Feminist Issues in the Novel of Nayantara Sahgal’s Storm in Chandigarh

Storm in Chandigarh is a work by Nayantara Sahgal, an Indian English writer with elite political lineage. She is the second daughter of Vijayalakshmi Pandit, the sister of the first Prime Minister of India Pt. Jawahar Lal Nehru. Nayantara Sahgal was born in an aristocratic family in New Delhi with a strong political clout. Being part of a family at the centre of Indian polity, Nayantara Sahgal has the first hand experience of witnessing some of the most talked about political events of her times.  From the literary point of view too, her maternal uncle Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru, who himself was a great English writer, and Krishna Hutheesingh (younger sister of Vijayalakshmi Pandit) who was a great exponent amongst English writers from India, establish the genetic linkage to Nayantara Sahgal's emergence as a prodigy in English novelists from India.  Nayantara Sahgal was married twice – first to Gautam Sahgal, who was a British official in pre-independence India, and was totally absorbed in British culture. After that she started to live with Mangat Rai, while both of them were married to other persons. It was a kind of outrageous act in those times and traditionally against the societal norms. Thus, Nayantara Sahgal to some extent was ahead of her times – at least in breaking the established norms of her times as far as man and woman relationship was concerned

Transformation of Woman in Bharati Mukherjee’s Jasmine

Bharati Mukherjee is truly a global author, an expert in cross-cultural issues and a keen craftswoman who is an expert in portraying the phenomenal, systematic and detailed account of coming-of-age. She knows how to keep her readers glued to her writings. She builds a mystery and then demystifies it page after page, with each page unfolding and unraveling new dimensions of the character she writes about.  In this era of globalization, in view of easing borders but mounting cultural differences, the conflict within to adapt to the change is the mainstay of some of her highly acclaimed works. She endeavors to dive deep into the distorted psyche of those immigrants who have been surviving in the conflict of traditional Indian values; inherent in their personality and their fascination for western mode of living that they have chosen out of their professional compulsions or for their urge to achieve a greater freedom in liberal and dynamic society of west. “Framed with the didactics of immigrants and emigrant, the thematic difference of which centers much of Bharati Mukherjee’s fiction, her focus remains the predicament of migrant entities and the possibilities for absorption and rejection in the new world” (Jamwal 1). In her own words, Mukherjee finds this conflict of cultures to be an adventure worth living. She has found herself “thrust into adventures. Once I left the very protective, overly nurturing society [of India], my life intersected history” (Steinberg 33). The cultural intermingling in her work is the reflection of her personal life too. She was born in Calcutta (India), and then migrated to America. She married Clarke Blaise, who is settled in Canada. Her life is one of the perfect examples of mixing of two cultures. However, the cultural conflicts and identity crisis continues – as she names her two sons as Bart Anand and Bernard Sudhir – by mixing English and Bengali names.  This struggle for identifying oneself is very well reflected in her works and underlines the relevance of cross-cultural differences in one's life. The conflict between a protective patriarchal society's upbringing and that of the values of a free society of the west is the substratum for casting the web of her stories. Just like a spider's web – neatly crafted-- her stories catch the reader's enthusiasm, line after line until the reader reaches to the core of this web. The centre stage of her stories is mainly acceptance of the truth. She finely builds the plot, based on a systematic circumstantial theme, and is able to justify life as it is. She does not make any comment but the transition of the petite Indian village belle theme climaxing to a western world, gives the reader an opportunity to understand the turn of events in a beautiful manner

Corporate Social Responsibility and its impact on the Indian Education Sector

Education is the backbone of any society in this world but the quality of education matter a lot. In India Government has been taken several steps to improve education quality but government effort alone could not do enough. Everyone should give some contribution to improve quality of education. Like government Indian Corporate sectors has been also playing very vital role to enhance education quality through their Corporate Social Responsibility. This paper explains different Initiatives which has been taken by the top Indian corporates for betterment of education and also explore its impact on Indian education sector. Purpose: The aim of the paper is to identify the CSR initiatives of Indian corporations that has a direct impact on educational field of India and to classify which type of activities are involved to support education system of India. Methodology: This study is exploratory followed by descriptive in nature. The study is essentially a review of literature on CSR. Various secondary sources have been used to support this theoretical conceptual research such as recent newspaper articles, available published literature, company reports and government websites. Findings: Since ancient time CSR activities have been adopted by Indian companies. This study found that companies in India are more interested to contribute their CSR activities in education field but study also revealed that much more contribution and efforts have been required than the current contribution. Originality: The paper shares about CSR initiatives of Corporations in field of education to uplift the education infrastructure, system and shaping the knowledge culture for better future. Implications: This study insight on Indian education sector requirement and the significant aspects of CSR initiatives taken by top corporations of India. This study contributes towards the CSR strategy formation of the companies and government for enhancing CSR initiatives for uplifting Indian education sector

In vitro Cellulose Rich Organic Material Degradation by Cellulolytic Streptomyces albospinus (MTCC 8768)

Aims: Cellulosic biomass is the only foreseeable sustainable source of fuels and is also one of the dominating waste materials in nature resulting from human activities. Keeping in view the environmental problems like disposal of large volumes of cellulosic wastes and shortage of fossil fuel in the world, the main aim of the present investigation was to characterize and study the cellulolytic activity of Streptomyces albospinus (MTCC 8768), isolated from municipal wastes, on natural cellulosic substrates viz. straw powder, wood powder and finely grated vegetable peels.Methodology and Result: Stanier’s Basal broth with 100 mg of each of the substrates was inoculated separately with S. albospinus (MTCC No. 8768) and incubated at 37 °C for 8 days. The cellulosic substrates were re-weighed at an interval of 2 days and the difference between the initial weight and the final weight gave the amount of substratesdegraded by the isolate. It was observed that maximum degradation was observed in the grated vegetable peels (64 mg) followed by straw powder (38 mg) and wood powder (28 mg) over a period of 8 days.Conclusion, significance and impact of study: By the selection of efficient cellulolytic microorganisms and cost-effective operational techniques, the production of useful end products from the biodegradation of the low cost enormous stock of cellulose in nature can be very beneficial

Demographic, socio-economic, and the lifestyle risk factor of cigarette smoking associated with asthma in South African adults in 2017.

