COVID-19 dissensus in Australia: Negotiating uncertainty in public health communication and media commentary on a novel pandemic

The emergence of an epidemic or pandemic presents significant challenges for public health communication. The shifting and uncertain nature of an epidemic or pandemic necessitates a dynamic communication strategy. However, negotiating uncertainty and information gaps can be challenging for both government and media. This commentary focuses on two aspects of selected Australian media commentary on the COVID-19 pandemic: media commentators’ negotiation of gaps in the available information about the pandemic and commentators’ assessment of perceived initial inconsistency in the government’s public health messaging. It analyses how a perceived inability to reconcile gaps in the expert advice can be interpreted by media commentators as an indication of public health communication failure

Pronoun Strength and Agreement Shift in Assamese

In this paper, an attempt has been made to show how Assamese, an IA language marks de se (conscious self-reference of the attitude holder) by using agreement shift (where first person Agreement on the embedded verb agrees with the third person subject of the matrix clause). It is seen only in the presence of the quotative complementizer buli. The paper discusses the interaction of Agreement shift with the two complementizers and the strength of pronouns which raises problems for previous analyses. The analysis is done using the LogP mechanism and we conclude that the [±LOG] feature of the pronouns is responsible for Agreement shift

Internationalising Indian Higher Education: Opportunities, Challenges and the Way Forward

This paper examines the higher education system in India together with its status regarding internationalisation, and presents the case for the higher education sector in India to embrace internationalisation.Starting with an overview of the academic literature around the concepts of globalisation and internationalisation, and their interrelationship particularly in the context of higher education, the paper focuses on the specific issues of Indian higher education especially within the context of internationalisation. Reviewing the current landscape of the Indian higher education sector, the paper concludes that, in the context of a globally connected world, higher education in India is characterised by asymmetry in flows and unclear policies. Recommending that the internationalisation strategy focuses on the four strands of student and programme mobility; infrastructure and policy support; development of research capability; and the employment of technology as an enabler, the paper concludes that a clear approach to internationalisation would offer the potential to secure India a formidable global standing in higher education