Political Corruption in India: Coalition Dharma?!

This article, while drawing a distinction between three kinds of corruption– transactional, constitutional and political, dwells on an analysis of the latter with particular reference to the time stemming out of the call for confidence by the Manmohan Singh coalition government in India in 2008. It also makes a case for controlling the proliferation of parties, while acknowledging the need for political parties for a successful working of a democracy. The plea is to stop small, splinter parties based on individual personalities rather than any ideology, and provide proper political conduct devoid of opportunism

Combating Corruption: Lessons out of India

This paper deals with the ubiquitous problem of corruption among public officials– both elected and appointed, in India. By looking at the legal and administrative provisions to combat corruption, it is shown how futile the attempts so far have been. Among the plethora of reasons for failure to combat corruption, it is concluded that the more important ones are the inadequate and inefficient enforcement mechanisms, lack of political will, and more importantly the cultural context of social tolerance and easy forgiveness. Any outrage that is there is largely confined to rhetoric, not action. Despite some helpful developments such as the newly conferred freedom of information, active investigative media and engaged civic groups, reasons for optimism appear to be minimal. The need seems to be a serious effort to develop sound norms by changing the societal culture, which places the premium on the shoulders of political parties

Penalization Framework For Autonomous Agents Using Answer Set Programming

This paper presents a framework for enforcing penalties on intelligent agents that do not comply with authorization or obligation policies in a changing environment. A framework is proposed to represent and reason about penalties in plans, and an algorithm is proposed to penalize an agent's actions based on their level of compliance with respect to authorization and obligation policies. Being aware of penalties an agent can choose a plan with a minimal total penalty, unless there is an emergency goal like saving a human's life. The paper concludes that this framework can reprimand insubordinate agents.Comment: In Proceedings ICLP 2023, arXiv:2308.1489

Building a Benchmark for Industrial IoT Application

In this project, we have developed a rather robust means of processing and displaying large sums of IoT data using several cutting-edge, industry-standard technologies. Our data pipeline integrates physical sensors that send various environmental data like temperature, humidity, and pressure. Once created, the data is then collected at an MQTT broker, streamed through a Kafka cluster, processed within a Spark Cluster, and stored in a Cassandra database. In order to test the rigidity of the pipeline, we also created virtual sensors. This allowed us to send an immense amount of data, which wasn’t necessarily feasible with just the physical sensors. The web interface allows users to create as many of these virtual sensors as testing requires. Once the data goes through the pipeline, it is made viewable on the same web interface. Users can search for key sensors, look through important data, and analyze as necessary. Our IoT pipeline enables seamless data flow and near real-time analytics. Using industry-standard technologies allows for scalability and reliability, making it suitable for all sorts of data-intensive applications

Is constitutional democracy in India in crisis?

Purpose – This paper examines the decline of the largest working parliamentary democracy in India overtime, but accelerating since 2014 as the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the Center (as the federal government is commonly known). Design/methodology/approach – It is eclectic. Original constitution, along with commentaries, are studied. News outlets, government pronouncements, journal articles, and other media outlets — electronic and print — are also sourced. Findings – The findings show how three important features in democracy — elections and their outcomes, control of information, and suppression of dissent are widely used to undermine constitutional democracy. Originality/value – Democracy can be undermined without altering the Constitution itself. It also explains the irony of Modi’s popularity, given the undemocratic practices. As he may continue in office for some time to come, commanding a log-rolling majority, the need of the hour is a united, constructive and effective opposition to ensure a healthy working democracy

Crop type identification and spatial mapping using Sentinel-2 satellite data with focus on field-level information

Accurate monitoring of croplands helps in making decisions (for insurance claims, crop management and contingency plans) at the macro-level, especially in drylands where variability in cropping is very high owing to erratic weather conditions. Dryland cereals and grain legumes are key to ensuring the food and nutritional security of a large number of vulnerable populations living in the drylands. Reliable information on area cultivated to such crops forms part of the national accounting of food production and supply in many Asian countries, many of which are employing remote sensing tools to improve the accuracy of assessments of cultivated areas. This paper assesses the capabilities and limitations of mapping cultivated areas in the Rabi (winter) season and corresponding cropping patterns in three districts characterized by small-plot agriculture. The study used Sentinel-2 Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) 15-day time-series at 10m resolution by employing a Spectral Matching Technique (SMT) approach. The use of SMT is based on the well-studied relationship between temporal NDVI signatures and crop phenology. The rabi season in India, dominated by non-rainy days, is best suited for the application of this method, as persistent cloud cover will hamper the availability of images necessary to generate clearly differentiating temporal signatures. Our study showed that the temporal signatures of wheat, chickpea and mustard are easily distinguishable, enabling an overall accuracy of 84%, with wheat and mustard achieving 86% and 94% accuracies, respectively. The most significant misclassifications were in irrigated areas for mustard and wheat, in small-plot mustard fields covered by trees and in fragmented chickpea areas. A comparison of district-wise national crop statistics and those obtained from this study revealed a correlation of 96%

