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Being a habitat of the global village, every place has established connections through the strength and power of social media, piercing through the political boundaries. Social media is a digital platform, where people across the world can interact. This has a number of advantages of being universal, anonymous, easy accessibility, indirect interaction, gathering and sharing information when compared with direct interaction. The easy access to social networking sites (SNSs) such as Facebook, Twitter and blogs has brought about unprecedented opportunities for citizens to voice their opinions loaded with emotions/sentiments. Furthermore, social media can influence human thoughts. A recent incident of public importance had presented an opportunity to map the sentiments, involved around it. Sentiments were extracted from tweets for a week. These sentiments were classified as positive, negative and neutral and were mapped in geographic information system (GIS) environment. It was found that the number of tweets diminished by 91% over a week from 25 August 2017 to 31 August 2017. Maximum tweets emerged from places near the origin of the case (Haryana, Delhi and Punjab). The trend of sentiments was found to be – neutral (47.4%), negative (30%) and positive (22.6%). Interestingly, tweets were also coming from unexpected places such as United States, United Kingdom and West Asia. The result can also be used to assess the spatial distribution of digital penetration in India. The highest concentration was found to be around metropolitan cities, that is, Mumbai, Delhi and lowest in North East India and Jammu & Kashmir indicating the penetration of SNSs.

Introduction: This study examined the decorporation potential of lansoprazole (LNP) as radioactivity decorporation agent for radiothallium (201Tl) in internally contaminated BALB/c mice and New Zealand White rabbits using radiometry and gamma scintigraphy. Methods: Animals were divided into three groups, that is, control, pretreatment-1 (1X LNP), and pretreatment-2 (2X LNP). Mice received LNP intraperitoneally, while in rabbits LNP was given through oral route 0.5 and 1.5 h before radiothallium administration, respectively. Mice and rabbits used in the experiment were administered 1.48 and 11.1 MBq radiothallium (201TlCl) through intravenous and oral route, respectively. Once started as prophylactic, LNP was continued as therapeutic twice a day till the end of study period. Radiometry and gamma scintigraphy were used to monitor radiothallium retention and uptake patterns in animals. Gamma scintigraphic images of rabbits were taken at different time intervals up to 72 h and were analyzed for comparative uptake pattern of 201TlCl in all the groups. Results: LNP treatment significantly increased the 201Tl elimination over untreated control and considerably reduced the retention of 201Tl in various tissues and organs. Decrease in radiothallium uptake up to 40% was observed in LNP-treated mice as compared to untreated control. While in rabbits, whole-body radioactivity burden at 72 h was found to be 31.24%, 26%, and 18.54% in untreated control, 9 and 18 mg/kg LNP-treated groups, respectively. Conclusion: LNP exhibited dose-dependent decorporation potential to effectively enhance the elimination of 201Tl in mice and rabbits experimentally contaminated with 201TlCl.

Rupa Viswanath, The Pariah Problem: Caste, Religion, and the Social in Modern India, New York: Columbia University Press, 2014, pp. 416. P. Sanal Mohan, Modernity of Slavery: Struggles against Caste Inequality in Colonial Kerala, Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2015, 368 pp. Charu Gupta, The Gender of Caste: Representing Dalits in Print, Ranikhet: Permanent Black, 2016, 352 pp.

The essay documents the unprecedented transformation of the term Achhut in the Hindi literature from an adjective describing a quality ‘untouched, [and] pure’ to a noun referring to an untouchable person or caste and characterising them as impure. Using Hindustani and other language dictionaries of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, prominent Hindi-language journals of the period, such as the Nagari Pracharini Patrika and Sarasvati, and the Adi-Hindu Mahasabha political and literary activism, I will trace the history and politics of the Dalit movement in the early twentieth century that may have created a new meaning of this category. In particular, I investigate the role that the Adi-Hindu Mahasabha movement, through its publication and politics, may have played a key role in proactively constituting a new meaning of the term Achhut. I also highlight the role of Nirgun Bhakti traditions, their locations in Dalit mohallas , as crucial to the articulation of the Dalit political in North India.

This paper highlights that depowerment of women is linked to the belief and practice of patriarchy which subjugates women at various levels — political, economic, social, and cultural. Patriarchy is a social and ideological construct which considers men (who are the patriarchs) as superior to women. Patriarchy imposes masculinity and femininity character stereotypes in society which strengthen the iniquitous power relations between men and women. Feminism is an awareness of patriarchal control, exploitation, and oppression at the material and ideological levels of women's labour, fertility and sexuality, in the family, at the place of work, and in the society in general, and conscious action by women and men to transform the present situation. Overcoming the belief and practice of patriarchy is termed as eve empowerment. This paper distinguishes between eve empowerment and psychological empowerment. While the former (eve empowerment) is contextual in nature, the latter (psychological empowerment) is a motivational construct. If conditions favouring eve empowerment make a woman experience empowerment, then it is termed as psychological empowerment. Both these variables are linked to general well-being, which is defined as a state which allows individuals to realize their abilities, cope with the normal stresses of life, work productively and fruitfully, and make a contribution to their community. The findings indicate that by countering patriarchy, women experience greater eve empowerment and psychological empowerment. The results also show that education level of women had no impact on eve empowerment. This is the reason why there are depowered women even among the educated middle class and upper classes of the society. This finding has important implication for agencies, institutions and the state that are using education as a medium of change and empowerment. The empowerment at the workplace and at home seems to have a spillover effect as both moderate the relation of eve empowerment and general well-being. Deep level impact on social transformation will take place only when the concept of patriarchy is shaken and conditions supporting eve empowerment are created for women to experience psychological empowerment. The limitation of the study was that it was carried out in a patriarchal society. It should also be compared with a similar survey among the matriarchal societies and from all strata of society to make it more representative. The findings can form the basis for improving affirmative action within the organizations.

