„U vrijeme krize, sljedbenici jedinog pravog boga, ujedinite se“: društveni mediji i formiranje online religioznih silosa

This paper is based on a research study designed to explore how adolescents, in situations of political polarization, deploy online networks to articulate, negotiate, and enact their political and religious identities. Based on social media ethnography tracing the online engagements of 44 high school students over a period of eighteen months, and supplemented with in-depth interviews conducted in their village communities, this study explores why social media networks emerge as ideological niches frequented by students to enact their participation as members of their respective religious communities. It suggests that in situation of experienced political polarization and discrimination, students use social media affordances to replicate their offline socio-political and religious engagements onto their virtual spaces and in the process reinforce their radical religious identities.Rad se temelji na istraživanju koje ispituje kako adolescenti, u situacijama političke polariziranosti, razvijaju online zajednice da bi iznijeli, obrazložili i branili svoje političke i religijske identitete. Polazeći od etnografije društvenih medija, praćenjem online uključenosti 44 srednjoškolska učenika tijekom osamnaest mjeseci te provođenjem dubinskih intervjua u njihovim seoskim zajednicama, istraživanje nastoji odgovoriti na pitanje zašto se društvene mreže javljaju kao ideološke niše učenika gdje pokazuju svoju uključenost kao članovi određenih religijskih zajednica. To sugerira da u situacijama u kojima su iskusili političku polarizaciju i diskriminaciju učenici koriste pogodnosti društvenih medija da ponove svoj offline društveno-politički i religijski angažman u virtualnim prostorima te da u tome procesu osnaže svoj radikalni religijski identitet

Mediating Religious Literacy among Primary School children in Gujarat: Classroom as a Liminal Space

Articulation of religious guidelines in the political milieu never takes place in a disembodied form; rather politically inscribed religious discourses are embedded within and conveyed through specific institutional channels, including media organizations and education institutions. My experiences of working as a media educator in villages in Gujarat have helped me understand how the learning of such discriminatory practices begin early as students use various linguistic and socio-cultural cues in order to make sense of the society. A classroom, however, provides the required space to entertain differences such that we can delimit the social hierarchies that are naturalized in the minds of young students through primary socialization. In this paper, I use Critical Media Literacy as a way to redefine classroom as a liminal space and create conditions for emergence of an alterity. Critical Media Literacy (CML) can provide young students with the skills required to upend the dominant discourse of religious violence, to create new narratives from the interstices- from the in-between, and pendulate between the fixed identities subsumed in binaries such as self-other, victim-perpetrator, us-them, and most importantly Hindus-Muslims. In this paper, I attempt to answer two research questions. First, how this dominant rationality of religious hatred is perpetuated through media texts and the socialization process in schools (Bhatia, 2017; Rajagopal, 2001); and how it influences the everyday experiences of young students in two villages in the Sanand tehsil of Ahmedabad district in Gujarat. Second, how can the classrooms be designed as spatial sites to encourage young students to counter their feelings of individualized prejudice and enact resistance. I illustrate how media educators can use CML to design classrooms as a liminal space and help students operate from the margins of the socialization they receive and thus be more open to different regimes of truth practiced in different religious communities

Formulation and evaluation of co-prodrug of flurbiprofen and methocarbamol

AbstractThe current work envisages synthesis of an ester prodrug of flurbiprofen whereby its carboxylic group was condensed with a skeletal muscle relaxant methocarbamol, with the aim of synergistic activity of two drugs, avoid flurbiprofen mediated gastro-intestinal damage and minimize the ulceration tendency of flurbiprofen. The synthesized prodrug was characterized and confirmed by physicochemical and spectroscopic studies. Solubility and partition coefficient studies indicated an increased lipophilicity and thus better suitability for oral administration than the parent drugs and the protein binding studies revealed a low protein binding capacity of the mutual prodrug. Subsequently, in-vitro hydrolysis was studied in different pH, simulated gastric fluid, simulated intestinal fluid and plasma and quantitative evaluation was performed by high performance liquid chromatography. It was found that the prodrug remained unhydrolyzed in the stomach after absorption however, underwent rapid cleavage by the esterases in blood to give the parent drug. Furthermore, the mutual ester prodrug was evaluated for its anti-inflammatory, analgesic, skeletal muscle relaxation, ulcerogenic and total acid content activity and was found to possess comparable activity with that of the parent drugs. Microscopic structures of the stomach tissues revealed significant reduction in gastric ulcer formation of mice gastric mucosa as compared to parent carboxylic acid drug

Good Girls Don’t Go Online: Unpacking the Quotidian Playful Resilience Influencing Girls’ Social and Digital Engagements

In this study, we examine the ways in which young girls from low-income communities exercise their autonomy and agency in their engagement with digital technologies and, at times, show compliance with social norms when online. Based on our findings from our ethnographic fieldwork, we argue that young girls’ engagement with digital technologies reflects both submission to the dominant gender, class realities, and a sustained desire to create a fraying around the edges of systems for gendered surveillance-discipline. We develop the concept of “quotidian playful resilience” (QPR) to unpack the influence of gender norms and class-based experiences on young girls’ everyday digital practices. We define QPR as a meta practice that informs how girls access, use, and navigate digital technologies—including the infrastructural affordances and limitations and the realm of the digitalscape. The study explores the productive associations between gender, class, and technology in young girls’ digital encounters in India

