Decision Making Power among Rural Women at Gross-Root Level

In the present paper an attempt has been made to assess the role of women in the decision making process of household regarding expenditure at grocery, purchase of seeds, fertilizers, selecting the crop, harvesting of crops, hiring labor, weeding and threshing of crops. Also an attempt has been made to analyze how female respondents manage their household activities. Using multi-stage sampling our analysis reveals that women are only mere spectators in decision making regarding agricultural activities, as only eight percent respondents were taking active role in decision making process. Further we found that almost all kinds of domestic work is done by the female respondents themselves. Key words: Household activity, education, decision making, land ownership, management

Socio-Economic Analysis of Child Labor in the Carpet Industry of Kashmir: A Micro Study

In the present paper an attempt has been made to study socio economic characteristics of working children in the Carpet Industry of Kashmir. It includes their social profile, age, education, nature of employment, family type, economic status, child's contribution to family income etc. Based on the primary data the study reveals most of the child labors were in the age group of 11 -14 years and among them female child labor outnumber male child labor. Economic compulsion and educational backwardness of parents were the main reasons forcing children to leave the school and join labor market at different point of time. Our analysis shows that there is negative correlation between percentage contribution of child labor to family income and total household income. In other words as family income increases, the proportion of child's contribution to family income decreases and vice- versa. Keywords: Child labour, sex, education, employment, family, dropout, carpet industry

Mollifying Poverty through Microfinance: Indian Perspective

The micro finance is a tool through which the poverty level would be reduced because in India there are obstacles like population explosion, crime, illiteracy etc. The system which is concerned to eradicate the poverty is not keen to abolish the menace so people have to come out and get rid of this menace. The present paper is the slogan or promise with people who are suffering with the menace of poverty. We want to confine that how we reduce poverty level in our motherland India. And we are using the tool Micro Finance for empowerment. In every country there are different ways to empowerment. And as far as India is concerned, we know that India is multi-cultured, so it has to take various steps in Micro-Finance because every region is different from its counterpart and vice versa. It is up to state governments to involve themselves to see the things which are appropriate to be taken because they have records in which they can go and use as blue print for development and empowerment. Keywords: Micro-finance, Poverty, credit, income, saving, borrowing

Mycobacterium tuberculosis: Macrophage Takeover and Modulation of Innate Effector Responses

Macrophages mediate the first line of defense in the host against various intracellular pathogens. They are armed with several immune-effector mechanisms to detect and combat pathogens. However, intracellular pathogens have developed strategies to overcome the macrophage protective immune responses and colonize inside the macrophages. Tuberculosis (TB), both pulmonary and extrapulmonary, is an infectious disease of global concern caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis. M. tuberculosis is a highly successful pathogen and has acquired various strategies to downregulate critical innate-effector immune responses of macrophages such as phagosome-lysosome fusion, antigen presentation, autophagy, and inhibition of reactive oxygen (ROI) and reactive nitrogen (RNI) species to ensure its longer survival inside the macrophages. In addition to these, the bacilli also modulate T cell immune response which can help the bacilli to survive inside the host for a long time. In this chapter, we focus to describe important macrophage innate defense mechanisms and the signaling that can influence T cell adaptive response and the strategies adopted by the bacilli to exploit these signaling cascades to favor its replication and persistence inside the macrophages for establishing a productive infection

An Empirical Analysis of Women Participation in Farm Activities in Rural Kashmir

The present paper analyses the participation of women in farm activities in Kashmir valley. Information has been collected from 200 households with the help of multi- stage sampling. Our analysis reveals that  in Rice cultivation all the activities except weeding and ploughing is dominated by women in the sample area, likewise in  maize all the activities are dominated by women. Only one activity in the sample area which is a joint venture is horticulture. It has been found that over load of work and extreme weather conditions affect the health of women workers as majority of them reported different types of ailments related to their work. Keywords: Women, Rice, Maize, Apple, Health, Farm activities

