India's Foreign Policy

India is an ancient civilization with a multiethnic, multireligious and multilingual society. Freedom of thought and expression, democracy, nonviolence and tolerance form an integral part of Indian ethos. Since times immemorial these values have played an important role in the evolution of Indian civilization. As a result, India was able to absorb and assimilate alien cultures, religions and ideas, still retaining its distinctive identity. Because of this immense process of assimilation and absorption, Indian society is popularly called an ‘Indian Mosaic’. Today almost all possible religious, ethnic and cultural groups co-exist in India peacefully, making India the most pluralistic society in the world. Seventh largest in size, the country is home to over onesixth of humanity. In recent times India has been one of the fastest growing economies and in terms of purchasing power parity has been ranked as the fourth largest economic powerhouse in the world. Though pursuit of national interest remains the single most important guiding factor in determining a country’s foreign policy; national history, ethos and international realities are important factors impacting foreign policy imperatives. Therefore, at the very outset, I would like to briefly summarize the ancient Indian thoughts which have bearing on India’s foreign policy. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5564/mjia.v0i12.90 Mongolian Journal of International Affairs No.12 2005: 8-2

Preparation and Characterization of Gelatin-Tamarind Gum /Carboxymethyl Tamarind Gum Based Phase Separated Hydrogels and Films for Tissue Engineering Application

The purpose of this research was to synthesize and characterize gelatin and tamarind gum/carboxymethyl tamarind gum based phase-separated hydrogels and films for tissue engineering applications. The polymeric constructs were thoroughly characterized using bright-field microscope, FTIR spectroscope, differential scanning calorimeter (DSC), mechanical tester and impedance analyzer. The biocompatibility and swelling property also evaluated. The antimicrobial efficiency of ciprofloxacin (model antimicrobial drug) loaded hydrogels and films were studied against E. coli. The in vitro drug release was carried out in pH 7.4. Microstuctural analysis suggested the formation of phase-separated formulations. FTIR studies suggested that carboxymethyl tamarind gum altered the secondary structure of the gelatin molecules. Presence of the polysaccharides within the formulations resulted in the increase in the enthalpy and entropy for evaporation of the moisture from the hydrogels and films. The mechanical studies indicated viscoelastic nature of the polymeric constructs. Electrical analysis suggested an increase in the impedance of the formulations in the presence of the tamarind gum. The presence of carboxymethyl tamarind gum resulted in the decrease in the impedance of the formulations. The hydrogels and films exhibited good biocompatibility, and pH dependent swelling behavior. The drug loaded samples showed good antimicrobial activity and the drug release was pH dependent and diffusion mediated

A Concurrent Evaluation Of Trends In Commodity Exports, Economic Growth And Environmental Quality In The US

Economic growth is a logical motivation and empirically determinable outcome of increasing exports.  There are, however, corresponding losses in environmental resources. This paper examines both consequences of recent US export

The Paradox of Sustainable Development: A Critical Overview of the Term and the Institutionalization Process

Although the concept of sustainable development is not new it has acquired new impetus since early 80s, becoming one of the most debated and written subjects in the recent years. Intellectuals as well as ordinary mortals all across the globe are engaged in this debate. United Nations, international agencies, NGOs, national institutions, governments and civil societies are actively participating in this intense debate. Purpose of this paper is to bring out the concept and paradox of sustainable development, to provide a brief overview of global negotiations on this subject, to have a look at the prevailing ground realities despite plethora of negotiations and declarations and to highlight simple truths of human behaviour based on ancient wisdom. Most of these simple truths have remained obscured under the shadow of plethora of documents and declarations written in highly technical and unintelligible jargons

Pulsed Ultrasound Does Not Affect Recovery From Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness

Aim: To investigate the effects of pulsed Ultrasound (US) in recovery from Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness (DOMS). Methods: Twelve healthy male athletes (mean age 23.83±1.697 year) performed an eccentric exercise protocol of non-dominant elbow flexors to induce muscle soreness on 2 occasions separated by 3 weeks. Subjects in experimental group received pulsed US (1 MHz, intensity 0.8 W/cm2, mark space ratio 1:10), whereas control group received sham US after 24 h, 48 h and 72 h. Perception of muscle soreness, active ROM and muscle strength were the parameters measured at 0 h, 24 h, 48 h and 72 h with the help of VAS, manual goniometer and JONEX muscles master instrument respectively. Results: Post hoc t test analysis revealed significant differences (p <0.05) between 0 h and 72 h in the parameter of ROM (t = 6.18) and muscle power (t = 2.54) as well as between 24 h and 48 h in the parameter of muscle soreness (t = 3.13) in control group. Similar differences were also observed in the experimental group. No significant inter-group differences at α level of 0.05 was observed in any parameter at any level. Conclusion: The pattern of recovery from DOMS was not influenced by the application of pulsed Ultrasound at the parameters discussed here

Water is life, life is water: (Un)sustainable use and management of water in the 21st century

