Education and the Pandemic: Engaging in Epistemic Humility to Question Assumptions, Institutions, and Knowledges

Education systems are the formal institutionalisations of the knowledges and values our societies privilege, who they privilege, how, and on what terms. They are imbued with assumptions. These assumptions inform how systems are structured. The pandemic has exposed existing global and local inequalities, non-binary dynamics of inclusion and exclusion, and dysfunctions of education systems. This paper argues that the global scale and severity of the education disruption challenges taken-for-granted distinctions that privilege systems of the ‘West’ as referential for ‘the Rest’. It argues that the existing overarching technicist knowledge regime is inadequate for recovery, and proposes an alternative approach

Adjusting to Trade Opening: The Case of Labor Share in India\u27s Manufacturing Industry

The objective of this paper is to study how manufacturing plants in India adjusted to trade liberalization during the period 1998–99 to 2007–08. We estimate how the labor share changed due to tariff reduction. Our results indicate that a decline in output tariffs led to an increase in the labor share of income. In contrast, a fall in input tariffs led to a decrease in the labor share. Controlling for factor intensity, we find that in technology intensive and human capital resource intensive sectors, both a decline in input and output tariff rates led to a decline in labor share. A fall in tariffs only led to an increase in labor share for labor intensive and low-technology plants. Hence, India’s bias towards capital and technology intensive production explains the overall decline in labor share in the post reform period. Furthermore, the empirical results show that labor adjustment occurred more efficiently in Indian states with flexible labor laws

Laboratory Study on a Warm Bituminous Mixx

About 80%of road network in India comprises of flexible pavement in which Hot Mix Asphalt (HMA) is used in the bituminous layer. Warm Mix Asphalt (WMA) is helpful in certain situations when the problems associated with HMA may be reduced. Warm mix asphalt lowers the mixing emperatures at which asphalt pavement materials are mixed and laid on road. The advantages of WMA are reduced emissions, improved workability and reduced energy consumption. In addition, it provides easier compaction in longer haul distances and extreme weather conditions. In this study, an experimental investigation has been carried out involving a warm mix chemical additive which can be easily available.To decide the optimal concentration of additive for DBM mix, Warm Mix has been prepared by using additive with VG 30 at varying mixing temperatures of 110°C, 120°C, 130°C and 140°C. As per the specifications of MORTH, Marshall samples are prepared using dense bituminous macadam (DBM) grading and afterward Marshall properties were studied with optimum mixing temperature and optimum binder additive composition. It was observed thatthe DBM warm mix with additive provided higher indirect tensile strength (ITS) and higherMarshall stability with other reasonable satisfactory Marshall parameters. The retained stability and tensile strength ratio are also found to be reasonably satisfactory in such warm mixes. The resulting warm mixes are also observed to be quite comparable to the Control HMA

Implications of Functional Limitations in Older Cancer Survivors A Medicare Beneficiary Survey

Implications of Functional Limitations in Older Cancer Survivors A Medicare Beneficiary Surve

Amalgamation of East and West in the Art of Amrita Sher-Gil

An avant-garde aesthete and one of the pioneers of modern art in India, Amrita Sher-gil (1913 – 1941) was a remarkable combination of sensitivity and sensuousness. Her artworks show an array of influences that were sourced from her Indo-Hungarian origin, and her encounters with French and Italian discourses. An iconoclast at heart, she was a social rebel who lived life on her own terms. Some of her works include ‘Village Scene’, ‘In the Ladies Enclosure’, ‘Self-portrait as a Tahitian’, ‘Red Brick house’, ‘Hill Scene’ and the South Indian Trilogy, ‘Bride’s Toilet’, Brahmacharis’ and ‘South Indian Villagers Going to Market’. Her works are a hybrid of multiple cultures that produce a perfect amalgamation of local, regional, national, and international influences. Her art has been known to influence not only generations of Indian artists from Sayed Haider Raza to Arpita Singh; they are also the depiction of the plight of Indian women both in India and abroad. The paper examines how Sher-gil explores interiority to find her authentic voice and thus carve out feminine agency through her immortalized canvases. The paper will examine how Sher-gil’s works manifest artistic acculturation as they draw impressions of the Ajanta frescoes and Pahari paintings alongside the motifs and techniques that are characteristic of post-Impressionist painters. The paper aims to locate the profound entanglements of modernism and cross-cultural currents of the early 20th century that may be witnessed in Sher-gil’s artistic oeuvre