An Analysis of Working Conditions and Impact of Work on Child Labor

The present paper is an attempt to analyze the terms of employment and working conditions of the child workersin the carpet weaving industry. Employer's consideration to employ child labor, area from where child workersare recruited and surety for employment after training is also included. In addition to the terms of work likemonthly wages, hours of work, rest period, provision of leave, holidays etc. The data on the working conditionsand the impact of the work on health, social behavior of the child labor, physical and welfare facilities have alsobeen discussed in this paper. An attempt has been made to highlight the nature of supervision, grievance handling,job satisfaction and other allied aspects related with the work life of the child workers. The data has beencollected from 162 child labors, 82 parents and 50 employers with the help interview schedules. Our analysisreveals that the conditions of child workers who had been working in their own family carpet weaving units wereslightly better in comparison to the employed ones. By and large, employers preferred children from lower castesat cheaper rates. Children usually work 6 to 8 hours per day. Half of the child labors were earning ` 500 to `700 per month and the rest were earning below ` 500 per month.Key words: working conditions, health, behavior, employers, parents, wages, carpet weaving

Dietary fiber from underutilized plant resources—a positive approach for valorization of fruit and vegetable wastes

Agri-food industries generate enormous amounts of fruit and vegetable processing wastes, which opens up an important research area aimed towards minimizing and managing them effciently to support zero wastes and/or circular economy concept. These wastes remain underutilized owing to a lack of appropriate processing technologies vital for their effcient valorization, especially for recovery of health beneficial bioactives like dietary fibers. Dietary fiber finds wide applications in food and pharmaceutical industries and holds high promise as a potential food additive and/or as a functional food ingredient to meet the techno-functional purposes important for developing health-promoting value-added products. Based on this, the present review has been designed to support ‘zero waste’ and ‘waste to wealth’ concepts. In addition, the focus revolves around providing updated information on various sustainability challenges incurred towards valorization of fruit and vegetable wastes for extraction of health promoting dietary fibers

CD34+ hematopoietic progenitor cells enumeration and mononuclear cell count: an experience from a tertiary care centre

Background: This study was conducted to assess the CD34+ hematopoietic progenitor cells enumeration by flow cytometry and the utility of performing mononuclear cell count before performing the Stem cell enumeration. Collection was done on two consecutive days with CD34+ hematopoietic progenitor cell enumeration of both the samples. Mononuclear cell counts were done in all the patients. The purpose of the study was to do counts directly from the leukapheresis pack and see the reliability of this practice.Methods: Samples were collected from the leukapheresis pack and subjected to mononuclear cell count and CD34+ hematopoietic progenitor cells enumeration by flow cytometty before harvesting.Results: A total of 66 samples from 34 patients were taken up for the study. 76.47% of our cases were that of multiple myeloma and 17.64% of the cases were that of non Hodgkin lymphoma and 2.94% cases each of neuroblastoma and Hodgkin lymphoma. It was noted that the mononuclear cell counts correlated well with the CD34+ HPC in most of the cases with MNC being above 4 x 108 per pack per kg body weight in cases where CD34+ HPC counts were more than the desired lower limit of 2 x 106 per pack per kg body weight.Conclusions: It was observed that flow cytometric enumeration of CD34+ hematopoietic progenitor cells directly from the leukapheresis pack gave satisfactory results even without doing peripheral blood CD34+ HPCs enumeration before leukapheresis. Also, in our study we were able to set a limit of mononuclear Cell at 4 x 108 per pack/kg BW as counts beyond that always correlated with the more accurate flow cytometric method of CD34+ HPC count of more than 2 x106 per pack/kg body weight, therefore acting as a crude method for assessing the mobilization

Analyzing the Islamist and new-Islamist discourse on minorities in an Islamic state

The call by the Islamist scholars for an Islamic state governed by the sharia law has given rise to the criticism that Islamic state would involve the discrimination of religious minorities and their reversion to inferior or second-class status. In this paper, the Islamic discourse on non-Muslims living in an Islamic state is examined under two trends: Islamist and the New Islamist trend. This paper is an attempt to highlight and understand the Islamic discourse on the citizenship of non-Muslim minorities. It will also contribute to how this discourse has changed over time. More importantly, it will put forth the efforts made by New-Islamist scholars who associate themselves with wasatiyyah movement to reconcile the Islamist and modern concept ofcitizenship. Notwithstanding, the objectives of this paper is threefold: to discuss the relationship between Muslim majority and non-Muslim minority in a proposed Islamic state; to identify the basic rights such as freedom of religion and other rights, that are available to non-Muslims residents of an Islamic state; and to assess how far the new-Islamist scholars have been successful in reconciling the traditional Islamist discourse with the modern nation-state notion of citizenship