Integrated Relationship between Language, Literature and Society in the Work of Girish Karnad

Language, literature and society evolve parallel to each other and often at a similar pace. Integration of the three is taken up as a challenge by penmen of all ages. Language is the tool a writer with the objective of exploring, observing and presenting the narratives about sociological issues in delectable form depends upon. Authors and scholars have always strived to capture audiences across the world with enchanting subjects and prodigious treatments. Some of them drew inspiration from ancient scriptures and folklore and presented their narratives in the contemporary forms and styles, while others composed their works adopting the idiom and styles of the fable-mongers of the ancient times. Since literary works of all genres are directed towards people who form audiences, and, society at large. The sociological orientation of literature is unique in its own ways for each writer, as all of them have their own anomalous combinations and permutations of linguistics, themes and expression. Works of Girish Karnad, one of the most celebrated contemporary playwrights abound in existential themes drawn from ancient scriptures and folklore, especially myths and mythology. The dramatist has been immensely successful in crafting them, putting them in the framework of contemporary issues so as to appeal even to new-age theatre-goers with modern outlook. This study is centered around Karnad’s knack for building literary bridges across time and space to establish links between people, through the use of shared symbolism and idiom, with those existing eons apart and not even remotely connected. This is evident in the key works of Karnad, viz, Yayati, Hayavadana, Naga-Mandala, Tuglaq, Broken Images, etc. The existential concerns of protagonists and key characters of these plays, though varied in hues, seem to be drawn from the same spring, and hence possess universal appeal

TRADITIONAL INDIAN PAINTING RETRIEVAL SYSTEM BASED ON CURVELET TRANSFORM AND COMPARISON THE RESULT USING GABOR FILTER

Today the technology in which relevant images from a large databases are searched according to the user’s interest is famous by the name of Content based Image Retrieval or CBIR. Since last two decades it has become an active and fast advancing field amongst the researchers. Last decade is witness of the progress achieved in both theoretical as well as in system development. However this area of technology is still full of challenges that researchers from multiple disciplines are being continuously attracted to work with. As we are well known about the hierarchy of spectral methods of texture feature extraction starting from Fourier Transform (FT) to the latest Gabor filter transform, which became very popular for many useful applications still was found to lag the curved point singularities or can say curve lines along the edges of images. In this paper to overcome this problem we have chosen to work with Curvelet transform. The dataset of retrieval system we are presenting here is made up of three Indian traditional paintings named as Warli, Madhubani and Fadd. As mentioned earlier Curvelet transform will be applied to get the result. In the second part of this paper we shall also compare the result with Gabor transform

Helping Low-Income Families Manage Childhood Asthma: Solutions for Healthcare & Beyond

Asthma is the most common childhood chronic illness, affecting more than seven million children nationwide. Managing chronic illness in a child is challenging for any family. Among the challenges is constant fear of an acute episode, a complex regimen of medications given daily or many times each day, frequent changes in prescriptions or dosages, coordinating multiple healthcare providers, and helping a child have as "normal" and active a childhood as his/her condition allows. Low-income children of color bear a heavier asthma burden than their white or more affluent peers. Those low-income children who live in urban areas such as Baltimore, Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York are particularly vulnerable. Families with limited resources struggle to provide their children with asthma the support that these children need

Rhenium(I)-based Double-heterostranded Helicates

Rhenium(I)-based supramolecular coordination complexes were obtained using Re2(CO)10, (2-hydroxyphenyl)benzimidazole-derived bis-chelating N?O donors and a benzimidazolyl-derived ditopic monodentate N-donor possessing Troger's base spacer in a one-pot approach

