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Water bodies play a crucial role in supporting life, maintaining the environment, and preserving the ecology for the people of India. However, in recent decades, human activities have led to various alterations in aquatic environments, resulting in environmental degradation through pollution. The safety of utilizing surface water sources for drinking and other purposes has come under intense scrutiny due to rapid population growth and industrial expansion. Surface water pollution due to micro-plastics (MPs) (plastics < 5 mm in size) is one of the emerging pollutants in metropolitan cities of developing countries because of its utmost resilience and synthetic nature. Recent studies on the surface water bodies (river, pond, Lake etc.) portrait the correlation between the MPs level with different parameters of pollution such as specific conductivity, total phosphate, and biological oxygen demand. Fibers represent the predominant form of MPs discovered in surface water bodies, exhibiting fluctuations across seasons. Consequently, present study prioritizes understanding the adaptation, prevalence, attributes, fluctuations, and spatial dispersion of MPs in both sediment and surface water environments. Furthermore, the study aims to identify existing gaps in the current understanding and underscore opportunities for future investigation. From the present study, it has been reported that, the concentration of MPs in the range of 0.2-45.2 items/L at the Xisha Islands in the south China sea, whereas in India it was found in the range of 96 items/L in water samples and 259 items/kg in sediment samples. This would certainly assist the urban planners in achieving sustainable development goals to mitigate the increasing amount of emergent pollutant load., (© 2024. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature B.V.)

Antimicrobial resistance and zoonotic pathogen transmission from wild fish to high‐density cage‐cultured fish are two of the emerging concerns in mariculture. Photobacterium damselae is one of the most destructive bacterial pathogens which is responsible for huge economic loss to the cage culture systems. To investigate the above, both wild‐caught and cage‐cultured fish were collected from the southeast coast of India. P. damselae subsp. damselae was isolated and their genotypic profiling was done using a specific multiplex polymerase chain reaction. Out of 280 isolates, 61 isolates were confirmed as P. damselae subsp. damselae. The overall prevalence of P. damselae subsp. damselae in wild fish was significantly higher compared with cage‐cultured fish. Among the wild fish, parrot fish showed more prevalence when compared with other fish. Around 90% of the identified bacterial isolates were multiple antibiotic‐resistant and carried antibiotic resistance genes such as beta‐lactam and streptomycin genes. To know the virulence of P. damselae bacteria isolated from wild‐caught fish to commercially important cage‐cultured fish (cobia and silver pompano) experimentally, a challenging study was carried out. The results revealed that cobia and silver pompano showed 100% and 85% mortality at a bacterial concentration of 3.5 × 104 CFU Fish−1 and 2.75 × 106 CFU Fish−1 respectively. Severe tissue damage and ulceration were also noticed in both fish. In conclusion, the present study found a high rate of AMR in P. damselae subsp. damselae isolated from the fish of the southeast coast of India that exhibit the strong pathogenic potential to cage‐cultured fish. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigated the image of the Naga Indigenous people in mainland India and how the Nagas endeavour to develop an alternative image. Findings revealed that the mainland Indians' image of the Nagas is that of 'noble savage' which is similar to the Indian Government's representation of the Nagas as exotic and untamed. The Nagas expressed cultural resistance and articulated radical Naga discourse through their religion (Christianity) to enhance collective identity but most importantly to oppose the dominant Hindu and Muslim religions in mainland India. However, the resistance of the Nagas drew on Bhabha's concept of hybridity in which the Nagas re-negotiate their identity – with complex mimicry and façade – traits about 'Hindu-Muslim India' that they admire and certain cultural aspects they ridicule and would rather not imbibe. This study contributes to the current anthropological discourse towards studying indigeneity by making a more complex, nuanced analysis of resistance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Based on the unfolding theory of voluntary turnover, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the linkage between abusive supervision (a shock) and subordinate's intention to quit (withdrawal cognition). The study also explores the multi-mediation routes by testing the abusive supervision-intention to quit relationship via psychological contract breach and via burnout. Design/methodology/approach: To test the proposed hypotheses, the study draws cross-sectional data from Indian employees working in various MNCs in the country. Data were collected using an electronic data collection method. The online form link was send to 600 employees, out of which 246 valid and complete responses were received (n=246). Partial least square (PLS–SEM) was used for the analysis. Findings: Results showed that abusive supervision is positively related to intention to quit. Similarly, psychological contract breach and burnout partially mediates the abusive supervision-intention to quit linkage. Originality/value: First, the current study has conceptualized and tested abusive supervision as a shock that triggers various adverse cognitions including withdrawal cognition (intention to quit). Second, the study also empirically investigated multi-mediational routes via psychological contract breach and burnout that explained the indirect effect between abusive supervision and intention to quit. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This experiment was designed to identify the drought tolerant and susceptible genotypes in wheat genotypes collected from different wheat breeding centre of India. The experiment was conducted in alpha lattice design under stress and non-stress conditions to estimate the drought tolerance indices. Nine drought tolerance viz., Tolerance index (TOL), Mean productivity (MP), Harmonic mean (HM), Stress susceptibility index (SSI), Yield index (YI), Relative drought index (RDI), Grain yield per plant under potential condition (Yp), Grain yield per plant under stress condition (Ys) were calculated. The indices were estimated based on grain yield under stress condition (Ys) and non-stress condition (Yp). These indices were subjected for analysis of variance, correlation coefficient analysis, cluster analysis. SSI is suggested as useful indicator for wheat breeding where the stress is severe; while MP, TOL and HM are suggested if the stress is less severe. Based on grain yield per plant twenty-one tolerant genotypes and eleven susceptible genotypes were identified. Identified tolerant and susceptible genotypes can be used for the development of mapping populations to identify QTLs for drought tolerance in wheat (Triticum aestivum L.). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contrary to the view of some observers who insist that the Cold War was of limited or no relevance to the transition from colonies to nation-states after 1945 we argue that the geopolitics of the Cold War played a crucial role in shaping the character and direction of the trajectories of nation-states in Asia, if not the erstwhile Third World as a whole. More particularly, the geopolitics of the Cold War provided the crucial backdrop for the rise and fall of developmental nationalism, while the post-Cold War era has set the scene for an array of cultural nationalisms. These issues are explored with a particular focus on India. The case of India makes clear that it is impossible to separate the emergence of new nation-states and their success or failure after 1945 from the geopolitics of the Cold War. It will also make clear that the shifting geopolitics of the end of the Cold War reinforced the demise of developmental nationalism. Since the late 1980s, the problems facing the nation-states of the former Third World, are being played out in a geo-political context, which includes an important shift from developmental nationalisms to cultural nationalisms, while the nation-state system itself is sliding deeper into crisis against the backdrop of the global framework of 'genuinely existing' liberal capitalism and the changing geopolitics of the early twenty-first century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]