Masters Degree. University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban.The current study aimed to explore demographic factors, socio-economic factors and modifiable risk factors, mainly cigarette smoking, and the influence they had on asthma among South African adults in the year 2017. The general objective of the study was to determine the relationship of these factors on asthma and the prevalence of asthma and cigarette smoking in 2017. The study used the theoretical framework in the context of the World Health Organization’s Commission on Social Determinants of Health. The study was a quantitative research design that used the National Income Dynamics Survey dataset, wave 5 conducted in 2017 in South Africa. A sample of 15750 (aged 15-65) was used in this study, with 623 asthma diagnoses. The dependent variable was asthma and the independent variables were cigarette smoking, gender, age, race, marital status, employment status, geographic area, education attainment and household with per capita income. The results of the study confirmed significant associations between race, geographical area, education attainment and asthma. Coloureds and Whites were more likely to be diagnosed with asthma. Those residing in urban areas were more likely than those living in rural areas to have a asthma diagnosis. Those who attended Grade 10-11 and those with no matric were less likely to report been diagnosed with asthma. It was discovered that those who had a higher socio-economic standing may be less likely to have been diagnosed with asthma. Asthma is a major burden globally and has made its mark in South Africa. Controlling risk factors, along with the demographic and socio-economic risk factors will only help alleviate the exacerbations of the disease. Policies and health strategies have been put into place and should be practices on the daily to further treat and manage asthma. More studies on asthma should create an additional awareness and understanding of this non-communicable disease

Adaptive Streaming Perception using Deep Reinforcement Learning

Executing computer vision models on streaming visual data, or streaming perception is an emerging problem, with applications in self-driving, embodied agents, and augmented/virtual reality. The development of such systems is largely governed by the accuracy and latency of the processing pipeline. While past work has proposed numerous approximate execution frameworks, their decision functions solely focus on optimizing latency, accuracy, or energy, etc. This results in sub-optimum decisions, affecting the overall system performance. We argue that the streaming perception systems should holistically maximize the overall system performance (i.e., considering both accuracy and latency simultaneously). To this end, we describe a new approach based on deep reinforcement learning to learn these tradeoffs at runtime for streaming perception. This tradeoff optimization is formulated as a novel deep contextual bandit problem and we design a new reward function that holistically integrates latency and accuracy into a single metric. We show that our agent can learn a competitive policy across multiple decision dimensions, which outperforms state-of-the-art policies on public datasets.Comment: 19 pages, 17 figure

Optimizing Rooting Media for Enhanced Propagation of Guava (Psidium Guajava L.) Through Stem Cuttings

  Guava (Psidium guajava L.) is a significant tropical fruit crop that is primarily propagated through stem cuttings. The success of propagation through stem cuttings largely depends on the rooting medium used. Therefore, optimising the rooting medium is crucial for enhancing the success rate of guava propagation. This study was conducted in the Himalayan foot hill condition in the years 2021 and 2022 at Indian Institute of Soil and water conservation, Selaqui Dehradun, aimed to identify the optimal rooting medium for guava propagation through stem cuttings. The experiment tested three rooting media: sand (S), sawdust (SD), and a combination of the two, sand and sawdust (SSD), using semi-hardwood stem cuttings from guava trees. The study found that the SSD medium had the highest rooting success rate (94.5%), followed by Sand (87.5%) and Saw Dust (70%). The experiment suggests that semi-hardwood stem cuttings of guava roots are best in sawdust and sand, and this finding could contribute to enhancing the propagation of guava through stem cuttings

Transient synovitis resulting in hip subluxation – Emergent arthrocentesis as diagnostic and therapeutic tool

Transient synovitis is one of the most common causes of hip pain in children. The associated effusion when in increased quantity may be evident radiologically showing increased joint space or rarely with consequent hip subluxation. Careful clinico-radiological assessment and emergent aspiration reduces joint pressure and the evaluation of the aspirate can be instrumental to diagnose or rule out transient synovitis. Hip subluxation has been a rare concomitant feature of huge effusion in cases of transient synovitis that was diagnosed and managed appropriately to an uneventful outcome

Beneficial Remedies of Ayurvedic Medicines Against Allopathic Drugs In Peptic Ulcer

Ayurveda has long been regarded as the most dependable and secure medical system. The effectiveness of Ayurvedic Remedies becomes evident after a certain period of time. These remedies operate by enhancing the immune response or eliciting antagonistic reactions. Ayurvedic treatments utilize substances derived from plants, marine sources, and minerals. These remedies tend to have minimal to no observed side effects due to their natural origin. Here, we compared the Allopathic therapies with Ayurvedic remedies for Peptic Ulcer disease