Interactive effects of non-fodder litter and fungal species on soil enzymes: A microcosm temporal assessment from Indian arid zone

The interactive effects of three non-fodder Indian arid plant species, Tephrosia purpurea, Aerva persica, and Calotropis procera, and four Aspergillus fungal species on soil enzymes (acid and alkaline phosphatase, -glucosidase, dehydrogenase, urease, and amidase activities) were temporally assessed (15 and 30 days withdrawals). The results were statistically analysed using ANOVA, Principal Component Analysis (PCA), and Canonical Correlation Analysis (CCoA). Aside from these, a biochemical soil quality index was created by assigning a weighted score to each enzyme and analysing it using PCA. This study found that various litter-fungal species complexes acted differently and that their effects changed over time, specifically for acid phosphatase, alkaline phosphatase, beta-glucosidase, and amidase. Dehydrogenase and urease activities increased with predictors over time. With temporal backwash, all four fungal species with C. procera inhibit acid phosphatase, alkaline phosphatase, and beta-glucosidase activities (i.e., more at 15 days and lesser after 30 days). Our current findings suggest that (a) urease activities were modulated by A. persica in cooperation with fungi like A. terreus, A. niger, and A. flavus at specific enzyme levels; (b) In assistance with fungi such as A. fumigatus, A. niger, and A. persica, amidase concentration was successfully managed through litter of the legume plant species T. purpuria. (c) When C. procera and A. fumigatus, A. niger, and A. flavus worked together, they were most effective at supporting beta-glucosidase and dehydrogenase (d) Alkaline phosphatase and (e) acid phosphatase was more responsive to T. purpurea-A. terreus complexes than were T. purpurea-A. flavus and C. procera-A. terreus complexes

Piety and Politics: Religious Leadership and the Conflict in Kashmir

In 1912 the revivalist poet Maqbool Shah Kraalwari published Greeznama, an extended lament about the subversive syncretism of the Kashmiri peasantry: They regard the mosque and the temple as equal, seeing no difference between muddy puddles and the ocean, They know not the sacred, honourable or the respectable (Kraalwari 1912, 5). Less than a century ago, the landscape Kraalwari described has disappeared: as the ugly shrine-land conflagration that set the state ablaze in 2008 demonstrated, mass politics in Jammu and Kashmir appears to be driven almost exclusively by questions of religious identity. Yet the fact remains that clerics and religious authority have had only a peripheral role in this political mobilization—and, as our survey of some religion-linked crises in Jammu and Kashmir will show, in earlier ones, too. We are confronted by the apparent paradox of a religion-driven politics that has almost no space for religious leaders. It is all the more intriguing if one considers the central place of religion in the making of the Kashmir conflict itself. In this chapter, we examine three contrasting crises in an effort to find an answer to this question. Much of the work on religion and politics in Jammu and Kashmir has focused on the two-decade-long insurgency that began in 1988