tropical areas, but legume cover crops can help maintain soil fertility. Our work aimed to study changes in soil carbon in a sandy loam Ultisol in Benin, which involved a 12-year experiment on three maize cropping systems under manual tillage: traditional no-input cultivation (T), mineral fertilized cultivation (NPK), and association with Mucuna pruriens (M). The origin of soil carbon was also determined through the natural abundance of soil and biomass C-13. In T, NPK and M changes in soil carbon at 0-40 cm were -0.2, +0.2 and +1.3 t C ha(-1) yr(-1), with residue carbon amounting to 3.5, 6.4 and 10.0 t C ha(-1) yr(-1), respectively. After 12 years of experimentation, carbon originating from maize in litter-plus-soil (0-40 cm) represented less than 4% of both total carbon and overall maize residue carbon. In contrast, carbon originating from mucuna in litter-plus-soil represented more than 50% of both total carbon and overall mucuna residue carbon in M, possibly due to accelerated mineralization of native soil carbon (priming effect) and slow mulch decomposition. Carbon originating from weeds in litter-plus-soil represented c. 10% of both total carbon and overall weed residue carbon in T and NPK. Thus mucuna mulch was very effective in promoting carbon sequestration in the soil studied

Getting the Message Right on Nature‐based Solutions to Climate Change

Nature‐based solutions (NbS) - solutions to societal challenges that involve working with nature - have recently gained popularity as an integrated approach that can address climate change and biodiversity loss, while supporting sustainable development. Although well‐designed NbS can deliver multiple benefits for people and nature, much of the recent limelight has been on tree planting for carbon sequestration. There are serious concerns that this is distracting from the need to rapidly phase out use of fossil fuels and protect existing intact ecosystems. There are also concerns that the expansion of forestry framed as a climate change mitigation solution is coming at the cost of carbon rich and biodiverse native ecosystems and local resource rights. Here, we discuss the promise and pitfalls of the NbS framing and its current political traction, and we present recommendations on how to get the message right. We urge policymakers, practitioners and researchers to consider the synergies and trade‐offs associated with NbS and to follow four guiding principles to enable NbS to provide sustainable benefits to society: (1) NbS are not a substitute for the rapid phase out of fossil fuels; (2) NbS involve a wide range of ecosystems on land and in the sea, not just forests; (3) NbS are implemented with the full engagement and consent of Indigenous Peoples and local communities in a way that respects their cultural and ecological rights; and (4) NbS should be explicitly designed to provide measurable benefits for biodiversity. Only by following these guidelines will we design robust and resilient NbS that address the urgent challenges of climate change and biodiversity loss, sustaining nature and people together, now and into the future

Coherent signature of warming-induced extreme sub-continental boreal wildfire activity 4800 and 1100 years BP

Climate changes are expected to progressively increase extreme wildfire frequency in forests. Finding past analogs for periods of extreme biomass burning would provide valuable insights regarding what the effects of warming might be for tree species distribution, ecosystem integrity, atmospheric greenhouse gas balance, and human safety. Here, we used a network of 42 lake-sediment charcoal records across a ~2000 km transect in eastern boreal North America to infer widespread periods of wildfire activity in association with past climate conditions. The reconstructed fluctuations in biomass burning are broadly consistent with variations in ethane concentration in Greenland polar ice cores. Biomass burning fluctuations also significantly co-varied with Greenland temperatures estimated from ice cores, at least for the past 6000 years. Our retrospective analysis of past fire activity allowed us to identify two fire periods centered around 4800 and 1100 BP, coinciding with large-scale warming in northern latitudes and having respectively affected an estimated ~71% and ~57% of the study area. These two periods co-occurred with widespread decreases in mean fire-return intervals. The two periods are likely the best analogs for what could be anticipated in terms of impacts of fire on ecosystem services provided by these forests in coming decades

Seasonal trends of Amazonian rainforest phenology, net primary productivity, and carbon allocation.:Seasonal trends of Amazonian forests.

The seasonality of solar irradiance and precipitation may regulate seasonal variations in tropical forests carbon cycling. Controversy remains over their importance as drivers of seasonal dynamics of net primary productivity in tropical forests. We use ground data from nine lowland Amazonian forest plots collected over 3 years to quantify the monthly primary productivity (NPP) of leaves, reproductive material, woody material, and fine roots over an annual cycle. We distinguish between forests that do not experience substantial seasonal moisture stress (“humid sites”) and forests that experience a stronger dry season (“dry sites”). We find that forests from both precipitation regimes maximize leaf NPP over the drier season, with a peak in production in August at both humid (mean 0.39 ± 0.03 Mg C ha−1 month−1 in July, n = 4) and dry sites (mean 0.49 ± 0.03 Mg C ha−1 month−1 in September, n = 8). We identify two distinct seasonal carbon allocation patterns (the allocation of NPP to a specific organ such as wood leaves or fine roots divided by total NPP). The forests monitored in the present study show evidence of either (i) constant allocation to roots and a seasonal trade-off between leaf and woody material or (ii) constant allocation to wood and a seasonal trade-off between roots and leaves. Finally, we find strong evidence of synchronized flowering at the end of the dry season in both precipitation regimes. Flower production reaches a maximum of 0.047 ± 0.013 and 0.031 ± 0.004 Mg C ha−1 month−1 in November, in humid and dry sites, respectively. Fruitfall production was staggered throughout the year, probably reflecting the high variation in varying times to development and loss of fruit among species