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Urbanization and social change in rural India
No full textA major social transformation is reshaping rural India. New processes of urbanization are marked by steep declines in agricultural jobs, the restructuring of local economies, changing livelihoods, and the emergence of new forms of permanent circular labor migration. Our research suggests that this transformation has important social ramifications for household dynamics and class structures. We conducted a comprehensive geospatial analysis across 600,000 villages to illuminate the extensive spatial patterns of this transformation. Additionally, we collected primary data from two case-study sites in Bihar and West Bengal. Our findings indicate trends toward smaller household sizes and increased complexity in extended family organization, shifting the roles of women within households, and either a continuation (and possibly deepening) of class disparities or an upending of existing class structures. These observations deviate markedly from what is postulated in conventional Western urban theory, and they may be relevant to the urbanizing experiences of other parts of the Global South. In India alone, this transformation is affecting the livelihoods and well-being of hundreds of millions of people
Raja Ramanna: A Renaissance Man
No full textDr Raja Ramanna (1925–2004) was a visionary nuclear physicist and key figure in Indian nuclear and defence research. During his first term as director of the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC), India successfully tested its first nuclear device. Subsequently, Dr Ramanna served his nation in various roles, including as Secretary for Defence Research, Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, and the Minister of State for Defence as well as Member of Parliament. He also contributed tremendously to academic positions in IIT Bombay and the Indian Institute of Science, eventually becoming founder director of the National Institute of Advanced Studies (NIAS) in Bangalore. He was known to be a multifaceted person, with accomplishments in science, technology, policy and the arts. NIAS celebrated the centenary of his birth in January 2025.
Edited by two eminent scholars from NIAS, this volume gathers contributions from various people who have worked with or associated with Dr Raja Ramanna. The chapter authors reflect on their encounters with Dr Ramanna and the institutions he led, while expanding on topics ranging from nuclear fission, defence science, technology policy, governance, philosophy and music, the last being a well-known lifetime interest of Dr Ramanna.
Through the writings of the people Dr Ramanna influenced, readers gain a glimpse of his personality and actions, with many lessons to learn from his long life of service and research. This book is a suitable reading for students and researchers in nuclear physics and particle physics, as well as policymakers and officials in science and technology
Investigation of Stratification Performance in Oil-based and Water-based Cylindrical Thermal Storages for Industrial Applications
No full textThe present study uses a three-dimensional numerical model to investigate the thermal stratification performance of vertical cylindrical thermal energy storage under simultaneous charging and discharging operations pertinent to low-temperature (below 100 ℃) industrial applications. First, the study investigates an oil-based TES using Hytherm 600 as the heat storage medium, and water circulating through the
immersed helical discharging coil serves as the heat extraction fluid. To compare the energy-harnessing features, the study considers the reverse scenario with water as the heat storage medium and oil as the discharging fluid. The charging temperature and flow rate are kept constant at 90 ℃ and 0.5 L/min, respectively. Three discharging flow rates (i.e., 0.5, 1.25, and 2 L/min) are considered to understand the realistic interplay between energy demand and supply. Results show that the water-based TES system exhibits the highest energy discharged (3733.9 kJ) and discharging efficiency (72.7%), accompanied by peak average stratification number and low energy losses to the surroundings (263.2 kJ), with the coil-side discharging (oil) flow rate of 2 L/min. However, for the oil-based TES system, the energy discharged (1343 kJ) and discharging efficiency (57%) are comparatively lower for the 2 L/min water flow rate through the discharging coil
Seismicity and Strain Rate Variation in Northeast India
No full textThe northeastern part of India, characterized by numerous fault zones, is responsible for varied seismic activity, including large, moderate, and small earthquakes. The current study examines strain rate variations in the region to provide insights into its tectonic deformation and seismic hazard potential. The analysis of strain rates derived from the GPS velocity field reveals a complex deformation pattern, encompassing distinct zones of extensional, compressional, and shear deformation. The dilatation strain rate map highlights regions of positive and negative dilation, corresponding to extensional and compressional deformation, respectively, and indicative of normal and thrust faulting environments. The shear strain map identifies zones with high shear strain rates, marking areas prone to strike-slip faulting. High strain rates are observed along major fault zones, such as the Kopili, Dhubri, and Bomdila faults, as well as the Indo-Burma subduction zone. These findings highlight areas of significant deformation and high seismic risk. The Kopili Fault Zone, in particular, exhibits high compressional strain rates, suggesting a likelihood of future ruptures. The occurrence of the M6.4 earthquake in 2021 near the Kopili Fault, with a combination of thrust and strike-slip faulting, supports our hypothesis. Similarly, the high shear strain rates along major fault zones, such as the Dhubri and Bomdila faults, indicate these areas as potential sites for future significant earthquakes with strike-slip faulting mechanism. We recommend continuous monitoring of strain rate variation to enable a more accurate assessment of seismic hazard in the region
