History and/through Oral Narratives: Relocating Women of the 1971 War of Bangladesh in Neelima Ibrahim’s A War Heroine, I Speak

In the postmodern era, one of the primary objectives of oral narratives is to tell the untold stories of history. Amidst the allegations that historical representation of war narratives often tends to be gendered and biased, these oral narratives of women offer not only a fresh perspective to the wars like the 1971 war of Bangladesh, Sri Lankan Civil War (1983 – 2009) and Kashmir Insurgency (1989 – Present), but also become their own version of pain, suffering, prejudice, and plight. In that sense, they become the voice of the voiceless, giving the victims a chance to assert themselves, despite their subaltern position. They also converge as tools to reinvestigate or rather question the ‘representation’ of war history and the politics of submerging women in traditional documented historiography. In the context of the 1971 war of Bangladesh, Neelima Ibrahim’s Aami Birangana Balchi (first published in Bengali in 1994, translated in English as A War Heroine, I Speak by Fayeza Hasanat in 2017), was the first narrative of its own kind that addressed victimization and survival of the Biranganas or literal brave heroines of the 1971 war. Ibrahim, being an active member of the humanitarian group ‘Bangladesh Women’s Rehabilitation and Welfare Foundation’ was a close observer of their struggle and thus, she recorded their narratives and published it. In a theoretical framework, where oral narratives play a seminal role in this sort of representations, this paper will broadly discuss Neelima Ibrahim’s narratives of Biranganas of the 1971 war of Bangladesh

History and/through Oral Narratives: Relocating Women of the 1971 War of Bangladesh in Neelima Ibrahim’s A War Heroine, I Speak

In the postmodern era, one of the primary objectives of oral narratives is to tell the untold stories of history. Amidst the allegations that historical representation of war narratives, tend to be gendered and biased, these oral narratives of women offer not only a fresh perspective to the wars like the 1971 war of Bangladesh, the Sri Lankan Civil War (1983 – 2009) and the Kashmir Insurgency (1989 – present), but also become their own version of pain, suffering, prejudice, and plight. In that sense, they become the voice of the voiceless, giving the victims a chance to assert themselves, despite their subaltern position. They also converge as tools to reinvestigate or rather question the representation of war history and the politics of submerging women in traditional documented historiography. In the context of the 1971 war of Bangladesh, Neelima Ibrahim’s Aami Birangana Balchi (first published in Bengali in 1994, translated in English as A War Heroine, I Speak by Fayeza Hasanat in 2017), was the first narrative of its own kind that addressed victimization and survival of the Biranganas or literal brave heroines of the 1971 war. Ibrahim, being an active member of the humanitarian group ‘Bangladesh Women’s Rehabilitation and Welfare Foundation’ was a close observer of their struggle and thus, she recorded their narratives and published it. In a theoretical framework, where oral narratives play a seminal role in this sort of representations, this paper will broadly discuss Neelima Ibrahim’s narratives of Biranganas of the 1971 war of Bangladesh

Coincidence point results for hybrid pair of mappings on a dislocated metric space endowed with an arbitrary binary relation

We introduce the notion of generalized S-contraction of Nadler type and prove some new coincidence point results for hybrid pair of mappings in 0-complete dislocated metric spaces endowed with an arbitrary binary relation. Our results generalize, extend and unify several well known comparable results including Nadler’s fixed point theorem in the setting of dislocated metric spaces. As some applications of our main result, we can obtain several important fixed point results of multi-valued mappings satisfying some contractive type conditions of Kannan type, Fisher type etc. in this new framework. Moreover, we provide some examples to justify that the generalization is proper.Publisher's Versio

Shear-banding instability of arbitrarily inelastic granular shear flows

One prototypical instability in granular flows is the shearbanding instability, in which a uniform granular shear flow breaks into alternating bands of dense and dilute clusters of particles having low and high shear (shear stress or shear rate), respectively. In this work, the shearbanding instability in an arbitrarily inelastic granular shear flow is analyzed through the linear stability analysis of granular hydrodynamic equations closed with Navier–Stokes level constitutive relations. It is shown that the choice of appropriate constitutive relations plays an important role in predicting the shearbanding instability. A parametric study is carried out to study the effect of the restitution coefficient, channel width and mean density. Two global criteria relating the control parameters are found for onset of the shearbanding instability