Bike Location and Road Obstacle Tracking Using Smart Helmet

In India, most of the people prefer two wheelers compared to other form of vehicle due to simplicity and low cost. One important problem is bike riders suffer from inadequate roads and bad driving conditions. Other important problem with biker is that most of the time they don?t like to wear helmet which could be fatal when accidents happen. Since in India the usage of two wheelers is more as compared to four wheelers, it requires more attention as far as safety is concerned. Motorcycles have high rate of fatal accidents than automobiles or trucks and buses. According to some statistics serious head injuries can happen even in low speeds. Ninety percent of head injury cases are due to road traffic accidents, about 72 percent are youngsters in the age group of 18 to 40. So to overcome this problem we have introduced a smart helmet with additional features like road hazard warning, bike authentication. In the previous research work that focuses on the point that the bike will not get start if the rider is not wearing helmet, so we modified this feature and make ones bike secure at crucial time especially when one is away from the bike and somebody is trying to steal it. So, we recapitulated the above features and introduce the project with some more unique characteristics. The main aim of this project is to introduce the smart interactive robotic helmet with features such as road obstacle identification, bike authentication, would help the rider in detecting important traffic sounds like fire siren or horn and the smart helmet would warn the rider when hazard is ahead. In this research work, the helmet is designed in such a way that it would provide more security to the rider hence the user is attracted towards the helmet because of its peculiar characteristics. If the rider runs on the bad intersection path, he could record for the present and upcoming road obstacle which is saved in mp3 format and can play that recording by pressing the button when he goes on same path again

Peri-urbanism in globalizing India: a study of pollution, health and community awareness

This paper examines the intersection between environmental pollution and people's acknowledgements of, and responses to, health issues in Karhera, a former agricultural village situated between the rapidly expanding cities of New Delhi (India's capital) and Ghaziabad (an industrial district in Uttar Pradesh). A relational place-based view is integrated with an interpretive approach, highlighting the significance of place, people's emic experiences, and the creation of meaning through social interactions. Research included surveying 1788 households, in-depth interviews, participatory mapping exercises, and a review of media articles on environment, pollution, and health. Karhera experiences both domestic pollution, through the use of domestic waste water, or gandapani, for vegetable irrigation, and industrial pollution through factories' emissions into both the air and water. The paper shows that there is no uniform articulation of any environment/health threats associated with gandapani. Some people take preventative actions to avoid exposure while others do not acknowledge health implications. By contrast, industrial pollution is widely noted and frequently commented upon, but little collective action addresses this. The paper explores how the characteristics of Karhera, its heterogeneous population, diverse forms of environmental pollution, and broader governance processes, limit the potential for citizen action against pollution

Why and where?—Delay in Tuberculosis care cascade: A cross-sectional assessment in two Indian states, Jharkhand, Gujarat

Tuberculosis (TB) is the second leading cause of death due to infectious diseases globally, and delay in the TB care cascade is reported as one of the major challenges in achieving the goals of the TB control programs. The main aim of this study was to investigate the delay and responsible factors for the delay in the various phases of care cascade among TB patients in two Indian states, Jharkhand and Gujarat. This cross-sectional study was conducted among 990 TB patients from the selected tuberculosis units (TUs) of two states. This study adopted a mixed-method approach for the data collection. The study targeted a diverse profile of TB patients, such as drug-sensitive TB (DSTB), drug resistance TB (DRTB), pediatric TB, and extra-pulmonary TB. It included both public and private sector patients. The study findings suggested that about 41% of pulmonary and 51% of extra-pulmonary patients reported total delay. Delay in initial formal consultation is most common, followed by a delay in diagnosis and treatment initiation in pulmonary patients. While in extra-pulmonary patients, delay in treatment initiation is most common, followed by the diagnosis and first formal consultation. DR-TB patients are more prone to total delay and delay in the treatment initiation among pulmonary patients. Addiction, co-morbidity and awareness regarding monetary benefits available for TB patients contribute significantly to the total delay among pulmonary TB patients. There were system-side factors like inadequacy in active case findings, poor infrastructure, improper adverse drug reaction management and follow-up, resulting in delays in the TB care cascade in different phases. Thus, the multi-disciplinary strategies covering the gambit of both system and demand side attributes are recommended to minimize the delays in the TB care cascade

Cluster-randomised trial to test the effect of a behaviour change intervention on toilet use in rural India: results and methodological considerations.

