Hindu nationalist statecraft, dog-whistle legislation, and the vigilante state in contemporary India

YesThe ideology and politics of Hindu nationalism has always been predicated on an antagonistic discursive construction of ‘dangerous others,’ notably Muslims but also Christians. This construct has served to define India as first and foremost a Hindu nation, thereby de facto relegating religious minorities to the status of not properly belonging to the nation. However, under the leadership of the current Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Hindu nationalism has acquired an unprecedented political force. A key consequence of this has been that the discursive construction of dangerous others is now increasingly being written into law, through a process of Hindu nationalist statecraft. The result is, we argue, not just a de facto but increasingly also a de jure marginalization and stigmatization of religious minorities. We substantiate this argument by analysing the intent and effect of recent pieces of legislation in two Indian states regulating, among other things, religious conversions, inter-faith relationships, and population growth. Conceiving of such laws as dog-whistle legislation, we argue that they are, in fact, geared towards the legal consolidation of India as a Hindu state. We also analyse the intimate entanglement between these laws and the collective violence of vigilante groups against those minorities that Hindu nationalists frame as dangerous, anti-national others

Randomized controlled trial of intraoperative goal-directed fluid therapy in aerobically fit and unfit patients having major colorectal surgery.

BACKGROUND: Intraoperative fluid therapy regimens using oesophageal Doppler monitoring (ODM) to optimize stroke volume (SV) (goal-directed fluid therapy, GDT) have been associated with a reduction in length of stay (LOS) and complication rates after major surgery. We hypothesized that intraoperative GDT would reduce the time to surgical readiness for discharge (RfD) of patients having major elective colorectal surgery but that this effect might be less marked in aerobically fit patients. METHODS: In this double-blinded controlled trial, 179 patients undergoing major open or laparoscopic colorectal surgery were characterized as aerobically 'fit' (n=123) or 'unfit' (n=56) on the basis of their performance during a cardiopulmonary exercise test. Within these fitness strata, patients were randomized to receive a standard fluid regimen with or without ODM-guided intraoperative GDT. RESULTS: GDT patients received an average of 1360 ml of additional intraoperative colloid. The mean cardiac index and SV at skin closure were significantly higher in the GDT group than in controls. Times to RfD and LOS were longer in GDT than control patients but did not reach statistical significance (median 6.8 vs 4.9 days, P=0.09, and median 8.8 vs 6.7 days, P=0.09, respectively). Fit GDT patients had an increased RfD (median 7.0 vs 4.7 days; P=0.01) and LOS (median 8.8 vs 6.0 days; P=0.01) compared with controls. CONCLUSIONS: Intraoperative SV optimization conferred no additional benefit over standard fluid therapy. In an aerobically fit subgroup of patients, GDT was associated with detrimental effects on the primary outcome. TRIAL REGISTRY: UK NIHR CRN 7285, ISRCTN 14680495. http://public.ukcrn.org.uk/Search/StudyDetail.aspx?StudyID=7285

Correlated N-boson systems for arbitrary scattering length

We investigate systems of identical bosons with the focus on two-body correlations and attractive finite-range potentials. We use a hyperspherical adiabatic method and apply a Faddeev type of decomposition of the wave function. We discuss the structure of a condensate as function of particle number and scattering length. We establish universal scaling relations for the critical effective radial potentials for distances where the average distance between particle pairs is larger than the interaction range. The correlations in the wave function restore the large distance mean-field behaviour with the correct two-body interaction. We discuss various processes limiting the stability of condensates. With correlations we confirm that macroscopic tunneling dominates when the trap length is about half of the particle number times the scattering length.Comment: 15 pages (RevTeX4), 11 figures (LaTeX), submitted to Phys. Rev. A. Second version includes an explicit comparison to N=3, a restructured manuscript, and updated figure

Effective Lagrangian for strongly coupled domain wall fermions

We derive the effective Lagrangian for mesons in lattice gauge theory with domain-wall fermions in the strong-coupling and large-N_c limits. We use the formalism of supergroups to deal with the Pauli-Villars fields, needed to regulate the contributions of the heavy fermions. We calculate the spectrum of pseudo-Goldstone bosons and show that domain wall fermions are doubled and massive in this regime. Since we take the extent and lattice spacing of the fifth dimension to infinity and zero respectively, our conclusions apply also to overlap fermions.Comment: 26 pp. RevTeX and 3 figures; corrected error in symmetry breaking scheme and added comments to discussio

Multiple Migration and Use of Ties: Bangladeshis in Italy and Beyond

This article analyses previous multiple migratory trajectories of Bangladeshifirst generationmigrants before their arrival in Italy and within Italy. It also uncovers the role of social net-works and transnational ties in their multiple migrations. Thefindings show that theirfirstinternational migration was mainly shaped by their family\u2019s socio-economic condition andtransnational kinship networks. They already had someone from their family or close relativesin the preferred country with whom they were connected. Their onward relocations until arriv-ing in Italy, in most cases, was to achieve the socio-economic success and legal status thatthey had failed to attain in theirfirst and subsequent destinations, but the transnational connec-tions with friends or acquaintances are a key resource facilitating these remigrations. Banglade-shis who arrived in Italy from various countries mostly had networks, either with someonefrom their local district in Bangladesh or with their earlier fellow migrants who moved to Italybefore the

