Supplement to "Castes and Labor Mobility"

This document contains supplemental material to Hnatkovska, Lahiri and Paul (2010) paper. It presents detailed estimation results underlying the Tables and Figures in the main text.

Castes and Labor Mobility

How have the poorest sections of society in India responded to the rapid changes in the Indian economy over the past 30 years? We examine this question by contrasting the fortunes of the historically disadvantaged scheduled castes and tribes (SC/ST) in India with the rest of the workforce in terms of their education attainment, occupation choices and wages. We study the period 1983-2005 using household survey data from successive rounds of the National Sample Survey. Our key findings are that education attainment rates and wages have been converging across the two groups while SC/STs have also been switching occupations at increasing rates during this period. Moreover, inter-generational education and income mobility rates of SC/STs have converged to non-SC/ST levels. Clearly, the last twenty years of major structural changes in India have seen a sharp improvement in the relative economic fortunes of these historically disadvantaged social groups. In fact, the median wages of SC/STs relative to non-SC/STs in India have surpassed the median wages of blacks relative to whites in the USA.Intergenerational mobility, wage gaps, castes

Are there optical communication channels in the brain?

Despite great progress in neuroscience, there are still fundamental unanswered questions about the brain, including the origin of subjective experience and consciousness. Some answers might rely on new physical mechanisms. Given that biophotons have been discovered in the brain, it is interesting to explore if neurons use photonic communication in addition to the well-studied electro-chemical signals. Such photonic communication in the brain would require waveguides. Here we review recent work [S. Kumar, K. Boone, J. Tuszynski, P. Barclay, and C. Simon, Scientific Reports 6, 36508 (2016)] suggesting that myelinated axons could serve as photonic waveguides. The light transmission in the myelinated axon was modeled, taking into account its realistic imperfections, and experiments were proposed both in-vivo and in-vitro to test this hypothesis. Potential implications for quantum biology are discussed.Comment: 13 pages, 5 figures, review of arXiv:1607.02969 for Frontiers in Bioscience, updated figures, new references on existence of opsins in the brain and experimental effects of light on neuron

India’s calorie consumption puzzle: insights from the stochastic cost frontier analysis of calorie purchases

Between the early 1970s and very nearly the present, Indians’ per capita calorie consumption declined. This decline, perplexing in the face of rising per capita income when malnutrition is rampant, has been termed India’s Calorie Consumption Puzzle. It has been partially attributed to a squeeze in the household food budget. This study employs Stochastic Cost Frontier Analysis to evaluate this explanation, upon the logic that such a squeeze shall likely result in the rising cost-efficiency of calorie purchases, that is, the more economical purchase of calories. Analysis of household expenditure data from India’s National Sample Survey reveals that Indian households’ purchase of calories did become more cost-efficient at every level of income, suggesting that there was indeed a squeeze in the household food budget, making this a viable explanation of the Calorie Consumption Puzzle. Besides thus investigating India’s Calorie Consumption Puzzle, this study demonstrates a novel application of Stochastic Cost Frontier Analysis, to consumption instead of the more common production, in that the method has not previously been applied to the consumption of multiple items treated as inputs yielding an output. Stochastic Cost Frontier Analysis applied to calorie acquisition may be a new way of gauging changes over time in food security, with a rise in cost-efficiency indicating a squeeze in the food budget or declining food security

Učinak prepartalne primjene vitamina E i selena na reprodukcijske funkcije indijskih jakova (Poephagus grunniens).

Yaks are the main source of livelihood for the highlanders in India as major agriculture is meager in yak inhibiting tracts due to adverse agro-climatic conditions. Under field condition, the reproduction in yak is seasonal which could be due to lack of feed and stress rather than inherent characteristics. The aim of the study was to check efficacy of vitamin E and selenium parenteral administration during late gestation period on postpartal fertility in yak. Altogether 21 yak cows were randomly divided into 3 groups (two treatment groups and controls) with 7 animals each. The animals within both treated group received a commercial preparation containing DL- alpha Tocopheryl Acetate equivalent to Tocopherol (vitamin E) 50 mg/mL and Sodium selenite 1.5 mg/mL intramuscularly. Treated groups received the drug twice in 7 days interval 30 to 40 days prior to calving in the amount of 5 mL and 10 mL in group I and II respectively. The study showed that administration of vitamin E and selenium during late gestation can significantly (P<0.05) improve fertility in group II animals..Jakovi su glavni izvor za preživljavanje stanovništva u brdovitim područjima koja su karakterizirana različitim agro-klimatskim uvjetima i slabom poljoprivrednom aktivnošću. U prirodnim uvjetima jakovi se razmnožavaju sezonski, što je više posljedica pomanjkanja hrane i djelovanja stresa nego nasljednih obilježja. Uvažavajući navedeno, ovo istraživanje je imalo za cilj utvrditi može li jednokratna intramuskularna injekcija antioksidanata (vitamin E i selen) u kasnom prepartalnom razdoblju imati učinke na reprodukcijske pokazatelje jakova. Životinjama je primijenjen komercijalni preparat koji je sadržavao 50 mg/mL DL-alfa tokoferil acetata, ekvivalentan tokoferolu (vitaminu E), i 1,5 mg/mL natrijeva selenita. Pripravak je bio primijenjen intramuskularno, dvokratno u dozi od 5 mL i 10 mL, u razmacima od tjedan dana. Prva aplikacija uslijedila je između 30 i 40 dana prije teljenja. Životinje koje su primile 10 mL pripravka pokazale su statistički značajno (P<0,05) poboljšanje reprodukcijskih pokazatelja. Na osnovi istraživanja može se zaključiti da primjena antioksidanata neposredno prije teljenja može pridonijeti unaprjeđenju reprodukcijskih funkcija u indijskih jakova

Global Killer Ebola: How was it handled by the Indian press?

Background:&nbsp;World has witnessed many devastating outbreaks in the past and ebola outbreak of 2014 is one among them as WHO declared it as “International public health emergency”.&nbsp;Aims &amp;&nbsp;Objectives:&nbsp;To access the coverage of ebola related articles (ERA) in India’s three major English print media.&nbsp;Material &amp;&nbsp;Methodology:&nbsp;&nbsp;A cross sectional study was carried out from June 2014 to March 2015 among three leading national English newspapers of India (Times of India, The Hindu and The Telegraph).&nbsp; “Ebola” was used as a search term to identify the ebola related articles (ERAs) in respective websites of the selected newspapers. All the eligible ERAs were entered into a data extraction form (DEF) for content analysis.&nbsp;Results:&nbsp;Total number of ERAs published during the study period was 967. Hindu (443) was leading followed by Times of India (390) and Telegraph (134). Majority of the ERAs were concern about ebola (30.3%) followed by ebola related activates (28.9%) and ebola as a disease (26.9%). ERAs were mainly published in international section and in the form of news items and source was mentioned properly (50%). Photograph and Infrographics proportion was very minimal.&nbsp;Conclusion:&nbsp;In spite of ERAs presence in English print media there is a need to publish more articles of ongoing epidemics particularly on the front pages, from authentic sources and provide richer information that is suitable for the mass population of the country