Empowerment, Declined: Paradoxes of Microfinance and Gendered Subjectivity in Urban India

Microfinance today constitutes a gendered frontier of global capital, targeting working class women for small loans through commercial microfinance institutions (MFIs). Drawing on ethnography and interviews with for-profit MFIs in India and their clients, this study aims to understand the mechanisms through which microfinance shapes gendered subjectivities at the outer edge of the global financial system. Through training programs that often accompany microloans, MFIs encourage clients to identify as working mothers who are primary caregivers for their children, but are also engaged in productive work through microenterprise or waged work. This identity serves MFIs—and global finance more broadly—by leveraging motherhood as collateral, while also ostensibly “empowering” women by encouraging them to provide for their families though work and loans. A few exceptional, well-off clients see value in the teachings of these training programs, and are celebrated by MFIs, but many more ignore or reject such programs, insisting that they are “only” housewives or mothers. Better off women, then, may be more “vulnerable” to MFI discourses aiming to transform them as individuals. Clients’ widespread dismissal of MFI empowerment programs also suggests that MFIs, far from having totalizing power, must be beholden to women who use the loans for their own purposes, while “declining” the models of gendered subjectivity on offer. Thus, the expansion of the global financial system, which requires cooperation from working class women on both material and ideological fronts, may be a contested, uneven process, rather than a linear process of “financial inclusion.

Diversity of mantids in tea plantation

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Electro-antennographic response of Helopeltis theivora to synthetic pesticides used in tea plantations

Helopeltis theivora is considered as one of the major pest in tea plantations causing considerable economic damage. Recent control strategies against this notorious polyphagous pest mainly depend on the application of insecticides. The study is focused on the antennal response of H. theivora on exposure to different insecticides using electroantenogram (EAG). The result showed that the insects perceive quinalphos as they are frequently exposed to it. The hierarchy of the EAG response of exposed and unexposed insects was quinalphos > bifenthrin > deltamethrin > thiamethoxam

Solution Structure of a CUE-Ubiquitin Complex Reveals a Conserved Mode of Ubiquitin Binding

AbstractMonoubiquitination serves as a regulatory signal in a variety of cellular processes. Monoubiquitin signals are transmitted by binding to a small but rapidly expanding class of ubiquitin binding motifs. Several of these motifs, including the CUE domain, also promote intramolecular monoubiquitination. The solution structure of a CUE domain of the yeast Cue2 protein in complex with ubiquitin reveals intermolecular interactions involving conserved hydrophobic surfaces, including the Leu8-Ile44-Val70 patch on ubiquitin. The contact surface extends beyond this patch and encompasses Lys48, a site of polyubiquitin chain formation. This suggests an occlusion mechanism for inhibiting polyubiquitin chain formation during monoubiquitin signaling. The CUE domain shares a similar overall architecture with the UBA domain, which also contains a conserved hydrophobic patch. Comparative modeling suggests that the UBA domain interacts analogously with ubiquitin. The structure of the CUE-ubiquitin complex may thus serve as a paradigm for ubiquitin recognition and signaling by ubiquitin binding proteins

Identification of moaA3 gene in patient isolates of Mycobacterium tuberculosis in Kerala, which is absent in M. tuberculosis H37Rv and H37Ra

BACKGROUND: Tuberculosis is endemic to developing countries like India. Though the whole genome sequences of the type strain M. tuberculosis H37Rv and the clinical strain M. tuberculosis CDC1551 are available, the clinical isolates from India have not been studied extensively at the genome level. This study was carried out in order to have a better understanding of isolates from Kerala, a state in southern India. RESULTS: A PCR based strategy was followed making use of the deletion region primers to understand the genome level differences between the type strain H37Rv and the clinical isolates of M. tuberculosis from Kerala. PCR analysis of patient isolates using RD1 region primers revealed the amplification of a 386 bp region, in addition to the expected 652 bp amplicon. Southern hybridization of genomic DNA with the 386 bp amplicon confirmed the presence of this new region in a majority of the patient isolates from Kerala. Sequence comparison of this amplicon showed close homology with the moaA3 gene of M. bovis. In M. bovis this gene is present in the RvD5 region, an IS6110 mediated deletion that is absent in M. tuberculosis H37Rv. CONCLUSION: This study demonstrates the presence of moaA3 gene, that is absent in M. tuberculosis H37Rv and H37Ra, in a large number of local isolates. Whether the moaA3 gene provides any specific advantage to the field isolates of the pathogen is unclear. Field strains from Kerala have fewer IS6110 sequences and therefore are likely to have fewer IS6110 dependent rearrangements. But as deletions and insertions account for much of the genomic diversity of M. tuberculosis, the mechanisms of formation of sequence polymorphisms in the local isolates should be further examined. These results suggest that studies should focus on strains from endemic areas to understand the complexities of this pathogen

Crossing boundaries:bras, lingerie and rape myths in postcolonial urban middle-class India

With the processes of modernization, urbanization and the entry of women in the formal labour market in Indian metropolitan spaces, this paper examines how the modern middle-class woman’s sartorial choices become enmeshed in popular rape myths (false beliefs) that serve to blame her for the wearing of western clothing. The paper articulates the ways in which middle-class women’s social realities are shaped by historical, colonial and nationalist ideologies of modernization, constructed and mediated through moral codes of dressing. By drawing upon original and contemporary empirical narratives from the urban spaces of Delhi and Mumbai, we emphasise how everyday sartorial choices, in relation to particularly the bra and lingerie, can reveal the nuanced ways in which Urban Indian Professional Women (UIPW) seek to understand, negotiate, and resist patriarchal power. Our findings shed light on conflicting and contradictory spatial experiences, where some women internalize and negotiate moral codes of dressing, out of fear, and others who transgress are subject to sanctions. Given the paucity of scholarly literature in this area, the paper makes an important theoretical and empirical contribution with its focus on postcoloniality and everyday discursive material spaces of gendered and sexualized dress practices. It argues for the consciousness raising of everyday urban geographies of dress that reveal complicated structures of power that are often deemed hidden

New record of Helopeltis bradyi Waterhouse and Pachypeltis maesarum Kirkaldy (Hemiptera: Miridae) on tea Camellia sinensis L.O. (Kuntze) in southern India

Helopeltis theivora commonly called as tea mosquito bug (TMB) is considered as important pest of tea in South India. Extensive survey in tea plantations of Anamallais, recorded H. bradyi and Pachypeltis maesarum (Hemiptera: Miridae) causing considerable damage and were registered for the first time on tea. Their occurrence was seen in association with H. theivora. There was considerable variation among these species in size of the circular rings formed by rostral piercing, indicating that these three species can be easily demarcated based on the observation of feeding punctures even in field condition. As the dosage and recommendations of insecticides against TMB in tea in south India was pertaining only to H. theivora the addition of H. bradyi and P. maesarum will improve the future pest management strategies

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Not AvailableEocantheocna concinna (Walker) is recorded as an important predator of lepidopteran pests in tea plantations of South India. It is described for the first time based on male and female genitalia. Biology of this predator was studied on Corcyra cephalonica larvae. Egg incubation period was 14.3 ± 0.4 days. Five nymphal instars were developed in a period of 33–36 days. Feeding efficacy of different instars of E. concinna was evaluated on third instar tea looper, Biston suppressaria. Results showed fourth and fifth instars of E. concinna attacked faster on B. suppressaria. The study describes E. concinna as a potential predator of various lepidopteran pests in tea plantations and a promising candidate for biological control of looper pestsNot Availabl