A Study of the Interrelated Bilateral Transactions in Credit Card Networks

Over the last decade, consumers have tripled their use of credit cards as more merchants have increased their acceptance of them. This increase suggests that incentives in today's marketplace favor greater credit card use by consumers and acceptance by merchants. In this paper, we study the set of interrelated bilateral transactions in credit card networks. First, we survey the recent theoretical papers using this approach and find that there is a lack of consensus regarding the optimal set of pricing policies. Second, we explore each of these interrelated transactions emphasizing common market practices and the underlying regulatory and legal framework. Third, we analyze the impact of certain credit card market practices on competing payment instruments such as debit cards.credit cards, rents, antitrust, networks

Humaneness and contradictions: India’s Maoist-inspired Naxalites

Based on long-term ethnographic field research in the Adivasi-dominated forests of eastern India, this article explores how and why the Naxalites have persisted in the subcontinent and the challenges that beset revolutionary mobilisation. The focus is on how communist ideology for a casteless and classless society translated into the humaneness of revolutionary subjectivity, creating relations of intimacy between the guerrilla armies and the people in its strongholds. Crucially, also analysed are a series of contradictions that constantly undermine revolutionary mobilisation, tearing the Naxalites apart and destroying them from within

Why India’s poverty alleviation programmes don’t work

LSE’s Alpa Shah recently joined Professor Akhil Gupta (UCLA) and Laurie Taylor for the BBC Radio 4 show ‘Thinking Allowed’ to discuss the shortcomings of poverty alleviation programmes in India

Alcoholics Anonymous: the Maoist movement in Jharkhand, India

From millenarian movements to the spread of Hindu rightwing militancy, attacks on adivasi (or tribal) consumption of alcohol have gone hand-in-hand with the project of ‘civilizing the savage’. Emphasizing the agency and consciousness of adivasi political mobilization, subaltern studies scholarship has historically depicted adivasis as embracing and propelling these reformist measures, marking them as a challenge to the social structure. This paper examines these claims through an analysis of the relationship between alcohol and the spread of the Maoist insurgency in Jharkhand, Eastern India. Similar to other movements of adivasi political mobilization, an anti-drinking campaign is part of the Maoist spread in adivasi areas. This paper makes an argument for focusing on the internal diversity of adivasi political mobilization—in particular intergenerational and gender conflicts—emphasizing the differentiated social meanings of alcohol consumption (and thus of prohibition), as well as the very different attitudes taken by adivasis towards the Maoist campaign. The paper thus questions the binaries of ‘sanskritisation’ versus adivasis assertion that are prevalent in subaltern studies scholarship, proposing an engagement with adivasi internal politics that could reveal how adivasi political mobilization contains the penetrations of dominant sanskritic values, limitations to those penetrations and other aspirations, such as the desire for particular notions of modernity

Ethnography? Participant observation, a potentially revolutionary praxis

This essay focuses on the core of ethnographic research—participant observation—to argue that it is a potentially revolutionary praxis because it forces us to question our theoretical presuppositions about the world, produce knowledge that is new, was confined to the margins, or was silenced. It is argued that participant observation is not merely a method of anthropology but is a form of production of knowledge through being and action; it is praxis, the process by which theory is dialectically produced and realized in action. Four core aspects of participation observation are discussed as long duration (long-term engagement), revealing social relations of a group of people (understanding a group of people and their social processes), holism (studying all aspects of social life, marking its fundamental democracy), and the dialectical relationship between intimacy and estrangement (befriending strangers). Though the risks and limits of participant observation are outlined, as are the tensions between activism and anthropology, it is argued that engaging in participant observation is a profoundly political act, one that can enable us to challenge hegemonic conceptions of the world, challenge authority, and better act in the world

The underbelly of the Indian boom

In a new edited volume, Stuart Corbridge and Alpa Shah explore how the Indian economic boom is being experienced by the vast majority of Indians. Here, they offer an overview of the papers included and highlight key themes that emerged

Naxalbari at its Golden Jubilee: Fifty recent books on the Maoist movement in India

There are not many other issues in South Asia that have attracted as much scholarly attention in the last decade as India's Naxalite or Maoist movement. At least 50 scholarly or political books, several novels, and numerous essays have been published since 2007. What we hope to do in this article is to ask why this movement has generated such attention at this moment in time, to analyse the commentaries that have emerged and the questions that have been asked, and also to identify some of the shortfalls in the existing literature and propose some lines of research to be pursued by future scholars

A Novel Framework for Big Data Security Infrastructure Components

Big data encompasses enormous data and management of huge data collected from various sources like online social media contents, log files, sensor records, surveys and online transactions. It is essential to provide new security models, concerns and efficient security designs and approaches for confronting security and privacy aspects of the same. This paper intends to provide initial analysis of the security challenges in Big Data. The paper introduces the basic concepts of Big Data and its enormous growth rate in terms of pita and zettabytes. A model framework for Big Data Infrastructure Security Components Framework (BDAF) is proposed that includes components like Security Life Cycle, Fine-grained data-centric access control policies, the Dynamic Infrastructure Trust Bootstrap Protocol (DITBP). The framework allows deploying trusted remote virtualised data processing environment and federated access control and identity management

A Preface on Android Malware: Taxonomy, Techniques and Tools

Android OS has an open architecture and provides Application Programming Interface (APIs)enabling it to earn a huge market share and interest in the developer community. Android has become the most well-liked smartphone Operating System in current digital world. With the increased popularity of Android devices and open source features the malware threat has also increased. Android mobile operating system applications have right to use to a lot of personal information when granted certain permissions at the time of app installation. Apps can have access to the contacts, e-mails, can track the physical location, access gallery, and others. Due to this reason, Android users are looking for better security solutions to protect their smartphones from malicious actions. To cope up with this exponential growth of mobile users and malware threats, we have presented and analyzed Android malware trends till 2016 and continuous growth in malware till first quarter of May 2017. To clinch, we have summarized Android malware detection techniques

Evaluation of prescribing pattern and adverse effects of fixed dose combination of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs

Background: The use of fixed does combination of drugs is a major controversial health related issue. The non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) is one of the most frequently use drugs in population. The present study was undertaken to observe the pattern of use fixed dose combinations of NSAIDs and its adverse effects.Methods: The study was approved by the institutional ethics committee. Randomly selected patients irrespective of age and sex, who were on NSAIDs from the indoor and outdoor patients of paediatric, medicine and orthopaedic departments, were included in the study. Patients with history of administration of NSAIDs in last 30 days kidney, liver, acid-peptic disease, pregnancy and lactation were excluded from the study. WHO causality assessment scale was used for adverse reactions occurred due to fixed dose combinations (FDCs) of NSAIDs. The preventability, severity of the adverse drug reactions (ADRs) was evaluated.Results: Total one thousand participants were included in the study, among them 112 had received analgesic FDCs.  Diclofenac+paracetamol and ibuprofen+paracetamol were the highest used in the study. Maximum combinations were found in the age group 41-60 years, the second highest (37 combinations) were in age group of 19-40 years.  Fourty-two ADRs were due to the use of FDCs of NSAIDS. It was found that nimesulide+paracetamol was culprit in causing ADRs in 60 percent and diclofenec+paracetamol was in 40 percent of the participants. GI related adverse reaction observed in 28 participants. It was found that eighty percent of the adverse reaction was possible in nature. Most of the ADRs were mild in nature.  It was evident that majority of ADRs were definitely preventable.Conclusions: There is a wide use of analgesic FDCs which should be discouraged