HIBISCUS LEAF MUCILAGE AS STABILISER FOR PHARMACEUTICAL DISPERSE SYSTEMS

Objective: Stable pharmaceutical disperse systems are defined as heterogeneous, biphasic systems as suspensions and emulsions, stabilized by third agent or stabilizer. The aim of the present investigation was to extract mucilage from the leaves of Hibiscus rosa-sinesnsis L. and explore its ability to function as stabiliser for adult (10%w/v) and paediatric (2.4%w/v) paracetamol (PCM) suspensions and 2% v/v sunflower oil emulsions. Methods: Isolated mucilage powder was subjected to phytochemical tests to identify the major phytochemical constituents, FTIR spectroscopy to establish compatibility with formulation ingredients, X-ray diffractometry to determine the crystalline nature and viscosity study by Ostwald viscometer and swelling behaviour in water to determine the swelling index. Results: Qualitative phytochemical screening of the mucilage (HM) revealed the presence of non-reducing sugars, gums and mucilage. HM possesses a highly amorphous structure with extremely low overall crystallinity. The mucilage belongs to the class of carbohydrate as it contains–OH groups with intermolecular hydrogen bonding, with 1→4 glycosidic bonds which accounts for its high hydration capacity. Swelling index and relative viscosity of 0.5% w/v mucilage in water was found to be 1050 and 4.84 respectively at 25 °C. Although adult PCM suspensions containing 4% w/v mucilage exhibited poor redispersibility, paediatric suspension containing 1 and 2% w/v mucilage showed gradual settling of particles with good re-dispersibility and flowability. Emulsion activity index (EAI) values of the three emulsions (0.5, 0.75 and 1%w/v HM) were found to be close to 2 g. m-1 ml-1suggesting concentration independent activity of HM as an emulsifier. Emulsion stability index (ESI) values at 72 h showed comparatively less stability with increasing concentration of mucilage probably due to polysaccharide chain overlapping at high concentration leading to less effective surface coverage per unit gum concentration. Conclusion: Therefore, hibiscus leaf mucilage has the capacity to stabilize a suspension or emulsion based on its capacity to adsorb onto solid or liquid interfaces

Findings from colposcopy and colposcopy directed biopsy in cervical precancerous lesions

Background: Pap smear test has been less successful in identifying those women with the highest risk for pre-malignant disease, so the patients with equivocal Pap smear would need further evaluation with colposcopy. Performing the colposcopy with more accuracy would result in better prognosis of pre-malignant lesions. However, performing a comparison with directed biopsy is required to obtain more definite results. The aim of this study was to determine colcoscopic findings in VIA positive cases.Methods: This observational study was conducted at the Department of Gynaecology and Obstetrics in Chittagong Medical College Hospital, Chittagong from September 2014 to February 2015. A total 72 women of VIA positive cases attended at colposcopy clinic of CMCH were included in this study. These patients were selected nonrandomly according to inclusion criteria. All patients were sign a written informed consent before recruitment into the study. According to colposcopy diagnosis was done by Reid colposcopic index. All patients were undergone directed biopsy followed by histopathology. Data were collected under guidance and advice of the supervisor through a structured questionnaire.Results: Almost two-thirds of the cases were 30-39 years age group. Among the 72 cases the presentations were mainly excessive vaginal discharge 61.1%, dyspareunia 16.7%, post-coital bleeding 9.7% and abnormal inter-menstrual bleeding 12.5%. Colposcopically 90.3% had CIN and invasive lesions, while 9.7% was normal. Colposcopically directed punch biopsy revealed in 84.7% cases positive lesions and 15.3% had not any CIN or invasive lesions.Conclusions: This study demonstrated high accuracy. Sensitivity is lower in our studies, probably because biopsies were performed in all case

Comparative study of oral mifepristone and endocervical prostaglandin-E2 gel as pre-induction cervical ripening agents in parturition

Background: Intracervical instillation of prostaglandin E2 is a well-known and widely practiced method of pre-induction cervical ripening. Mifepristone, due to its anti-progesterone action has been found to be a potential cervical ripening agent. This study was conducted to compare the safety, efficacy and outcome of these two drugs in pre-induction cervical ripening.Methods: One hundred antenatal women were recruited for the study; 50 in mifepristone arm and 50 in PG-E2 gel arm. Any singleton term pregnancy in vertex presentation with intact membranes and bishop’s score of <4 was included in the study. Any contraindication for vaginal delivery and any contraindication for mifepristone or PG-E2 were considered as exclusion criteria. Participants in the mifepristone arm were given tablet mifepristone 200 mg orally and those in PG-E2 gel group received endocervical instillation of PGE2 gel 0.5 mg, two doses 6 hours apart (if necessary). Induction of labour was considered successful if the parturient delivered within 48 hours of administration of mifepristone or first dose of PG-E2 gel, with or without labour augmentation with oxytocin. Delivery after 48 hours and caesarean delivery were considered unsuccessful induction.Results: There was a significant improvement in bishop’s score in mifepristone group 5.0±1.55 as compared to PG-E2 gel group 3.64±2.14; p value 0.001.Conclusions: Oral administration of 200 mg mifepristone is a safe, effective and convenient alternative to intracervical instillation of prostaglandin-E2 gel for pre-induction cervical ripening

Effect of Arsenic in germination, growth and biochemistry of Rice (Oryza sativa)

Arsenic is a highly toxic metalloid element and occurs in many minerals, usually in conjunction with sulfur and metals, and also as a pure elemental crystal. Arsenic poisoning from naturally occurring arsenic compounds in drinking water remains a problem in many parts of the world. Arsenic contaminated water is also used in the agricultural field for irrigation purpose. The influence of 0, 1, 2 and 4mg/l sodium arsenite on germination, seedling growth and biochemistry of two varieties of Rice (Oryza sativa), Nayanmani and Satabdi was studied under controlled conditions. After 3 weeks the various parameters (percentage of seed germination, root and shoot length, dry biomass, chlorophyll, peroxidase, protein and ascorbic acid content) were estimated following standard procedures. It was observed that the root and shoot length, germination percentage, dry biomass, protein content, chlorophyll, ascorbic acid content and peroxidase activity decreased significantly with increasing exposure to arsenic in both the plant varieties. The study shows that arsenic is toxic to both rice varieties and affects adversely the normal rate of germination and growth through alteration in the plant biochemistry