Wireless Body Area Networks for Health-Care Systems

Body Area Network (BAN) development has been driven by pressure to reduce health care costs and by an increased focus on prevention and early risk BANs are highly localized wireless networks that can potentially support a variety of medical applications. Our final paper deals with all aspects involved in Wireless BAN (WBAN) in health care arena

Study of Electron Transport in Semiconductor Materials

The Monte Carlo Simulation Technique is described and the technique has been applied to obtain the velocity-field characteristics of different compound semiconductors. The results agree with the available experimental data and with those obtained by Boltzmann Transport Equation analytically

Tungabhadra Left Bank Canal (TLBC) irrigation modernization: Detailed command area mapping using remote sensing, (November 2018 - March 2019)

Conventional surveys and assessments have merged with technology to help decision makers take timely action and prevent losses in agricultural production. Remote sensing is one such technology-driven tool that can produce accurate results economically. So is satellite imagery with high temporal and spatial resolutions specifically suited to agriculture. Given Karnataka state’s diverse agro-ecosystems, knowing the spatial distribution of such systems and their constraints to production is essential so that abiotic stresses like drought can be mapped and information disseminated to decision makers for contingency planning. The natural resource base of an area is instrumental in its agricultural development and also linked to improvement of livelihoods. Mapping the natural resource base and crop domains provides insights into the status of and trends in land and water utilization, development of water resources over time, and the impacts of cropping systems on water resource systems (Gumma et al. 2016a; Gumma et al. 2011a). Integrating remote sensing with spatial analyses like crop and economic models provides the much needed knowledge for decision making for resource-based planning of lower risk and profitable cropping systems, efficient allocation of water at basin and sub-basin levels and other crop management interventions in targeting technologies appropriate for different locations. Remote sensing provides such information in a time and cost effective manner by mapping major cropped areas using open datasets such as MODIS, LANDSAT, along with high resolution datasets from Indian remote sensing satellites, and sensors such as LISS IV and RiSAT-1 which provide reliable information on spatial distribution, acreage estimation and crop growth stages (during planting and harvesting)..

The Flavonoid Metabolite 2,4,6-Trihydroxybenzoic Acid Is a CDK Inhibitor and an Anti-Proliferative Agent: A Potential Role in Cancer Prevention

Flavonoids have emerged as promising compounds capable of preventing colorectal cancer (CRC) due to their anti-oxidant and anti-inflammatory properties. It is hypothesized that the metabolites of flavonoids are primarily responsible for the observed anti-cancer effects owing to the unstable nature of the parent compounds and their degradation by colonic microflora. In this study, we investigated the ability of one metabolite, 2,4,6-trihydroxybenzoic acid (2,4,6-THBA) to inhibit Cyclin Dependent Kinase (CDK) activity and cancer cell proliferation. Using in vitro kinase assays, we demonstrated that 2,4,6-THBA dose-dependently inhibited CDKs 1, 2 and 4 and in silico studies identified key amino acids involved in these interactions. Interestingly, no significant CDK inhibition was observed with the structurally related compounds 3,4,5-trihydroxybenzoic acid (3,4,5-THBA) and phloroglucinol, suggesting that orientation of the functional groups and specific amino acid interactions may play a role in inhibition. We showed that cellular uptake of 2,4,6-THBA required the expression of functional SLC5A8, a monocarboxylic acid transporter. Consistent with this, in cells expressing functional SLC5A8, 2,4,6-THBA induced CDK inhibitory proteins p21Cip1 and p27Kip1 and inhibited cell proliferation. These findings, for the first time, suggest that the flavonoid metabolite 2,4,6-THBA may mediate its effects through a CDK- and SLC5A8-dependent pathway contributing to the prevention of CRC