Revisiting Development Discourse amidst Informal Sector Crises COVID-19 Pandemic

Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, India has experienced a severe catastrophe of the informal sector, related to both health and livelihood. The informal sector and migrant workers are closely linked and they became easy prey during the nationwide lockdown at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. The informal sector, primarily a fallout of the prevailing dual economy, makes it highly imperative to revisit not only India’s growth and development process but also the distribution. The paper attempts to evaluate the development process adopted by developing countries and their relevance in terms of growth and inequality. The study finds the missing link of the theory of distribution of welfare economics. Lack of emphasis on equitable distribution resulted in a wide gap between the rich and poor. The informal sector crises of COVID-19 has ignited the predominance of regional inequalities in the development process on account of the dual economy and has widened the regional disparities at inter and intra-state level. By settling the migrants in their native place with the holistic economic package, comprising of technology, skills and advancement that will contribute to the rural economy in the long term. The need to institutionalize the regional or localized financial sector, health and social infrastructure has been emphasized in the paper as a long-term solution. the responsibility of informal crises in most developing countries is mainly of development discourse. There is a need to revisit the development process adopted by developing countries. The state must address the acute inequality aggravated due to the existing informal sector and implement the policies of health security during Pandemic crises

Effects of calcium channel blocker, nifedipine, on antidepressant activity of fluvoxamine, venlafaxine and tianeptine in mice

Background: Cardiovascular diseases are commonly associated with depression. Calcium channel blockers (CCBs) form commonly used group of drugs for the treatment of a number of cardiovascular diseases. Nifedipine, a CCB, has been shown to possess antidepressant activity and potentiate antidepressant activity of imipramine and sertraline, however, literature on its interaction with newer antidepressant drugs such as fluvoxamine, venlafaxine and tianeptine is limited. Hence, the present study was undertaken.Methods: The study was carried out in albino mice in two phases. In Phase I, antidepressant activity of nifedipine, fluvoxamine, venlafaxine and tianeptine were confirmed after their single dose administration using forced swim test (FST) and tail suspension test (TST) and their minimum antidepressant doses were determined. In Phase II, the effect of nifedipine on antidepressant activity of fluvoxamine, venlafaxine and tianeptine was studied by orally administering sub-antidepressant doses of these drugs for 28 days. FST and TST were carried out on 1st, 14th and 28th day of the study and change in immobility period was observed.Results: In Phase I, all the studied drugs exhibited dose dependent antidepressant activity in both FST and TST. Minimal antidepressant dose of nifedipine, fluvoxamine, venlafaxine and tianeptine was observed as 10, 25, 25 and 10 mg/kg respectively. In Phase II, combinations of sub-antidepressant dose of nifedipine (5 mg/kg) with sub-antidepressant doses of fluvoxamine (12.5 mg/kg), venlafaxine (12.5 mg/kg) and tianeptine (5 mg/kg) exhibited enhanced antidepressant activity when compared to the control group and individual drug groups after same duration of treatment.Conclusions: Nifedipine, fluvoxamine, venlafaxine and tianeptine possess antidepressant activity and nifedipine exhibits synergistic antidepressant activity with fluvoxamine, venlafaxine and tianeptine

A broadband look of the Accreting Millisecond X-ray Pulsar SAX J1748.9-2021 using AstroSat and XMM-Newton

SAX J1748.9-2021 is a transient accretion powered millisecond X-ray pulsar located in the Globular cluster NGC 6440. We report on the spectral and timing analysis of SAX J1748.9-2021 performed on AstroSat data taken during its faint and short outburst of 2017. We derived the best-fitting orbital solution for the 2017 outburst and obtained an average local spin frequency of 442.361098(3) Hz. The pulse profile obtained from 3-7 keV and 7-20 keV energy bands suggest constant fractional amplitude ~0.5% for fundamental component, contrary to previously observed energy pulse profile dependence. Our AstroSat observations revealed the source to be in a hard spectral state. The 1-50 keV spectrum from SXT and LAXPC on-board AstroSat can be well described with a single temperature blackbody and thermal Comptonization. Moreover, we found that the combined spectra from XMM-Newton (EPIC-PN) and AstroSat (SXT+LAXPC) indicated the presence of reflection features in the form of iron (Fe K${\alpha}$) line that we modeled with the reflection model xillvercp. One of the two X-ray burst observed during the AstroSat/LAXPC observation showed hard X-ray emission (>30 keV) due to Compton up-scattering of thermal photons by the hot corona. Time resolved analysis performed on the bursts revealed complex evolution in emission radius of blackbody for second burst suggestive of mild photospheric radius expansion.Comment: 9 pages, 8 figures. Accepted for publication in MNRA

Mucinous Tubular and Spindle Cell Renal Cell Carcinoma (MTSC-RCC) with an Unusual Presentation in a Child

Mucinous tubular and spindle cell renal cell carcinoma (MTSC-RCC) is a rare but favorable variant of renal cell carcinoma, predominantly found in adults. Complete surgical excision is the treatment of choice. We are reporting an intriguing case of bilateral MTSC-RCC in a 13-year-old-boy with rapid disease progression, leading to metastatic disease and subsequent demise of the child