Risks and challenges in Agricultural Marketing in India

Rural India is the stronghold of the Indian economy which generates more than half of the national income. According to National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER), about 74% of Indian population living in the villages that makes India a largest potential rural marketing in the world. Agricultural marketing is a process that starts with a decision to produce a marketable farm product and involves all aspects of market structure or system. The marketing process is full of challenges with some complex problems such as risks and uncertainties which are also the inevitable parameters of modern business. The prevalence of risk in agriculture is imperative to policy makers at national and international levels. Fluctuations in producer incomes, and particularly the threat of loss, may present difficult welfare problems for the producers and the governments. Trading losses at the level of market intermediaries like traders and processors; negatively impact the development of sustainable trading and finance activities in the commodity sectors. This report focuses on the risks that farmers usually come across while selling their produce in agricultural markets especially related to daily price fluctuations. It covers the research done by the various authors about the marketing of agricultural produce and provides some recommendations and suggestions for the improvement in various strategies and methodologies that are being implemented in Indian agricultural marketing system. The particular question posed here is how these agricultural challenges faced by the farmers can be reduced as part of India’s emerging economic development strategies of reforms and liberalisation

A Complete Constellation of Nervous System Lesions of NF2: Imaging Evaluation

The radiological findings fulfilling the criteria of neurofibromatosis type 2 (NF2) were reviewed. NF2 is a rare disease with few cutaneous but frequent, typical radiological findings in the central nervous system. The presenting symptom is most commonly hearing loss due to acoustic schwannomas, although symptoms emanating from other intracranial or tumors are not uncommon. The discovery of multiple spinal neurofibromas or multiple meningiomas without cutaneous lesions should initiate a search for acoustic schwannomas even when the patient has normal hearing as in our case patient who actually presented for weakness of all four limbs

Redefining the Indian Public Sphere:A Study of the LGBT Rights Movement in India

New media networks have led to a personalization of the political sphere as affordances provided by the virtual space give precedence to the significance of the ‘self ’ over the ‘masses’. Through this paper an attempt has been made to understand how the LGBT community uses new media technologies to transcend the boundaries of the traditional public sphere in order to create a realm of self-identification in the virtual world. The study focuses on a group of Indian citizens who identify themselves as members of the LGBT community, who are digitally active and have participated in activities to mobilize public opinion in favor of the legalization of their sexual preferences. The study delineates how the LGBT community translates online discursive practices into offline civic engagement activities through the process of community formation, mobilization, setting up agenda for collective actions and creation of a realm for expression by the marginalized other

Study of Agricultural Market in India with Illustration of Business Opportunity

The role of agriculture in India has been not just to produce food but to sustain and contribute towards overall socio-economic development in rural societies. Overregulation of agriculture along with lack of infrastructural facilities and small fragmented unproductive landholdings has increased costs, price risks and uncertainty. The agricultural system has traditionally been unfair to farmers as well as the end consumers. This study will analyze the agricultural marketing system in India from the perspective of issues faced by farmers, traders and food processors. These issues include information asymmetry, excessive margins in price at each level of the supply chain, limited reach of technology in rural India, post harvest wastage etc. It has also been characterised by lack of infrastructure, inadequate marketing channels to the farmers and archaic government policies that prevented investment into this sector for a long time. Indian agriculture has changed a lot in past few years, but still not kept the pace due to existence of these issues. The presence of these issues in Indian agricultural market is rather undeveloped and inefficient characterised by a long supply chain, lack of transparency on pricing and quality issues. The purpose of this report is to analyse these challenges and opportunities while providing recommendations from the agribusiness perspective. Price variations and availability of the produce in the market is analysed with the help of surveys, interviews and latest price data available on the web-portals. This report also highlights the initiatives taken by two firms (PepsiCo and ITC eChoupal) for empowering farmers and shortening the long supply chain for marketing agricultural produce. It sets out the scope, proposed objectives and initial research of information for understanding the potential synergies in context with the Indian agricultural market

Exploring Rigid and Flexible Core Trivalent Sialosides for Influenza Virus Inhibition

Herein, the chemical synthesis and binding analysis of functionalizable rigid and flexible core trivalent sialosides bearing oligoethylene glycol (OEG) spacers interacting with spike proteins of influenza A virus (IAV) X31 is described. Although the flexible Tris‐based trivalent sialosides achieved micromolar binding constants, a trivalent binder based on a rigid adamantane core dominated flexible tripodal compounds with micromolar binding and hemagglutination inhibition constants. Simulation studies indicated increased conformational penalties for long OEG spacers. Using a systematic approach with molecular modeling and simulations as well as biophysical analysis, these findings emphasize on the importance of the scaffold rigidity and the challenges associated with the spacer length optimization