Holy Baths as Attractions in Religious Tourism: A Study of Ritualistic Bathing Fairs in India

Much of what marks the contemporary Hindu ritual scene finds its origin in the activities of Indus Valley Civilisation. There has been, without doubt, a corrosion of religious faith with the progress of modernity, but surprisingly the bathing tradition for ritual ablution spanning across centuries of time has not faded, despite the passage of so many ages and despite changes all around. Hinduism has a strong and ancient tradition of pilgrimage, widely recognised as Tīrtha-yatra (tour of the sacred fords), which involves holy baths in water bodies as a symbolic purification ritual. Most of the Hindu pilgrimage places are along rivers or river confluences or next to lakes, or temple pilgrimages with pools or wells, indicating a strong association with water. At a pan-India level, religious events like Kumbh Mela, Gaṇgā Sāgar Melā in West Bengal, Mahamaham festival at Kumbakonam, Tamil Nadu and many other local or regional fairs have seen a mass congregation of pilgrims during a particular astrological conjunction for a holy dip in the river or sacred water bodies. A quick survey of the historical and tourism-related literature shows that, no serious attempt has been undertaken for promoting these ritualistic bathing sites as points of religious tourist-attractions. Given the magnitude of this bathing practice, an exploration of water tīrthas as pilgrimage centres and the implication of such mass congregations from the perspective of tourism needs academic attention. This paper examines the beliefs and rituals associated with the bathing tradition and provide a brief account of the bathing fairs in India. The paper also shows how sacred literature, using the language of myths and allegories shaped and reaffirmed the deified status of such sites

On some subclasses of circular-arc catch digraphs

Catch digraphs was introduced by Hiroshi Maehera in 1984 as an analog of intersection graphs where a family of pointed sets represents a digraph. After that Prisner continued his research particularly on interval catch digraphs by characterizing them diasteroidal triple free. It has numerous applications in the field of real world problems like network technology and telecommunication operations. In this article we introduce a new class of catch digraphs, namely circular-arc catch digraphs. The definition is same as interval catch digraph, only the intervals are replaced by circular-arcs here. We present the characterization of proper circular-arc catch digraphs, which is a natural subclass of circular-arc catch digraphs where no circular-arc is contained in other properly. We do the characterization by introducing a concept monotone circular ordering for the vertices of the augmented adjacency matrices of it. Next we find that underlying graph of a proper oriented circular-arc catch digraph is a proper circular-arc graph. Also we characterize proper oriented circular-arc catch digraphs by defining a certain kind of circular vertex ordering of its vertices. Another interesting result is to characterize oriented circular-arc catch digraphs which are tournaments in terms of forbidden subdigraphs. Further we study some properties of an oriented circular-arc catch digraph. In conclusion we discuss the relations between these subclasses of circular-arc catch digraphs

THERAPEUTIC AND PREVENTIVE ROLE OF NUTRACEUTICALS AND PRODUCTION OF VITAMINS & LOW-CALORIE SUGARS FROM FOOD-GRADE MICROORGANISMS AS NUTRACEUTICALS

Nutraceuticals may influence number of  disease conditions and many molecular pathways, as well as hundreds of proteins and genes. They frequently influence multiple molecular pathways. The adverse effects of some pharmaceutical therapies and the rise in antibiotic resistance have sparked interest in nutraceutical substances as an alternative therapeutic and preventative approach. They also have the advantage of being more widely available and reasonably priced. Numerous studies have definitely shown how beneficial dietary components are for immune system functions. These include enhancing the mechanism for responding to infections, bolstering immunomodulatory activity, and mitigating the impact of autoimmune disorders and hypersensitivity. Additionally, it has been shown that nutraceuticals have lipid-lowering, anti-inflammatory, anti-cancer, and antioxidant properties. In this review article, we will discuss about the role of microorganisms derived nutraceuticals in human health

Burning a binary tree and its generalization

Graph burning is a graph process that models the spread of social contagion. Initially, all the vertices of a graph $G$ are unburnt. At each step, an unburnt vertex is put on fire and the fire from burnt vertices of the previous step spreads to their adjacent unburnt vertices. This process continues till all the vertices are burnt. The burning number $b(G)$ of the graph $G$ is the minimum number of steps required to burn all the vertices in the graph. The burning number conjecture by Bonato et al. states that for a connected graph $G$ of order $n$, its burning number $b(G) \leq \lceil \sqrt{n} \rceil$. It is easy to observe that in order to burn a graph it is enough to burn its spanning tree. Hence it suffices to prove that for any tree $T$ of order $n$, its burning number $b(T) \leq \lceil \sqrt{n} \rceil$ where $T$ is the spanning tree of $G$. It was proved in 2018 that $b(T) \leq \lceil \sqrt{n + n_2 + 1/4} +1/2 \rceil$ for a tree $T$ where $n_2$ is the number of degree $2$ vertices in $T$. In this paper, we provide an algorithm to burn a tree and we improve the existing bound using this algorithm. We prove that $b(T)\leq \lceil \sqrt{n + n_2 + 8}\rceil -1$ which is an improved bound for $n\geq 50$. We also provide an algorithm to burn some subclasses of the binary tree and prove the burning number conjecture for the same

Infantile bullous pemphigoid: A Rare immunobullous disease where tzanck test is a valuable diagnostic aid

Abstract not available BSMMU J 2022; 15(1): 57-6

Change in Migration and Pasture Utilization by Brokpa Pastoral Nomads: A Sustainable Adaptation Strategy for Climate Sensitive Arunachal Pradesh!?

The north-eastern states of India specially Arunachal Pradesh, one of the bio-diversity hotspot, is expected to be greatly affected by climate change. Climate change will not only adversely impact the biodiversity of Arunachal Pradesh, but also affect the livelihood of local communities as they fully dependent on the natural resources. The Monpa is a primitive tribe inhabiting parts of West Kameng and Tawang district of Arunachal Pradesh. The pastoral nomad of the Monpa tribe is popularly known as Brokpa. Transhumance system of livestock mainly yak (Poephagus grunniens L.) rearing is their main source of livelihood. In recent past, challenges of the Brokpa pastoral community transform into threat due to synergistic effect of impending climate change. But, this nomad has their own mechanism to cope up with adverse impact of climate change. Therefore, a systematic study was carried out to document and analyze these coping mechanisms