The religious ideas of Rammohun Roy : a survey of his writings on religion particularly in Persian, Sanskrit, and Bengali

The religious ideas of Rammohun Roy and his role as a reformer have not yet been properly evaluated. Two extreme and contradictory views about his achievements are often found. The one elevates him too high in the category of a superman, and the other denounces his efforts as a complete failure. The present thesis tries to analyse Rammohun's religious ideas and to determine how exactly these ideas contributed primarily to the new conception of Hinduism that would emerge. It therefore excludes the consideration of socio-religious problems like sat! and the question of his immediate impact on nineteenth century society. The sources used are mainly his own writings on religion, the writings of his contemporary opponents, and the results of recent researches on him. The Persian influence which was so important in the development of his ideas, but which is often neglected by his biographers, has been taken into account. The probable connection between a 17th century Persian tract and his first published work the Tuhfatul muwdhhidin has been explored, and the Jawab Tuhfatu'l muwahhidin which is often ascribed to him (though wrongly), has been translated with text, introduction and notes in Appendix A. The Jawab gives some interesting information about him, his admirers, and his critics, and shows the nature of religious dispute during the time. Chapter one of this thesis gives the social and religious background, and the trend of rationalistic thoughts in the country and abroad, while Chapter two outlines Rammohun as a man, and his emergence as a reformer. Chapter three surveys his writings on religion and his controversies with his opponents, and Chapter four deals with his Brahma Samaj and the Dharma Sabha of the orthodox Hindus. An analysis of his religious ideas and its evaluation form the contents of Chapter five, which also includes the concluding part of the thesis. A letter believed to be written by Rammohun under the assumed name Satya-Sadhun, and published in the Calcutta Journal is in Appendix B

Sustaining supercooled mixed phase via resonant oscillations of the order parameter

We investigate the dynamics of a first order transition when the order parameter field undergoes resonant oscillations, driven by a periodically varying parameter of the free energy. This parameter could be a background oscillating field as in models of pre-heating after inflation. In the context of condensed matter systems, it could be temperature $T$, or pressure, external electric/magnetic field etc. We show that with suitable driving frequency and amplitude, the system remains in a type of mixed phase, without ever completing transition to the stable phase, even when the oscillating parameter of the free energy remains below the corresponding critical value (for example, with oscillating temperature, $T$ always remains below the critical temperature $T_c$). This phenomenon may have important implications. In cosmology, it will imply prolonged mixed phase in a first order transition due to coupling with background oscillating fields. In condensed matter systems, it will imply that using oscillating temperature (or, more appropriately, pressure waves) one may be able to sustain liquids in a mixed phase indefinitely at low temperatures, without making transition to the frozen phase.Comment: 17 pages, 7 figures, Expanded version with more detail

Informality and corruption

The paper considers several determinants of the size of the informal sector and explores the implications of corruption. It focuses attention on an issue that has not received much attention before, namely, the link between informality and corruption. We show that corruption affects both the size and composition of the informal sector in a significant manner. While small firms locate in the informal sector to avoid the fixed costs associated with the formal sector, we find that even larger firms might prefer informality because of their superior access to corruption. The paper shows that there is a U shaped relationship between a firm’s share of its sales in the informal sector and the scale of its operations. We also show that imperfections in the credit market and wealth inequality are likely to be associated with a larger informal sector. We use a large cross-country firm level survey data to provide supporting evidence. The results of our exercise have considerable policy implications that extend beyond the micro level framework of this study to the wider macro economy

A Stochastic Game Framework for Efficient Energy Management in Microgrid Networks

We consider the problem of energy management in microgrid networks. A microgrid is capable of generating a limited amount of energy from a renewable resource and is responsible for handling the demands of its dedicated customers. Owing to the variable nature of renewable generation and the demands of the customers, it becomes imperative that each microgrid optimally manages its energy. This involves intelligently scheduling the demands at the customer side, selling (when there is a surplus) and buying (when there is a deficit) the power from its neighboring microgrids depending on its current and future needs. Typically, the transaction of power among the microgrids happens at a pre-decided price by the central grid. In this work, we formulate the problems of demand and battery scheduling, energy trading and dynamic pricing (where we allow the microgrids to decide the price of the transaction depending on their current configuration of demand and renewable energy) in the framework of stochastic games. Subsequently, we propose a novel approach that makes use of independent learners Deep Q-learning algorithm to solve this problem. Through extensive empirical evaluation, we show that our proposed framework is more beneficial to the majority of the microgrids and we provide a detailed analysis of the results

Resonant Production of Topological Defects

We describe a novel phenomenon in which vortices are produced due to resonant oscillations of a scalar field which is driven by a periodically varying temperature T, with T remaining much below the critical temperature $T_c$. Also, in a rapid heating of a localized region to a temperature {\it below} $T_c$, far separated vortex and antivortex can form. We compare our results with recent models of defect production during reheating after inflation. We also discuss possible experimental tests of our predictions of topological defect production {\it without} ever going through a phase transition.Comment: Revtex, 13 pages including 5 postscript figure