Conceptualising Social Exclusion: New Rhetoric or Transformative Politics?

The debate on equality and non-discrimination is certainly not a new one, but the way it is incorporated in that on social exclusion leads to several shifts within the discourse on social justice. The term social exclusion is multidimensional although its western use in a selective way about markets promoting equality separates it from the Indian emphasis on social justice as linked to ending discrimination of dalit groups. The concept of social exclusion is inherently problematic as it faces three major challenges in India: the first relates to the historical discrimination of certain groups and their exclusion; the second is about the political economy of the excluded; and the third questions the way in which equality responses are restricted within the framework of social exclusio

Implications of δlCP∼270∘\delta^{CP}_l\sim 270^\circ and θ23≳45∘\theta_{23}\gtrsim 45^\circ for texture specific lepton mass matrices and 0νββ0\nu \beta \beta decay

We study the phenomenological consequences of recent results from atmospheric and accelerator neutrino experiments, favoring normal neutrino mass ordering $m_1 < m_2 < m_3$, a near maximal lepton Dirac CP phase $\delta_{l}\sim 270^\circ$ along with $\theta_{23}\gtrsim 45^\circ$, for possible realization of natural structure in the lepton mass matrices characterized by ${({M_{ij}})} \sim O(\sqrt {{m_i}{m_j}})$ for $i,j=1,2,3$. It is observed that deviations from parallel texture structures for $M_{l}$ and $M_{\nu}$ are essential for realizing such structures. In particular, such hierarchical neutrino mass matrices are not supportive for a vanishing neutrino mass $m_{\nu 1}\rightarrow 0$ characterized by Det$M_{\nu}\ne 0$ and predict ${m_{\nu 1}} \simeq (0.1 - 8.0)$ $meV$ , ${m_{\nu 2}} \simeq (8.0 - 13.0)$ $meV$, ${m_{\nu 3}} \simeq (47.0 - 52.0)$ $meV$, $\Sigma \simeq (56.0 - 71.0)$ $meV$ and $\left\langle {{m_{ee}}} \right\rangle \simeq (0.01 - 10.0)$ $meV$, respectively, indicating that the task of observing a $0\nu \beta \beta$ decay may be rather challenging for near future experiments.Comment: 12 pages, 10 figures, 2 table

Public Religions in a Postsecular Era: Habermas and Gandhi on Revisioning the Political

An embedded ideology of the religious-secular binary in its various forms has assumed currency in recent continental and Anglo-American political thought. This ideology highlights the difference between religion under modernization, broadly defined by the secularization thesis, and that of religious revival in a period characterized by postsecularism. It reflects the rise of new epistemologies and the dissolution of the antinomies between faith and reason characteristic of a postsecular culture. A common argument found in these writings is that enlightenment secularization, which relegates the sacred to a private sphere, seems to have discovered its own parochialism as religion continues to provide

Reinterpreting Buddhism: Ambedkar on the Politics of Social Action.

B R Ambedkar’s reinterpretation of Buddhism gives us an account of action that is based on democratic politics of contest and resistance. It relies on a reading of the self as a multiple creature that exceeds the constructions of liberal autonomy. Insofar as Buddhist groups do not jeopardise or restrict their members’ capacities and opportunities to make any decision about their own lives, they do not risk violating democratic principles. But to remain socially relevant they must continue to contribute to a practical impact on the social world which is so neatly intertwined with the political in present-day India