Marriage murders and anti-caste feminist politics in India

This paper investigates the complex nexus between inter-caste marriages and escalating caste politics in India. While much literature justifiably focuses on rising Islamophobia in the country, this paper considers the ‘love jihad’ phenomenon and extreme forms of violence against individuals in inter-caste or inter-religious marriages, particularly since 2014. The politics and practice of inter-caste choice marriages in India raise fundamental questions about the institution of marriage itself. The paper reviews relevant literature and draws on cases reported in the media to propose a deeper interpretation of the role of caste in marriage murders. It further explores several powerful critiques from the past of the institution and practice of arranged marriage in India. It concludes by highlighting the need for an anti-caste, feminist perspective in these debates, as increasing numbers of marriage murders have coincided with an exoticization of India's culture of arranged marriages and caste hierarchies globally.</p

When My Brown Got Colored:Living through/in the Times of White and Brahmanical Supremacy

This essay is a testimonial of the author’s experiences, memories, and reflections about becoming a person/woman of color, discovering, and unearthing the meanings of racialization, white privilege, and white supremacy in the contemporary United States. The author gives voice to her new migrant experience as a Brown woman from India, positioning her reflections and learnings amidst the history and politics of colonialism and capitalist development, linking it to contemporary neoliberal academia in the United States. By sharing some events and encounters in her relatively short stint in Charlottesville, Virginia, between 2016 and 2019, the author reviews her attempts to critically analyze concepts like women of color, diversity, colorism, privilege, invisibility, and othering. The article further connects some of the author’s experiences of racialization in view of the growing politics of casteism and Brahmanical supremacy in India, locating and reassessing herself in the midst of Trump’s hardened propagation of white privilege in the United States and Modi’s Hindutva, both emanating a politics rooted in racialization, exploitation, and marginalization of the other.</p

Portrayal of Realism and Rationalism in the Selected Poems of Robert Frost

Robert Frost (1874-1963) is a famous American Poet. As most of his poems are autobiographical in subject, it is evident that he has been mostly influenced by the environment around him in composing his masterpieces. Frost’s themes are very simple in the surface meaning endowed with an easily understandable diction and a liberal style of writing. Yet, a careful study of his works vividly reveals his greatness as a ‘true’ judge of various critical aspects associated with the everyday experiences of the humans. His major characters- the narrators in “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening”, “Mending wall” and “The Road not Taken” are viewed as the real people with real struggles in real life. It is seen that Frost’s poetry is highly connotative and the same reader can interpret the poetry of Robert Frost in multiple ways in multiple settings. The present article aims at critically examining Frost’s ‘realistic’ and ‘rationalistic’ approaches in the elevation of human nature under the broad spectrum of human life. This article also aims at proving that no poem of Frost ends in an absolute imagination because Frost himself seems to believe in realism as the ultimate fate of the individuals though fancy and imagination provides a temporary relief to the disturbed soul

Mass media discourse: a critical analysis research agenda

In this article, I aim to revisit some key issues in approaches to research on mass media texts from a discourse analytical perspective and to present a rationale, as well as a Critical Discourse Analysis (henceforth, CDA) framework for analysis of mass media discourse. I then consider a number of areas of critical research interest in mass media discourse locally and elsewhere. Examples of actual CDA research on mass media discourse are reviewed in terms of topics of apparent popular interest among practitioners such as racist discourse in news reporting, language of globalization and neo-capitalism, and war news reporting, before listing methodological, as well as topical agenda by a major proponent in the field for further work. The article concludes that CDA’s multidisciplinary approach to research on mass media discourse helps reveal hidden socio-political issues and agenda in various areas of language as social practice and in doing so potentially empowers the individual and social groups

Investigation of HDDE exhaust flow mixing devices to enhance SCR performance

The 2010 regulations implemented by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) require significant reduction in Oxides of Nitrogen (NO x) and Particulate Matter (PM). These regulations have driven a significant amount of research and development into more advanced engine combustion strategies and after-treatment systems. This study focuses on NOx reduction in Heavy Duty Diesel Engines (HDDE) equipped with Diesel Particulate Filter (DPF) and Selective Catalytic Reduction (SCR) catalyst by optimizing the mixing of DPF out exhaust gas with urea injected upstream of the SCR. Proprietary wired mesh substrates were installed between the DPF and SCR system at three locations and showed further NOx reduction from the previous emissions results. Different wired mesh catalytic substrates of varying lengths were used in this study. Experiments were conducted on four of the 13 modes of the European Stationary Cycle (ESC), modes in which the engine yielded high NOx emissions. Results from these experiments show that the wired mesh substrates enhanced the mixing of the exhaust stream and urea, which improved the performance of the SCR catalyst. When the wired mesh was tested on ESC and Federal Transient Procedure (FTP), NOx emissions were reduced 20-25% by introducing the wired mesh substrates in the exhaust flow for the ESC cycles. This study demonstrated that the wired mesh substrates enhanced the mixing of the exhaust gas and the injected urea. The mixing effect caused by the wired mesh improved the thermolysys of urea into ammonia (NH 3). This study draws a conclusion that using a wired mesh catalytic substrate in the exhaust upstream of the SCR catalyst improves the mixing of the exhaust with urea and gives additional NOx reduction for certain steady state modes, but showed no change for the NO x emissions for the FTP cycle