Being macaque: Nonhuman ethnographies of urban India
No full textWe are confronting, in recent times, an urgent need to investigate multispecies ethnographies of non/humans and delineate the potential of such unexplored approaches to understand the sentient lives of animals within increasingly human-dominated, ecological contexts of the Anthropocene. This is especially true for a country like India, where the close physical and emotional proximity of human and nonhuman species over thousands of years have not only led to intense interspecies behavioural exchanges and the generation of immersive and affective, more-than-human environments but also, in turn, to the slow, but irreversible, synurbisation of wild nonhuman populations in recent times. Drawing on our ongoing studies on the synurbisation of macaques, a group of remarkably adaptable nonhuman primate species, from across the country, we highlight, in this chapter, what living in drastically altered socioecological environments might mean to both macaques and humans, and, in the process, reflect on the urban ecologies of our future
Energy requirements for sustainable human development
No full textIn this paper, we explore the relationship between sustainable energy consumption and human well-being. We estimate energy sufficiency levels for achieving Equitable Development Levels (EDL) using the quadratic plateau (QP) model for fourteen development variables related to health, education, and infrastructure for the period between 1990 and 2017. Our results show that the energy threshold necessary for securing key developmental targets is 70 GJ person−1 year−1. Even after accounting for the changing energy-development relationship due to improvements in technology, efficiency, scales of production etc., we find that primary energy supply for meeting developmental needs is likely to be in the range of 75 to100 GJ person−1 year−1, in 2050. Our analysis shows that estimates of “decent living standards” in the existing literature, are highly inadequate and do not address the developmental needs and aspirations of the global South
MacaqueNet: Advancing comparative behavioural research through large-scale collaboration
Full text linkThere is a vast and ever-accumulating amount of behavioural data on individually recognised animals, an incredible resource to shed light on the ecological and evolutionary drivers of variation in animal behaviour. Yet, the full potential of such data lies in comparative research across taxa with distinct life histories and ecologies. In this multi-author paper, we introduce MacaqueNet, a global collaboration of over 100 researchers (https://macaquenet.github.io/) aimed at unlocking the wealth of cross-species data for research on macaque social behaviour
On the microstructural, mechanical, damping, wear properties of magnesium alloy AZ91-3 vol. % SiCP-3 vol. % fly ash hybrid composite and property correlation thereof
No full textA combination of hard (SiCP) and soft (fly ash) particulate reinforcements could be a strategy to enhance combination of multiple properties of Magnesium and its alloys which otherwise suffer from low stiffness, low wear resistance, and many other critical properties. However, at present a comprehensive and robust map correlating different properties in particle-reinforced composites is much lacking. In this work, an industrial grade AZ91 magnesium alloy reinforced with hard SiC and soft fly ash particles (with 3 vol. % each), has been prepared using stir casting followed by hot extrusion at 325
C with a ratio of 21.5. Microstructure of the hybrid composite was characterized using optical and scanning electron microscopes. The composite exhibited a reduction in average grain size from 13.6 to 7.1 µm, concomitantly an increase in Vickers hardness from 73 to 111 HV. The tension-compression yield asymmetry ratios of the unreinforced alloy and hybrid composite were 1.165 and 0.976, respectively indicating higher yield strength for the composite under compressive load. The composite exhibited 76% improvement in damping capacity under time sweep mode, and 28% improvement at 423 K under temperature sweep mode. The tribological characteristics of the composite under dry sliding conditions at sliding speeds and loads in the range of 0.5 to 1.5 m s-1 and 10 to 30 N, respectively showed higher wear resistance than the unreinforced alloy. The composite showed 23% improvement in sliding wear resistance at a load of 20 N and a speed of 1 m s-1. Finally, efforts have been made to understand the influence of one property on the other by developing statistical property correlation maps from the properties obtained in this study and from the literature. These maps are expected to help in the design of hybrid Metal Matrix Composites for a variety of targeted applications in different sectors