From "Book-view" to "Field-view": Social Anthropological Constructions of the Indian Village

The Indian village has often been seen as the ultimate signifier of "authentic native life", a place where one could see or observe the "real" India and develop an understanding of the way local people organised their social life. Though it was during the colonial period that the Indian society was first essentialised as a land of 'village republics', the later traditions of scholarship too have continued to treat village as the basic unit of the Indian society. This paper attempts a critical examination of the social anthropological studies of the Indian village that were carried out during the 1950s and 1960s. It focuses on the way village social life was constructed in these monographs and in what ways these constructions of the Indian village differed from and continued with the earlier constructions in the colonial ethnography.

17-21 GHz Low-Noise Amplifier with Embedded Interference Rejection

The ever-growing demand for high performance wireless connectivity has led to the development of fifth-generation (5G) wireless communication standards as well as satellite communication (Satcom). Both 5G wireless communications and Satcom use higher carrier frequencies than traditional standards such as 4G and WiFi. While the higher carrier frequencies allow for larger bandwidths and faster data rates, they come with the cost of high free-space path loss. This high loss necessitates the use of active phased array antennas, which can require hundreds of integrated circuits (ICs) designed in Complimentary Metal-Oxide Semiconductor (CMOS) processes. Furthermore, in a future world with ubiquitous 5G wireless base stations and Satcom users, it is conceivable that Satcom receivers can be jammed by high-power Satcom transmitters and 5G signals. Therefore, Satcom phased arrays must be designed for resilience against these sources of interference while supporting high data rates. One of the key components in a Satcom receiver is the low-noise amplifier (LNA). It is responsible for amplifying the weak, noisy signal received from the satellite into a signal with sufficiently high signal-to-noise ratio for demodulation. One possible solution for making the phased array resilient to sources of interference is to embed filtering in the LNA. This thesis presents two LNA designs that employ embedded filtering for resiliency to interference from 5G wireless signals and Satcom transmitters. First, the circuit-level specifications of a 17.7 - 21.2 GHz (K-band) LNA for satellite communication phased array beamformers are derived from the system requirements. Next, the LNA designs are presented. The first LNA is designed to have out-of-band filtering at 24-30 GHz, which corresponds to the bands containing both 5G and Satcom transmitter interferers. The second LNA is designed to have out-of-band filtering at 27-30 GHz, which addresses a different scenario where the Satcom transmitter is the sole source of interference. Both LNAs are implemented in the Global Foundries 130nm 8XP Silicon-Germanium Bipolar CMOS (SiGe BiCMOS) process. A novel transformer feedback notch is introduced that enhances the filtering capabilities of the amplifier. The full electromagnetic simulation of the first LNA shows a peak gain of 28.8 dB, a minimum noise figure of 1.85 dB, and and input 1 dB compression point (IP1dB) greater than -17 dBm between 24 and 30 GHz. The second LNA shows a peak gain of 27.9 dB, a minimum noise figure of 1.78 dB, and an IP1dB greater than -15 dBm between 27 and 30 GHz. Both LNAs meet specifications sufficient for a Satcom receiver at the same time as having resiliency to out-of-band interference sources

Introduction. Towards a Sociology of India’s Economic Elite: Beyond the Neo-Orientalist and Managerialist Perspectives

Is there such a thing as an “Indian way of doing business”? Many publications, whether academic or not, indeed assert the singularity of Indians’ approach to business, often mobilizing an orientalist gaze and reifying the peculiar conception of business that supposedly prevails in the subcontinent. This special issue of SAMAJ proposes to move away from a focus on “doing business” in order to rather dedicate more attention to the role of economic elites in the production and reproduction of in..