Scaling predictions for radii of weakly bound triatomic molecules

The mean-square radii of the molecules $^4$He$_3$, $^4$He$_2-^6$Li, $^4$He$_2-^7$Li and $^4$He$_2-^{23}$Na are calculated using a three-body model with contact interactions. They are obtained from a universal scaling function calculated within a renormalized scheme for three particles interacting through pairwise Dirac-delta interaction. The root-mean-square distance between two atoms of mass $m_A$ in a triatomic molecule are estimated to be of de order of ${\cal C}\sqrt{\hbar^2/[m_A(E_3-E_2)]}$, where $E_2$ is the dimer and $E_3$ the trimer binding energies, and ${\cal C}$ is a constant (varying from $\sim 0.6$ to $\sim 1$) that depends on the ratio between $E_2$ and $E_3$. Considering previous estimates for the trimer energies, we also predict the sizes of Rubidium and Sodium trimers in atomic traps.Comment: 7 pages, 2 figure

Quantum Corrections to Dilute Bose Liquids

It was recently shown (A. Bulgac. Phys. Rev. Lett. {\bf 89}, 050402 (2002)) that an entirely new class of quantum liquids with widely tunable properties could be manufactured from bosons (boselets), fermions (fermilets) and their mixtures (ferbolets) by controlling their interaction properties by the means of a Feshbach resonance. We extend the previous mean--field analysis of these quantum liquids by computing the lowest order quantum corrections to the ground state energy and the depletion of the Bose--Einstein condensate and by estimating higher order corrections as well. We show that the quantum corrections are relatively small and controlled by the diluteness parameter $\sqrt{n|a|^3} \ll 1$, even though strictly speaking in this case there is no low density expansion.Comment: final published version, typos corrected, updated references and added one referenc

Local linear regression with adaptive orthogonal fitting for the wind power application

Short-term forecasting of wind generation requires a model of the function for the conversion of me-teorological variables (mainly wind speed) to power production. Such a power curve is nonlinear and bounded, in addition to being nonstationary. Local linear regression is an appealing nonparametric ap-proach for power curve estimation, for which the model coefficients can be tracked with recursive Least Squares (LS) methods. This may lead to an inaccurate estimate of the true power curve, owing to the assumption that a noise component is present on the response variable axis only. Therefore, this assump-tion is relaxed here, by describing a local linear regression with orthogonal fit. Local linear coefficients are defined as those which minimize a weighted Total Least Squares (TLS) criterion. An adaptive es-timation method is introduced in order to accommodate nonstationarity. This has the additional benefit of lowering the computational costs of updating local coefficients every time new observations become available. The estimation method is based on tracking the left-most eigenvector of the augmented covari-ance matrix. A robustification of the estimation method is also proposed. Simulations on semi-artificial datasets (for which the true power curve is available) underline the properties of the proposed regression and related estimation methods. An important result is the significantly higher ability of local polynomia

Scaling limit of virtual states of triatomic systems

For a system with three identical atoms, the dependence of the $s-$wave virtual state energy on the weakly bound dimer and trimer binding energies is calculated in a form of a universal scaling function. The scaling function is obtained from a renormalizable three-body model with a pairwise Dirac-delta interaction. It was also discussed the threshold condition for the appearance of the trimer virtual state.Comment: 9 pages, 3 figure

High-contrast imaging constraints on gas giant planet formation - The Herbig Ae/Be star opportunity

Planet formation studies are often focused on solar-type stars, implicitly considering our Sun as reference point. This approach overlooks, however, that Herbig Ae/Be stars are in some sense much better targets to study planet formation processes empirically, with their disks generally being larger, brighter and simply easier to observe across a large wavelength range. In addition, massive gas giant planets have been found on wide orbits around early type stars, triggering the question if these objects did indeed form there and, if so, by what process. In the following I briefly review what we currently know about the occurrence rate of planets around intermediate mass stars, before discussing recent results from Herbig Ae/Be stars in the context of planet formation. The main emphasis is put on spatially resolved polarized light images of potentially planet forming disks and how these images - in combination with other data - can be used to empirically constrain (parts of) the planet formation process. Of particular interest are two objects, HD100546 and HD169142, where, in addition to intriguing morphological structures in the disks, direct observational evidence for (very) young planets has been reported. I conclude with an outlook, what further progress we can expect in the very near future with the next generation of high-contrast imagers at 8-m class telescopes and their synergies with ALMA.Comment: Accepted by Astrophysics and Space Science as invited short review in special issue about Herbig Ae/Be stars; 12 pages incl. 5 figures, 2 tables and reference