Rights, Bodies and the Law: Towards a Feminist Ethics of Justice

Also CSST Working Paper #117.http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/51308/1/544.pd

Hindu Rashtra and Bollywood: A New Front in the Battle for Cultural Hegemony

This paper examines the weaponization by Hindu right-wing politics of the suicide of a young Hindi film actor in September 2020. It argues that his death was invoked in particular ways to sharpen the attack on the Bombay film industry as part of the larger concerted move by the RSS to control and purge spaces seen as either controlled by “left liberals,” or as syncretic and unamenable to Hindu-Muslim polarization. In the course of this attack, some differences within the Hindutva camp have become evident, a phenomenon this paper examines closely

Functional SNP allele discovery (fSNPd): an approach to find highly penetrant, environmental-triggered genotypes underlying complex human phenotypes.

BACKGROUND: Significant human diseases/phenotypes exist which require both an environmental trigger event and a genetic predisposition before the disease/phenotype emerges, e.g. Carbamazepine with the rare SNP allele of rs3909184 causing Stevens Johnson syndrome, and aminoglycosides with rs267606617 causing sensory neural deafness. The underlying genotypes are fully penetrant only when the correct environmental trigger(s) occur, otherwise they are silent and harmless. Such diseases/phenotypes will not appear to have a Mendelian inheritance pattern, unless the environmental trigger is very common (>50% per lifetime). The known causative genotypes are likely to be protein-altering SNPs with dominant/semi-dominant effect. We questioned whether other diseases and phenotypes could have a similar aetiology. METHODS: We wrote the fSNPd program to analyse multiple exomes from a test cohort simultaneously with the purpose of identifying SNP alleles at a significantly different frequency to that of the general population. fSNPd was tested on trial cohorts, iteratively improved, and modelled for performance against an idealised association study under mutliple parameters. We also assessed the seqeuncing depath of all human exons to determine which were sufficiently well sequenced in an exome to be sued by fSNPd - by assessing forty exomes base by base. RESULTS: We describe a simple methodology for the detection of SNPs capable of causing a phenotype triggered by an environmental event. This uses cohorts of relatively small size (30-100 individuals) with the phenotype being investigated, their exomes, and thence seeks SNP allele frequencies significantly different from expected to identify potentially clinically important, protein altering SNP alleles. The strengths and weaknesses of this approach for discovering significant genetic causes of human disease are comparable to Mendelian disease mutation detection and Association Studies. CONCLUSIONS: The fSNPd methodology is another approach, and has potentially significant advantage over Association studies in needing far fewer individuals, to detect genes involved in the pathogenesis of a diseases/phenotypes. Furthermore, the SNP alleles identified alter amino acids, potentially making it easier to devise functional assays of protein function to determine pathogenicity

The effect of a low GI diet on truncal fat mass and glycated hemoglobin in South Indians with type 2 diabetes—A single centre randomized prospective study

Background: There has been no previous study that has investigated the effect of a low glycemic index (LGI) diet with local recipes of South Indian cuisine on the body fat composition using dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA). Truncal obesity has been associated with the risk of metabolic disorders and cardiovascular diseases. Aim: The aim of this study was to examine the effect of a low GI diet on glycemic control and body composition in people with type 2 diabetes in South India. Method: This was a prospective and randomized controlled study that was conducted over a period of 24 weeks. A total of 40 participants were recruited from the Department of Endocrinology and Diabetes Outpatient in Kerala, South India. All the patients had type 2 diabetes and were randomly assigned and given advice and instructions to follow either a low GI diet plan (n = 18) or their usual diet, which served as control (n = 18). The advice was reinforced throughout the study period. Dietary compliance was evaluated based on a 24 h dietary recall at weeks 3, 11, 12, 18, 23, and 24. The age of the subjects ranged from 35 to 65 years. Anthropometric, body composition, and cardio-metabolic parameters were measured according to standard procedures. T-tests were conducted to compare differences between intervention and control groups and the Pearson correlation coefficient was used to evaluate associations between the variables. Results: There were significant reductions (p < 0.05) in the low GI diet compared to the control group with respect to weight, body mass index (BMI), and triceps skinfold thickness. Similarly, significant reductions were observed in the low GI diet group with respect to region, total fat, android, and gynoid fat mass and the differences between the groups were significant at p < 0.05. There was also a positive correlation between BMI and android fat mass (r = 0.745), total fat mass (r = 0.661), total truncal mass (r = 0.821), and truncal fat (r = 0.707). There was a significant reduction in glycated hemoglobin in the low GI diet group compared to the control group at p < 0.05. Conclusion: This study has demonstrated that there was a significant reduction (p < 0.05) of truncal obesity and glycated hemoglobin in patients with type 2 diabetes on a local diet of South Indian cuisine with low GI compared with the control

South Indian cuisine with low glycemic index ingredients reduces cardiovascular risk factors in subjects with type 2 diabetes