Caste: experiences in South Asia and beyond

This is an accepted manuscript of an article published by Taylor and Francis in Contemporary South Asia on 03/07/2017, available online: https://doi.org/10.1080/09584935.2017.1360246 The accepted version of the publication may differ from the final published version.This special issue of Contemporary South Asia seeks to capture the diversity and situatedness of the caste experience and deepen our understanding of caste dynamics and lives in the twenty-first century. In this Introduction, we highlight the continuing salience of caste, offer an overview of theoretical understandings of caste and foreground the importance of analysing caste in the present as a dynamic form of human relations, rather than a remnant of tradition. Following on from this, we highlight the increasingly global spread of caste and reflect on what happens to caste-based social relations when they traverse continents. In conclusion, we introduce the papers that make up this special issue. Taken together, they speak to changes in attitudes towards caste, but also the persistence of caste-based identities and dynamics in India and Britain. Even though the papers presented in this special issue work with the assumption of caste being a reality in and among the Indians, caste-like status hierarchies have existed in most, if not all, societies, and they continue to persist and intersect with other forms of differences/inequalities.Published versio

Contemporary outcomes of complete atrioventricular septal defect repair: Analysis of the Society of Thoracic Surgeons Congenital Heart Surgery Database

ObjectiveContemporary outcomes data for complete atrioventricular septal defect (CAVSD) repair are limited. We sought to describe early outcomes of CAVSD repair across a large multicenter cohort, and explore potential associations with patient characteristics, including age, weight, and genetic syndromes.MethodsPatients in the Society of Thoracic Surgeons Congenital Heart Surgery Database having repair of CAVSD (2008-2011) were included. Preoperative, operative, and outcomes data were described. Univariate associations between patient factors and outcomes were described.ResultsOf 2399 patients (101 centers), 78.4% had Down syndrome. Median age at surgery was 4.6 months (interquartile range, 3.5-6.1 months), with 11.8% (n = 284) aged ≤2.5 months. Median weight at surgery was 5.0 kg (interquartile range, 4.3-5.8 kg) with 6.3% (n = 151) < 3.5 kg. Pulmonary artery band removal at CAVSD repair was performed in 122 patients (4.6%). Major complications occurred in 9.8%, including permanent pacemaker implantation in 2.7%. Median postoperative length of stay (PLOS) was 8 days (interquartile range, 5-14 days). Overall hospital mortality was 3.0%. Weight < 3.5 kg and age ≤ 2.5 months were associated with higher mortality, longer PLOS, and increased frequency of major complications. Patients with Down syndrome had lower rates of mortality and morbidities than other patients; PLOS was similar.ConclusionsIn a contemporary multicenter cohort, most patients with CAVSD have repair early in the first year of life. Prior pulmonary artery band is rare. Hospital mortality is generally low, although patients at extremes of low weight and younger age have worse outcomes. Mortality and major complication rates are lower in patients with Down syndrome

Merchants of knowledge: Petty retail and differentiation without consolidation among farmers in Maharashtra, India

This article focuses on the intermediary figure of the village‐level petty retailer of chemical inputs, providing an account of the everyday relationships of farmers with transnational and domestic agribusiness capital. Retailers are figures from whom farmers purchase seeds, fertilizers, pesticides, and other chemicals. The article traces the rise of village‐level retailers in western Maharashtra, India, since the 1990s, and finds that Maratha (a dominant landholding cultivator caste) households have ventured into retailing. Further, farmers depend on retailers for credit, technical knowledge, and for the sale of their harvest. By analysing the pressures and risks of petty retail, visible in interactions with farmers, the article argues that even as retailing provides avenues for upward mobility to petty agricultural commodity producers, the trade is too volatile for the gains to sustain. Thus, the entry of Marathas into petty retail is akin to an attempt at class differentiation but without consolidation.Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/144696/1/joac12249.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/144696/2/joac12249_am.pd

‘Bordering’ Life: denying the right to live before being born

This study pushes the boundaries of the border thinking discourse to examine grassroots perceptions of foeticide together with how women are valued in a society that is underpinned by preference for a male child. Using a bordering conceptual framework, the paper re-visits the female positionality within epistemic locations of culture and societal values in both colonial and the modern Indian context. Grounded in primary research in the state of Haryana that exhibits lowest female to male ratio at birth in the country, the analyses indicate rigid or at best sluggish movements in social norms as the key driver for India’s declining sex ratio. The border thinking discourse further enables to situate the different aspects of female positionality and gender perceptions in the society into the specific domains of the bordering conceptual framework. This offers a novel approach to engage with social norms that border life and opportunities for females in the society