D.R. Nagaraj, The Flaming Feet and Other Essays: The Dalit Movement in India, ed. Prithvi Datta and Chandra Shobhi, Ranikhet: Permanent Black, 2010, pp. 254.

This article presents a simulation study on the field emission characteristics of a single carbon nanotube (CNT) cathode in the triode structure. Computer Simulation Technology (CST) Particle Studio (M/s Jyoti Electronics, India) was used to simulate the triode characteristics in relation to geometrical parameters, position of the CNT, and applied gate and anode potentials. The results emphasize the significance of simulation-based optimization of structural parameters and field conditions prior to actual fabrication of CNT field emitters.

Women in Central Himalaya have always played a significant role in managing and operating most household and agricultural activities. They are considered to be the backbone of hill agriculture. However, in recent years, environmental degradation, poor resource management and increased migration of men to the plains have worsened livelihood options and added to the workload of women in the Himalaya. In assessing the hardships and problems faced by the hill/mountain women, it was recognized that the women had to develop their capacity and skills in agro-ecotechnology if they were to improve their livelihoods as well as the conservation and management of natural resources. A total of 15 on-site training and capacity building/skill development programmes were conducted in three different ecological zones, training 635 women farmers. The overall goal was to induce the women farmers to adopt simple agro-ecotechnologies as viable options for enhancing their livelihoods. This study offers the possibility of a wider sharing of training outputs at farm level and among the scientific community, extension workers and policy makers. The experience of the training programmes has shown that there is a need to develop location-specific agro-ecotechnologies so as to maximize the use of locally available bioresources, which will reduce the cost of external inputs.

The laminar, fully developed, transient magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) free convection heat and mass transfer of an electrically conducting micropolar fluid between two vertical plates containing a non-Darcy porous medium with heat generation/absorption and asymmetric wall temperature and concentration has been discussed in this article. A similarity transformation is used to render the problem into a system of coupled, partial, differential equations, which are solved using the finite-element method (FEM). The solutions are validated with a robust finite difference method (FDM) solver. The present work examines the effect of Darcian parameter, Forchheimer parameter, heat absorption/generation parameter, vortex viscosity parameter, buoyancy ratio parameter, magnetic parameter, and variable thermal conductivity parameter on velocity, angular velocity, temperature and concentration profiles. Space—time graphs of velocity and microrotation are also plotted to provide a better perspective of the flowfield evolution with respect to time. Applications of the study may arise in, for example, packed-bed chemical reactors, materials processing, magnetic field control of chemical engineering transport processes in filter media, purification of hydrocarbons with electromagnetic fields, etc.

We characterized the dispersal modes and spatial patterns of 128 tree species in a tropical semi-evergreen forest of Arunachal Pradesh, northeastern India. A high percentage of species are animal-dispersed (78%), while about 22% (28) are dispersed abiotically (wind or gravity-dispersed). Of the animal-dispersed species, 54 species were primarily bird-dispersed, 25 were mammal-dispersed, and 21 were dispersed by both groups. We hypothesized that adult tree distribution patterns were related to dispersal mode and fruit size. We predicted that tree species with mechanisms for long-distance seed dispersal are likely to show more uniform or random spatial patterns than those with limited seed dispersal. Tree species with large fruits were also predicted to have greater levels of clumping than those that have small fruits. However, all tree species had a clumped distribution pattern. At the community level, we found no differences in spatial patterns based on dispersal mode for a subset of 50 tree species. Fruit size was, however, positively correlated with higher levels of spatial aggregation suggesting that tree species distributions are to an extent limited by dispersal. The importance of dispersal mode in determining adult tree distribution patterns at the community level may be obscured by interacting effects of other factors such as patchy habitat conditions and density-dependent mortality factors at different life-history stages that ultimately determine adult tree distributions.

Most types of flowmeter are affected by flow disturbances caused by nearby pipe fittings. In the case of the vortex flowmeter, users currently have to rely on manufacturers' recommendations on minimum straight pipe lengths on either side of the meter as there are no relevant standards or codes of practice and little published experimental data. The paper presents some experimental results on the effects of upstream pipe roughness, single 90† bends, and pairs of 90† offset bends on the calibration in air of a vortex meter with a rectangular section bluff body. The results show that this particular vortex meter is sensitive to the roughness of the upstream pipework and required straight pipe lengths of about 55 diameters to avoid significant calibration changes caused by upstream bends. Installation lengths can be reduced by placing a flow straightener upstream of a meter particularly if the straightener-meter package can be calibrated as a unit. This concept has been explored using a Mitsubishi flow straightener with the vortex meter and promising results have been obtained with a package of 10 diameters overall length.