Background: Inflammation is considered as a predictor of cardiovascular diseases in type 2 diabetes mellitus. No previous studies have investigated the effect of low glycemic index (LGI) recipes of South Indian cuisine on the risk factors of cardiovascular disease in patients with diabetes. Aim: The aim of this randomized controlled trial was to evaluate the improvement in cardiovascular risk factors and blood glucose control, in patients with type 2 diabetes, after intervention with recipes of Kerala cuisine, from locally available whole grain cereals, low in glycemic index. Method: This was a prospective and randomized controlled study that was conducted over a period of 24 weeks. A total of 80 participants were recruited from the Department of Endocrinology and Diabetes Outpatient in Kerala, South India. All 80 patients had type 2 diabetes, and were aged between 35 and 65 years. Participants were randomly assigned and advised to follow either a LGI diet plan (n = 40) or their usual diet, which served as a control group (n = 40). The advice was reinforced throughout the study period. Anthropometric, biochemical parameters which included glycemic and cardio-metabolic parameters were measured according to standard procedures. T-tests were conducted to compare the differences between intervention and control groups, and the Pearson correlation coefficient was used to evaluate associations between the variables. Results: There were significant differences (p < 0.05) between the intervention and control groups with respect to weight, HbA1c, insulin, triglycerides, Homeostatic Model Assessment of Insulin Resistance (HOMA-IR), high sensitivity C-reactive protein (hs-CRP) and apolipoprotein B (ApoB). There was also a positive correlation between weight and blood glucose variables. ApoB was positively correlated with lipid profile and insulin levels. Conclusions: The long-term implementation of LGI diet of Kerala cuisine has been found to promote weight loss, enhance insulin sensitivity and reduce the cardiovascular risk

Crossing boundaries:bras, lingerie and rape myths in postcolonial urban middle-class India

With the processes of modernization, urbanization and the entry of women in the formal labour market in Indian metropolitan spaces, this paper examines how the modern middle-class woman’s sartorial choices become enmeshed in popular rape myths (false beliefs) that serve to blame her for the wearing of western clothing. The paper articulates the ways in which middle-class women’s social realities are shaped by historical, colonial and nationalist ideologies of modernization, constructed and mediated through moral codes of dressing. By drawing upon original and contemporary empirical narratives from the urban spaces of Delhi and Mumbai, we emphasise how everyday sartorial choices, in relation to particularly the bra and lingerie, can reveal the nuanced ways in which Urban Indian Professional Women (UIPW) seek to understand, negotiate, and resist patriarchal power. Our findings shed light on conflicting and contradictory spatial experiences, where some women internalize and negotiate moral codes of dressing, out of fear, and others who transgress are subject to sanctions. Given the paucity of scholarly literature in this area, the paper makes an important theoretical and empirical contribution with its focus on postcoloniality and everyday discursive material spaces of gendered and sexualized dress practices. It argues for the consciousness raising of everyday urban geographies of dress that reveal complicated structures of power that are often deemed hidden

महिषासुर: मिथक व परंपराएं

इक्कसवीं सदी के दूसरे दशक में भारत में महिषासुर आंदोलन द्विज संस्कृति के लिए चुनौती बनकर उभरा। इसके माध्यम से आदिवासियों, पिछड़ों और दलितों के एक बड़े हिस्से ने अपनी सांस्कृतिक दावेदारी पेश की। लेकिन यह आंदोलन क्या है, इसकी जड़ें समाज में कहां तक फैली हैं, बहुजनों की सांस्कृतिक परंपरा में इसका क्या स्थान है, मौजूदा लोक-जीवन में महिषासुर की उपस्थिति किन-किन रूपों में है, इसके पुरातात्विक साक्ष्य क्या हैं? गीतों-कविताओं व नाटकों में महिषासुर किस रूप में याद किए जा रहे हैं और अकादमिक-बौद्धिक वर्ग को इस आंदोलन ने किस रूप में प्रभावित किया है, उनकी प्रतिक्रियाएं क्या हैं? आदि प्रश्नों पर विमर्श हमें एक ऐसी बौद्धिक यात्रा की ओर ले जाने में सक्षम हैं, जिससे हममें अधिकांश अभी तक अपरिचित रहे हैं। क्या महिषासुर दक्षिण एशिया के अनार्यों के पूर्वज थे, जो बाद में एक मिथकीय चरित्र बन कर बहुजन संस्कृति के प्रतीक पुरुष बन गए? क्या यह बहुत बाद की परिघटना है, जब माकण्डेय पुराण, दुर्गासप्तशती जैसे ग्रंथ रच कर, एक कपोल-कल्पित देवी के हाथों महिषासुर की हत्या की कहानी गढ़ी गई? इस आंदोलन की सैद्धांतिकी क्या है? प्रमोद रंजन द्वारा संपादित किताब “महिषासुर: मिथक व परंपराएं” में लेखकों ने उपरोक्त प्रश्नों पर विचार किया है तथा विलुप्ति के कगार पर खड़े असुर समुदाय का विस्तृत नृवंशशास्त्रीय अध्ययन भी प्रस्तुत किया है। इस पुस्तक में समकालीन भारतीय साहित्य में महिषासुर पर लिखी गई कविताओं व गीतों का प्रतिनिधि संकलन भी है तथा महिषासुर की बहुजन कथा पर आधारित एक नाटक भी प्रकाशित है। समाज-विज्ञान व सांस्कृतिक विमर्श के अध्येताओं, सामाजिक-राजनीतिक कार्यकर्ताओं, साहित्य प्रेमियों के लिए यह एक आवश्यक पुस्तक है