Few things have a greater impact on our lives than water. Water is a paradox: it is a seemingly abundant and renewable resource, while only a tiny amount of it is accessible and drinkable. Moreover, global water resources are unevenly distributed and many of them have been contaminated. Millions of people struggle with water scarcity, in many cases leading to water-related international conflict. Water is an international public good and is associated with common pool resources (CPR) and collective action problems whose solution calls for international cooperation and action. Well-developed ancient civilizations have disappeared because of human environmental degradation, bad resource management and related socio-political problems. We should learn the lessons from our ancestors, and therefore wisely manage our natural resources. Socio-cultural instruments such as sustainable water governance, policy and communication can be as important as high-tech engineering for human survival from a historical perspective. Our paper is a theoretical overview and analysis of the most challenging water-related issues and problems, providing theoretical as well as practical, policy-oriented solutions

Anti-Hijack: Runtime Detection of Malware Initiated Hijacking in Android

AbstractAccording to studies, Android is having the highest market share in smartphone operating systems. The number of Android apps (i.e. applications) are increasing day by day. Consequent threats and attacks on Android are also rising. There are a large number of apps which bypass users by hiding their functionalities and send users sensitive information and data across the network. Due to flexibility and openness of Android operating system, attack surfaces are being introduced every other day.In this paper, we are addressing detection of two fatal malware attacks; intent based hijacking and authenticated session hijacking. We have used the concept of honey-pot in detection of these two authentication hijacking problems. In order to achieve this, we have tested various apps and their interaction with the honey-pot maintained by real device or an emulator. We have designed benign app as a honey framed app. We argue that hijacking malware can be detected with higher accuracy using our method at run-time as compared to the traditional machine learning methods. Our approach, Anti-Hijack, which has provided the detection accuracy as high as 96%. This has been highly accurate to detect the unwanted interaction between hijacking malware and designed benign app. We have tested our approach on a strong data-set of Android apps for experiment and identifying vulnerable points. Our detection method Anti-Hijack is a novel contribution in this area which provides light weight, device operated run-time detection at hijacking malware

Optimization of Multiple Responses of Ultrasonic Machining (USM) Process: A Comparative Study

Ultrasonic machining (USM) process has multiple performance measures, e.g. material removal rate (MRR), tool wear rate (TWR), surface roughness (SR) etc., which are affected by several process parameters. The researchers commonly attempted to optimize USM process with respect to individual responses, separately. In the recent past, several systematic procedures for dealing with the multi-response optimization problems have been proposed in the literature. Although most of these methods use complex mathematics or statistics, there are some simple methods, which can be comprehended and implemented by the engineers to optimize the multiple responses of USM processes. However, the relative optimization performance of these approaches is unknown because the effectiveness of different methods has been demonstrated using different sets of process data. In this paper, the computational requirements for four simple methods are presented, and two sets of past experimental data on USM processes are analysed using these methods. The relative performances of these methods are then compared. The results show that weighted signal-to-noise (WSN) ratio method and utility theory (UT) method usually give better overall optimisation performance for the USM process than the other approaches

Feature-based decision rules for control charts pattern recognition: A comparison between CART and QUEST algorithm

Control chart pattern (CCP) recognition can act as a problem identification tool in any manufacturing organization. Feature-based rules in the form of decision trees have become quite popular in recent years for CCP recognition. This is because the practitioners can clearly understand how a particular pattern has been identified by the use of relevant shape features. Moreover, since the extracted features represent the main characteristics of the original data in a condensed form, it can also facilitate efficient pattern recognition. The reported feature-based decision trees can recognize eight types of CCPs using extracted values of seven shape features. In this paper, a different set of seven most useful features is presented that can recognize nine main CCPs, including mixture pattern. Based on these features, decision trees are developed using CART (classification and regression tree) and QUEST (quick unbiased efficient statistical tree) algorithms. The relative performance of the CART and QUEST-based decision trees are extensively studied using simulated pattern data. The results show that the CART-based decision trees result in better recognition performance but lesser consistency, whereas, the QUEST-based decision trees give better consistency but lesser recognition performance

In Trust We Thrive: What Drives the Sharing Economy?

The rapid growth of the sharing economy in the last two decades may signal a paradigm shift in global capitalism and societal values. Digital platforms have brought together strangers with under-utilized capacities and assets with those who need them but who are not looking for ownership. The radius of trust, which was initially confined to family, friends and local communities, now encompasses strangers who speak no common language and who may live oceans apart. Trust, driven by Digital Identity (DI) and Trust and Reputation Information (TRI), has enabled what was considered improbable or even impossible some years ago. The further expansion and deepening of trust, based on new technologies combined with the international legal framework, has the potential to rewrite the apparatus of modern capitalism and societal values. Civil society and governments need to engage on this issue to guide them in a direction that is most beneficial to society. However, the current extraordinary situation due to the Coronavirus pandemic, coupled with the foreseeable tendency to complete digital control, is likely to have far-reaching impact on the future development of the sharing economy