A RARE CASE OF YELLOW PHOSPHOROUS POISONING WITH ACUTE CHOLESTATIC HEPATITIS, BICYTOPENIA AND IMPENDING HEPATIC FAILURE

Yellow phosphorus is a protoplasmic poison (a potent hepatotoxin). Fulminant poisoning results from ingestion of more than 1 to 2 g. An 18 y old adult male presented with ingestion of rodenticide poison containing 3 percent phosphorous in paste form. He was asymptomatic during the first day of hospitalization. He developed jaundice on the second day. On evaluation, his total leukocyte count was 1.800 (109/l) on the day of admission, which improved to 4.400 (109/l) on the 7th day. His platelet count was 1.53 (109/l) on the day of admission, which decreased daily till 0.80 (109/l) on the 7th day of hospitalization. His prothrombin time started deranging from the second day of admission with a crest of 38 s and INR 2.98 noted on the 5th day. He was given N-acetyl cysteine on the 5th day following which PT/INR began to improve and reached to a baseline normal. The regimen of N-acetyl cysteine used was a loading dose of 150 mg/kg IV over 1 h, followed by 50 mg/kg IV over 4 h and 100 mg/kg IV over 16 h. He was also treated with fresh frozen plasma and intravenous vitamin k. The man made a dramatic recovery and became stable.Keywords: India, Kerala, Kottakkal, Phosphorous, Poisoning, N-acetyl cysteine, Hepatitis, Hepatic failur

Randomized Control Trials and Qualitative Evaluations of a Multifaceted Programme for Women in Extreme Poverty: Empirical Findings and Methodological Reflections

This paper sets out to synthesize key lessons from studies using alternative methodologies to impact assessment. Drawing on Sen’s capability approach as a conceptual framework, it analyses two pairs of impact assessments which were carried out in West Bengal and Sindh around the same time and within close proximity to each other. Each pair consisted of a randomized control trial and a qualitative assessment of attempts to pilot BRAC’s approach to transferring assets to women in extreme poverty. The paper reports on the findings of these studies, their strategies for establishing their claims about causality and the information base they drew on to establish these claims. It finds that not only did the RCTs fail to meet their own criteria for establishing causality, but they also provided very limited explanation for the patterns of outcomes observed. Such information formed the substance of the qualitative studies. The paper concludes that greater use of mixed methods could help to offset some of limitations of RCTs and to place their findings on much firmer ground

From working in the wheat field to managing wheat: women innovators in Nepal

This article presents research conducted in Nepal’s Terai plains in 2014-15 showing that women are innovating in wheat to the extent that wheat farming is experiencing a shift from feminization of agricultural labor towards women taking control over decision making. Processes accounting for this include male out-migration, non-governmental organizations working on promoting women’s equality that has developed women’s confidence, individual support from extension agents, and strong cooperation between women to foster each other’s “innovation journeys.

The Social Relations Approach, empowerment and women factory workers in Malaysia

This article discusses the empowerment of women factory workers in Malaysia through the lens of Kabeer’s Social Relations Approach. The approach offers an institutional analysis of how gender inequality is produced and calls for the overall terms of exchange and cooperation to be shifted in women’s favour. Its application shows that Malaysian women factory workers face significant challenges, due to the character of institutions, and women’s difficulties in adopting and internalising the notion of ‘empowerment’

Girls’ and women’s education within Unesco and the World Bank, 1945–2000

By 2000, girls’ and women’s education was a priority for international development organisations. While studies have examined the impact of recent campaigns and programmes, there has been less exploration of ideas about girls’ and women’s education within development thought in the immediate post?colonial period, and the political mechanisms through which this came to be a global concern. Through a study of policy documents, this paper investigates how the education of girls and women came to be prioritised within the two principle UN agencies involved with education since 1945, the World Bank and Unesco. A shift in priorities is evident, from ensuring formal rights and improving the status of women, to expanding the productive capacities of women, fertility control and poverty reduction. While the ascendance of human capital theory provided a space for a new perception of the role of women’s education in development, in other policy arenas women’s education was central to exploring more substantive, rights?based notions of gender equality. Ultimately, the goal of improving girls’ and women’s education fitted into diverse development agendas, paving the way for it to become a global development priority

Evaluating academic and media nongovernmental organization partnerships for participatory data gathering

This article discusses participatory methods for data gathering in the context of a partnership between a Swiss-based media development organization, Fondation Hirondelle, and a research team at the University of Sheffield. In 2018–2019, the partnership conducted fieldwork which focused on the impact of radio on women listeners in Niger. The project used participatory methods of data gathering in the form of workshops and focus group discussions (FGDs). The article examines the advantages and limitations of combining the practical experience of international development organizations and the in-depth research capabilities of academia. To triangulate this collaboration and to navigate the limitations of FGDs, the use of workshops is discussed as an important method for providing feedback among the radio practitioners and experts in Niger. The article examines the usefulness of combining these methods and reshaping their application to promote participatory research with radio audiences and practitioners

