Destinations matter: Social policy and migrant workers in the times of Covid

The national lockdown of India announced on March 24th 2020 in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, left millions of migrant labourers stranded in their destinations. Thrown out of their informal labour arrangements in cities and industrial centres, unable to return to their villages in the absence of transportation, they were stranded for over a month with no income, improper housing and often lack of food. This paper discusses the experiences of men migrating from Chakai block, Jamui district, Bihar, to four Indian states, namely, Kerala, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra. We compare their experiences across these four destination states in relation to the social policy response following the national lockdown. Most workers are young men (16-35 years old) and their migration pattern is seasonal and circular. The emerging lessons can provide inputs for social policy measures related to migrant workers in India

Protein Stabilization Through Phage Display

RNase S consists of two proteolytic fragments of RNase A, residues 1-20 (S20) and residues 21-124 (S pro). A 15-mer peptide (S15p) with high affinity for S pro was selected from a phage display library. Peptide residues that are buried in the structure of the wild type complex are conserved in S15p though there are several changes at other positions. Isothermal titration calorimetry studies show that the affinity of S15p is comparable to that of the wild type peptide at 25°C. However, the magnitudes of ΔH° and ΔC<SUB>p</SUB> are lower for S15p, suggesting that the thermal stability of the complex is enhanced. In agreement with this prediction, at pH 6, the T<SUB>m</SUB> of the S15p complex was found to be 10°C higher than that of the wild type complex. This suggests that for proteins where fragment complementation systems exist, phage display can be used to find mutations that increase protein thermal stability