BACKGROUND: Effective and scalable behaviour change interventions to increase use of existing toilets in low income settings are under debate. We tested the effect of a novel intervention, the '5 Star Toilet' campaign, on toilet use among households owning a toilet in a rural setting in the Indian state of Gujarat. METHODS: The intervention included innovative and digitally enabled campaign components delivered over 2 days, promoting the upgrading of existing toilets to achieve use by all household members. The intervention was tested in a cluster randomised trial in 94 villages (47 intervention and 47 control). The primary outcome was the proportion of households with use of toilets by all household members, measured through self- or proxy-reported toilet use. We applied a separate questionnaire tool that masked open defecation questions as a physical activity study, and excluded households surveyed at baseline from the post-intervention survey. We calculated prevalence differences using linear regression with generalised estimating equations. RESULTS: The primary study outcome was assessed in 2483 households (1275 intervention and 1208 control). Exposure to the intervention was low. Post-intervention, toilet use was 83.8% in the control and 90.0% in the intervention arm (unadjusted difference + 6.3%, 95%CI 1.1, 11.4, adjusted difference + 5.0%, 95%CI -0.1, 10.1. The physical activity questionnaire was done in 4736 individuals (2483 intervention and 2253 control), and found no evidence for an effect (toilet use 80.7% vs 82.2%, difference + 1.7%, 95%CI -3.2, 6.7). In the intervention arm, toilet use measured with the main questionnaire was higher in those exposed to the campaign compared to the unexposed (+ 7.0%, 95%CI 2.2%, 11.7%), while there was no difference when measured with the physical activity questionnaire (+ 0.9%, 95%CI -3.7%, 5.5%). Process evaluation suggested that insufficient campaign intensity may have contributed to the low impact of the intervention. CONCLUSION: The study highlights the challenge in achieving high intervention intensity in settings where the proportion of the total population that are potential beneficiaries is small. Responder bias may be minimised by masking open defecation questions as a physical activity study. Over-reporting of toilet use may be further reduced by avoiding repeated surveys in the same households. TRIAL REGISTRATION: The trial was registered on the RIDIE registry ( RIDIE-STUDY-ID-5b8568ac80c30 , 27-8-2018) and retrospectively on clinicaltrials.gov ( NCT04526171 , 30-8-2020)

Prevalence of refractive errors in children in India: a systematic review

Uncorrected refractive error is an avoidable cause of visual impairment which affects children in India. The objective of this review is to estimate the prevalence of refractive errors in children ≤ 15 years of age. The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta‐Analyses guidelines were followed in this review. A detailed literature search was performed to include all population and school‐based studies published from India between January 1990 and January 2017, using the Cochrane Library, Medline and Embase. The quality of the included studies was assessed based on a critical appraisal tool developed for systematic reviews of prevalence studies. Four population‐based studies and eight school‐based studies were included. The overall prevalence of refractive error per 100 children was 8.0 (CI: 7.4–8.1) and in schools it was 10.8 (CI: 10.5–11.2). The population‐based prevalence of myopia, hyperopia (≥ +2.00 D) and astigmatism was 5.3 per cent, 4.0 per cent and 5.4 per cent, respectively. Combined refractive error and myopia alone were higher in urban areas compared to rural areas (odds ratio [OR]: 2.27 [CI: 2.09–2.45]) and (OR: 2.12 [CI: 1.79–2.50]), respectively. The prevalence of combined refractive errors and myopia alone in schools was higher among girls than boys (OR: 1.2 [CI: 1.1–1.3] and OR: 1.1 [CI: 1.1–1.2]), respectively. However, hyperopia was more prevalent among boys than girls in schools (OR: 2.1 [CI: 1.8–2.4]). Refractive error in children in India is a major public health problem and requires concerted efforts from various stakeholders including the health care workforce, education professionals and parents, to manage this issue