NEOLIBERALISM AND THE CHANGING NOTION OF INDIAN HIGHER EDUCATION

Neoliberalism is currently the most prevalent political philosophy across the world. It is a term used to describe the 20th-century resurgence of 19th-century ideas associated with free-market capitalism. The typical policies associated with neoliberalism include free trade, globalization, privatization, and changes in government spending to stimulate the private sector. This paper aims to better understand the reasons for this neoliberal turn in higher education and explore the visible and invisible ramifications of this paradigm shift in the policies for higher education in India. The paper focuses on the origins and meaning of neoliberalism, its application and practice in higher education, as well as the issues and critiques that have been raised in this context. The author offers both a critique of the neoliberal paradigm of marketized education and a challenge to academics to act as public intellectuals, both individually and with civil society organizations, to establish a counter-hegemonic discourse to neoliberalism for higher education. The paper concludes that neoliberal education reforms have made higher education much more diverse and have given rise to more learning opportunities; however, in India, which has enshrined systemic inequalities, neoliberalism has further reinforced existing inequalities, and public universities have lost their autonomy and led to knowledge capitalism.  Article visualizations

Infrastructure development and economic growth in China

China is the fastest growing country in the world for last few decades and one of the defining features of China's growth has been investment-led growth. China's sustained high economic growth and increased competitiveness in manufacturing has been underpinned by a massive development of physical infrastructure. In this context, we investigate the role of infrastructure in promoting economic growth in China for the period 1975 to 2007. Overall, the results reveal that infrastructure stock, labour force, public and private investments have played an important role in economic growth in China. More importantly, we find that Infrastructure development in China has significant positive contribution to growth than both private and public investment. Further, there is unidirectional causality from infrastructure development to output growth justifying China's high spending on infrastructure development since the early nineties. The experience from China suggests that it is necessary to design an economic policy that improves the physical infrastructure as well as human capital formation for sustainable economic growth in developing countries.China, Infrastructure, Economic development, Investments, China, Investment, L9 - Industry Studies: Transportation and Utilities, H4 - Publicly provided goods, O1 - Economic development

Development of Agrobacterium-mediated transformation technology for mature seed-derived callus tissues of indica rice cultivar IR64.

Indica rice cultivar IR64 is most recalcitrant to regenerate, which affects the transformation efficiency especially when mature seed-derived callus tissues are used as explants. Therefore, a simple, rapid and improved genetic transformation protocol has been developed for the indica rice cultivar IR64 using Agrobacterium-mediated genetic transformation. With different hormonal combination tested, the maximum callus induction was observed on MS medium supplemented with 2.5 mg/l 2,4-D and 0.15 mg/l BAP from the scutellum explants. Three weeks old scutellum derived callus explants were immersed in Agrobacterium suspension (strain LBA4404, OD600=1.0) and co-cultured at 26±2°C in dark for 2 d. The maximum transformation efficiency (12%) was achieved with infection of callus explants for 20 min along with use of 150 μm acetosyringone. The maximum plant regeneration was observed on MS medium supplemented with 3 mg/l BAP, 1 mg/l Kinetin and 0.5 mg/l NAA. The maximum root induction was observed on MS medium along with 10 g/l glucose and 20 g/l sucrose. The integration of the transgene in T1 transgenic plants was confirmed by polymerase chain reaction and Southern blot analyses. The copy number of transgenes has been found to vary from 1 to 2 in transgenic plants. By using this improved method we have successfully raised transgenic rice plants within 3 mo from seed inoculation to plant regeneration

Offline Signature Verification Scheme

Offline signature verification schemes are necessary to determine the authenticity and genuineness of a variety of things which require certification using signatures. Most offline verification schemes till date have required perfect alignment of the signature to the specified axes. However there are situations when the sample to be verified may not be aligned to the required axis. In that situation the current verification schemes could reject the signature even though it may be genuine. The suggested scheme aims to make the verification of signatures size and angle invariant. The invariance can be achieved by scaling and rotational manipulations on the target image. The shape of a person’s signature remains similar in all translational, scaled and rotational alignments of the sign. That is the number of crests, toughs and curves remains the same irrespective of the size and orientation of the image. The ratio between consecutive crests and troughs there by remain the same and hence can be used to determine the genuineness of a signature. The proposed scheme also proposes a novel way to store the information extracted from the image after processing. The ratios obtained for verification can be stored in a linear array, which required much less space as compared to the previously followed schemes. The success of the proposed scheme can be determined from the appreciable FARs and FAAs

Layout Planning with Isles: A Genetic Approach

Plant layout problems involve distributing different resources or departments in a given plant and achieving maximum efficiency for the services or goods being made or offered. To this end, plants are designed to optimize production flow from the first stage (i.e. as raw material) to finish product. However, optimization which is generally expressed either in terms of minimization (for example, of material handling costs) or of maximization (for example, the number of desired adjacencies in a qualitative chart) is not always feasible when real problems or real sizes are being handled. The level of complexity may turn out considerable as the number of parameters, restrictions and other variables considered in the study become larger. This kind of problem has been formulated, from a mathematical view point as a static quadratic assignment problem. However, the number of problems that are usceptible to being solved by optimization methods is very limited. Some alternatives have been called from the field of graph-theory, direct method algorithms, construction algorithms (such as CORELAP), and improvement algorithms (such as CRAFT). In this thesis work, an attempt is made to develop the algorithm for solving layout problem with real-life restriction like aisles, used in factories for the easy transfer of materials from one section to the other, using Genetic Algorithm

Infrastructure development and economic growth in China

China is the fastest growing country in the world for last few decades and one of the defining features of China\u27s growth has been investment-led growth. China\u27s sustained high economic growth and increased competitiveness in manufacturing has been underpinned by a massive development of physical infrastructure. In this context, we investigate the role of infrastructure in promoting economic growth in China for the period 1975 to 2007. Overall, the results reveal that infrastructure stock, labour force, public and private investments have played an important role in economic growth in China. More importantly, we find that Infrastructure development in China has significant positive contribution to growth than both private and public investment. Further, there is unidirectional causality from infrastructure development to output growth justifying China\u27s high spending on infrastructure development since the early nineties. The experience from China suggests that it is necessary to design an economic policy that improves the physical infrastructure as well as human capital formation for sustainable economic growth in developing countries