Indian exceptionalism? A discussion on India's experiment with constitutional secularism

The secular state is the most important of contemporary institutional forms available to deal with the problem of sectarian violence in liberal democracies. Despite this, the commitment to constitutional secularism seems to be in crisis, constituting deep fault lines in democratic politics across the world. Within the Euro-American context the secular state seems to have run into trouble with immigrants, especially Islamic communities. Beyond its founding context, welldirected postcolonial polemic in countries like India has seriously questioned the very usefulness of the secular state for non-Western polities. As an avowedly secular state it therefore seems crucial for a profoundly diverse country like India to able to think through the extent to which the secular state can be defended against some of the challenges being mounted against it. This paper contributes to this contemporary debate on secularism by discussing the claims to an ‘exceptional’ model of Indian secularism made by the Indian Supreme Court. In doing so it argues with the court on the routes by which such an exceptional model can be (if at all) elaborated and defended

Efficacy of Probiotics for Reducing the Incidence of Lameness in Broilers Grown on Wire Flooring

Growing broilers on wire flooring provides an excellent experimental model for reproducibly triggering significant levels of lameness. In Pilot Study #1 using broilers from Line C grown on wire flooring, adding the Biomin probiotic PoultryStar® to the feed reduced the percentage of lameness by half when compared with broilers that received the control diet alone. In Pilot Study # 2 using broilers from Line B grown on wire flooring, adding the PoultryStar® probiotic reduced the percentage of lameness to 8% when compared with 28% lameness in broilers that received the control diet alone. The objective of this study was to conduct a replicated experiment to determine if probiotics consistently reduced the incidence of lameness in broilers reared on wire flooring. Male broiler chicks from Cobb-Vantress Line B were placed at 1 day of age in pens having flat wire flooring within environmental chambers 1 through 10 inside the Poultry Environmental Research Lab at the University of Arkansas Poultry Research Farm. On day 14, birds were culled to 50 per pen, yielding a density of 1ft²/chick. A corn and soybean meal-based diet formulated to meet minimum National Research Council standards (1994) for all ingredients was provided ad libitum as the control feed. Broilers in chambers 1, 3, 5, 7 and 9 were provided the control feed while chambers 2, 4, 6, 8 and 10 were provided the same feed mixed with the probiotic throughout the experiment (50 lbs of control feed blended with 12.5 g PoultryStar® probiotic). The birds in all pens were walked and observed for lameness every two days starting on day 15 and continuing until the end of the experiment on day 56. Birds unable or unwilling to walk were diagnosed as clinically lame and humanely euthanized with CO2 gas. They were then necropsied to assess sub-clinical lesion incidences including femoral head separation, femoral head transitional degeneration, femoral head necrosis, tibial head necrosis, and tibial dyschondroplasia. Findings from the study indicate that for broilers grown on wire flooring, diets containing the probiotic PoultryStar® consistently reduced the incidence of lameness when compared with birds fed the control diet alone

Becoming the Community's Foundation: Insight and Change in New Haven

FSG helped the Community Foundation for Greater New Haven to develop a new donor development strategy based on an understanding of three critical questions: What motivates different segments of donors? Which services and offerings would be most attractive to each segment? How does the community perceive CFGNH?This article describes that process and features an interview with Will Ginsburg, CFGNH's CEO

Application of Neurospora crassa in the Treatment of Waste

The nutrient requirements of the fast growing filamentous fungi Neurospora crassa to convert animal waste into an edible product containing high amounts of protein were assessed by selectively excluding nutrients from supplemental solutions of Vogel salts and trace elements added to the waste. When individual chemical components were omitted from the supplemental solutions, varying levels of growth were observed. However, there was no statistically significant difference. Similar results were obtained when groups of selected compounds were omitted from the supplemental solutions. Overall, these results suggest that the nutritional requirements for sustainably growing Neurospora crassa on animal waste may not be as stringent as anticipated. Therefore, commercial implementation of the Neurospora crassa project may be more achievable

Low rates of free-riding in residential energy efficiency retrofit grants. ESRI Research Bulletin, 2018/04

The Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland (SEAI) administers the Better Energy Homes (BEH) grant scheme to encourage households to invest in residential energy efficiency retrofits. All grant schemes are subject to free-riders, where a proportion of those being grant-aided would have undertaken the activity (i.e. energy efficiency retrofits) in the absence of any grant aid, which is often referred to as deadweight loss. This research finds that just 7% of participants in the BEH scheme would have undertaken a retrofit even in the absence of grant aid, and a further 8% would have occurred with a lower level of grant aid than was available. These free-rider rates are very low compared to similar schemes internationally, which have free-riding rates ranging from 40% to as much as 96%. Free-rider rates vary by retrofit type, lowest for households investing in solar panels and highest for those investing in central heating controls. Of households that received grant aid for heating controls only, 33% were estimated as free riders (i.e. would have invested in absence of the grant) and a further 27% would have undertaken a retrofit with a lower level of grant aid. The analysis also estimates how much households are willing to pay for certain types of energy efficiency retrofit improvements. For retrofits that specifically improve the efficiency of energy used for space and water heating (e.g. boiler upgrades, heating controls) estimated willingness-to-pay equals €0.127/kWh/yr. Households that have previously undertaken an energy efficiency upgrade are willing to pay twice this amount. Additionally, households in the least energy efficient properties (i.e. properties with the greatest potential energy efficiency gains) are willing to pay less for retrofits than households in more energy efficient properties

America Under the Affordable Care Act

Provides an overview of how the 2010 healthcare reform law will change Americans' health insurance coverage, the number of uninsured, and overall spending on acute care for the non-elderly by households, employers, and the government

Return on energy efficiency investments in rental properties. ESRI Research Bulletin 2018/6

Generally, residential tenants do not invest in energy efficiency, as the upkeep of rental properties is usually the landlord’s responsibility. This research, which is based on a survey of tenants, finds that up to half of rental tenants are willing to pay more for properties with higher levels of energy efficiency. Of rental tenants willing to pay for better energy efficiency, on average they are willing to pay €38 per month extra in rent for a 1-grade improvement in the 15-grade Building Energy Rating (BER) scale for their existing rental properties. How much extra rent tenants are willing to pay varies across a number of circumstances but the factor that had the largest impact is information; information related to BER ratings and the potential savings in energy costs associated with better BER grades. Information on the BER rating scheme and the associated potential energy cost savings have two impacts on tenants’ willingness to pay for energy efficiency improvements. First, with additional information explaining BERs, including what a BER rating measures and how much a grade improvement along the BER scale can affect energy costs more tenants were willing to pay additional rent for energy efficiency improvements, rising from 38% of our survey sample to 55%. Second, the extra rent that tenants were willing to pay for a 1-grade BER improvement declined from €47/month to €38/month. This decline in willingness to pay occurs even among respondents that were willing to pay an additional rent of €47/month prior to learning more about BERs and associated potential energy cost savings. So, a higher proportion of tenants were willing to pay some extra rent for energy efficiency improvements but the amount that they are willing to pay declines, on average. This reduction in willingness to pay implies that in the absence of a good understanding of the potential energy cost savings associated with BER improvements tenants overvalue energy efficiency labels. A substantial minority of tenants are unwilling to pay additional rent for energy efficiency improvements, between 45% and 62% in our sample. The predominant reason tenants indicated why they were unwilling to pay was that they could not afford higher rents. This reflects the current property market in Ireland with high rental rates. When the extra rent that tenants are willing to pay is compared to the cost of associated energy efficiency improvements, the investment payback periods for most retrofit types (e.g. attic and cavity wall insulation, heating system upgrades) are relatively short. For the most energy inefficient properties (BER grades D-G) the investment payback periods are between 1 – 3 years when the Sustainable Energy Authority’s (SEAI) energy efficiency retrofit grant is included, whereas the payback period of more energy efficient properties (BER grades A-C) averages between 2 – 4 years. Payback periods for retrofits comprising external wall insulation or solar panels are substantially longer

Debating Public Policy: Ethics, Politics and Economics of Wildlife Management in Southern Africa

Based on field research in Africa, this essay explores three claims: first, that sport hunting places economic value on wildlife and habitats; second, that this motivates conservation practices in the interest of sustaining revenue sources; and, third, that this benefits human populations. If true, then sport hunting may sometimes be justifiable on utilitarian grounds. While not dismissing objections from the likes of Singer and Regan, we suggest their views – if converted into policy in desperately impoverished places – would destroy animals and the habitats on which they depend. There are empirical verifications of this, which we discuss