Labour market experiences of young UK Bangladeshi men: Identity, inclusion and exclusion in inner-city London

Detailed qualitative data are used to explore the processes perpetuatinglabour market disadvantage among young UK-Bangladeshi men living in central London. Strong forces of inclusion within the Bangladeshi community are found to interact with forces of exclusion from ‘mainstream’ society to constrain aspirations and limit opportunities. Though diverse forms of young Bangladeshi masculinity are found, a common pattern is heavy dependency on intra-ethnic networks. Negative experiences of and isolation from ‘mainstream’ society further reinforce reliance on ‘our own people’. However, acute ambivalence towards belonging to a dense Bangladeshi community exists, exemplified in the widespread denigration of the restaurant trade. Many respondents express the desire to ‘break out’ and access new experiences. The findings support current policy emphasis on ‘connecting people to work’ but highlight the more fundamental need to connect people across ethnic boundaries. The paper urges researchers to ‘unpack’ ethnicity to consider carefully what ethnic identity implies in terms of access to resources and opportunities for different individuals in different contexts in order better to understand the diversity of labour market outcomes and the persistence of disadvantage

Breadwinners and Homemakers: Migration and Changing Conjugal Expectations in Rural Bangladesh

The literature on marriage norms and aspirations across societies largely sees the institution as static – a tool for the assertion of masculinities and subordination of women. The changing meanings of marriage and conjugality in the contemporary context of globalisation have received scant attention. Based on research in rural Bangladesh, this article questions the usefulness of notions of autonomy and dependence in understanding conjugal relations and expectations in a context of widespread migration for extended periods, especially to overseas destinations, where mutuality is crucial for social reproduction, though in clearly genderdemarcated domains

Social trends and new geographies

This opening chapter sets the scene for subsequent more detailed analysis of many of the issues raised here. We start by discussing in Section 1 the tension in the current era between humanity’s simultaneously standing at “the peak of possibilities” while also, possibly, facing an abyss due to growing inequalities, political conflict and the ever-present danger of climate catastrophe. We turn in Sections 2 and 3 to the main social and spatial transformations that have characterised the last twenty five years. Again we see advances and regressions, above all uneven and fragile development. These sections set the scene for a consideration of three specific challenges: the tension between capitalism and democracy (Section 4); that between production and reproduction with an emphasis on gender relations (Section 5); and that between demographic change and sustainability (Section 6). We then conclude with a sober appraisal of the prospects for the emergence of viable agents for social transformation (Section 7) before making some general remarks on the challenges and possibilities for social progress (Section 8). The underlying hypothesis for social progress is that development is, and always has been, contradictory. Poverty amongst plenty, individual advancement versus collective regression and repression intertwined with liberty. If the industrial era emerged through what Karl Polanyi called a “great transformation” are we headed towards, or do we need a ‘new’ great transformation? We posit a general need for the market to be re-embedded in society if social progress is not to be halted or even reversed. In terms of the political order we find that the recent transformations of democracy and capitalism have had hugely ambiguous features. It is not wrong to say that the planet is currently both more democratic and more affluent than it was three decades ago. But the ways in which such progress has come about endangers not only future progress, it even puts past progress at risk. In political terms, the increasing diffusion of democracy means that more people across the globe have a say on the collective matters that concern them. But under current circumstances, their participation may not be able to reach the kind of decisions that one would understand as collective self-determination. In economic terms, material affluence is being created in unprecedented forms and volume. But, first, this affluence is so unevenly generated and distributed that poverty and hardship do not disappear and are even reproduced in new and possibly more enduring forms. And second, the continuing production of this material affluence may/will endanger the inhabitability of the planet, or large parts of it, even in the short- or medium-term. We have seen our task as one of offering a complex assessment of the current situation that has not been over-determined by our own political preferences. The positive and negative components of the picture we offer are constitutive of the ambivalent nature of the social progress. We are acutely aware that the world looks very different according to our standpoint geographically, socially and by our social and cultural identity. So we have not posed a false unity in terms of outlook. We consider it useful to pose the key questions as clearly as possible from a collective perspective that includes many diverse disciplinary and subject stand-points. We also seek to avoid an analysis determined by either a depressed Weltanschauung that sees only catastrophe ahead given recent political developments or what some have called a Polanyian Pollyanna tendency that is emotionally committed to positive social transformation regardless of the evidence. Quite simply, neither pessimism nor optimism are adequate diagnostic tools. This is particularly the case when we turn to the possible agents of the ‘new’ social transformation we advocate. While we show the decline of 20th-century agents of social change we also try to bring to life the new potential actors for redistribution, social justice and recognition