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Goddess worship and the dancing form: exploring ritual in Indian prehistory and south Indian antiquity
Get PDFThe Indian subcontinent has been one of the regions of the world where the worship of goddesses has been amongst the most longstanding. The seminal work of Marija Gimbutas on the Neolithic and Copper Age settlements of southeastern Europe and particularly her explorations into the feminine forms of the period as possible expressions of Goddess worship have implications for the material culture of the Indian subcontinent in ways that have perhaps not been adequately addressed. Equally, insights into some of the surviving trajectories of rituals and iconographies of goddess worship might serve to throw more light on enigmatic aspects of archaeological finds including from the Neolithic, not just in the context of the subcontinent but elsewhere in antiquity. The paper also sets out to explore the place of the dancing form in ritual particularly with respect to goddess worship, which emerged as a more distinctive feature of Indian antiquity than in many other parts of the world
DST-NIAS Stakeholder Consultation Workshop to discuss the NIAS transition plan for an integrated approach to development and environment in the power sector (NIAS/NSE/EEP/U/WR/03/2021)
Get PDFIndia’s power sector is undergoing a “green energy” transition in which the Southern Region (SR) is leading
the way. While SR contains 50 percent of India’s Variable Renewable Energy (VRE) capacity, the region is
facing challenges in VRE integration since the SR Grid also draws power from forty-seven +25-year-old,
below 500 MW, Thermal Power Plants (TPPs) with obsolete technology working at low-efficiency levels.
As part of a DST-sponsored Project, NIAS has formulated a “End-of-Life” policy for TPPs as an integral part
of a journey towards an “Optimal Electricity Mix” for SR. This policy involves the progressive retirement of
such TPPs by December 2022 coupled with the integration of High-Efficiency-Low-Emission (HELE) TPPs
and Nuclear Power Plants (NPPs) that are already at an advanced stage of construction. By implementing
this transition plan, the four State-owned power generation companies in SR can save approximately Rs.3500
crores required to retrofit imported Flue-Gas Desulfurizers (FGDs) associated with significant environmental
and economic impacts.
Power flow studies conducted to validate the SR Grid operations during the evening peak demand indicate
that the power flow through each transmission element is largely within prescribed limits up to March 2023.
However, certain transmission elements of the SR Grid must be reinforced by 2026 to meet the peak demand
in SR during 2027 and 2030 by importing power from the power-surplus Western and Eastern regions of the
country through the National Grid after retiring five more obsolete and inefficient below 500 MW TPPs by
2027. The optimal utilization of existing and under-construction HELE TPPs with faster-ramping capabilities
and lower technical minimums also facilitates VRE integration.
The proposed transition plan has operational, economic, and environmental benefits with savings in retrofit
and life extension costs in the obsolete TPPs, reduced energy charges, lower CO2 emissions and pollution
levels, reduction in specific coal consumption and water requirement as well as smoother VRE integration,
and efficient Grid operations
The flight of the hornbill: drift and diffusion in arboreal avian movement
Get PDFCapturing movement of animals in mathematical models has long been a keenly pursued direction
of research1
. Any good model of animal movement is built upon information about the animal’s
environment and the available resources including whether prey is in abundance or scarce, densely
distributed or sparse2
. Such an approach could enable the identification of certain quantities or
measures from the model that are species-specific characteristics. We propose here a mechanistic
model to describe the movement of two species of Asian hornbills in a resource-abundant
heterogenous landscape which includes degraded forests and human settlements. Hornbill
telemetry data was used to this end. The birds show a bias both towards features of attraction such
as nesting and roosting sites as well as possible bias away from points of repulsion such as human
presence. These biases are accounted for with suitable potentials. The spatial patterns of movement
are analyzed using the Fokker–Planck equation, which helps explain the variation in movement
of different individuals. Search times to target locations were calculated using first passage time
equations dual to the Fokker–Planck equations. We also find that the diffusion coefficients are larger
for breeding birds than for non-breeding ones—a manifestation of repeated switching of directions
to move back to the nest from foraging sites. The degree of directedness towards nests and roosts
is captured by the drift coefficients. Non-breeding hornbills show similar values of the ratio of the
two coefficients irrespective of the fact that their movement data is available from different seasons.
Therefore, the ratio of drift to diffusion coefficients is indicative of an individual’s breeding status, as
seen from available data. It could possibly also characterize different species. For all individuals, first
passage times increase with proximity to human settlements, in agreement with the premise that
anthropogenic activities close to nesting/roosting sites are not desirable
The Trika School - A Religio-Philosophical Emergence
Get PDFThe worship of Śiva as a deity was the dominant form of theistic and religious devotion which flowed through Kashmir to other parts of India from the first century BC. The Trika school is an idealistic, monistic, and theistic school of philosophy in Śaivism, that originated in the ninth century C.E. in Kashmir. The study attempts to elucidate the historical development of Trika school along with the idiosyncratic and unique philosophy of the school. The paper further endeavours to explain the enthralling development of this particular school which can best be understood from a religio-philosophical context. The study employs textual analysis and conceptual enquiry as the research method to analyse and present the development and distinct nature of the Trika school
Urban Greens: Production of Turfgrass Lawns in Bengaluru and their Environmental Implications
Get PDFTurfgrass lawns are resource intensive ecosystems that consistently require a range of material inputs such as fertilizers, water and pesticides. This disposition renders the lawn to be a contentious space. From a social aspect, lawns represent sites of aesthetic, recreation and community activities. From an environmental aspect, lawns represent sites of high N (nitrogen) retention and soil moisture that are known to influence nutrient cycling in these ecosystems which, in turn, determine the positive or negative environmental effect . The thesis aims to provide an evaluation of the urban turfgrass lawn in Bengaluru that has remained unexplored from both social and environmental perspectives. The thesis investigates three specific dimensions of the socioecological lawn in Bengaluru, namely a) lawn greenhouse gas emissions of nitrous oxide (N2O) b) spatial distribution and c) their production, use and management in landscaped projects.
Using both quantitative and qualitative methodologies, I evaluate the effect of lawn fertilizer application on N2O emissions. On ascertaining that lawn fertilizer emissions are significant, I proceed to explore whether they could be a concern in Bengaluru by determining if lawn N2O levels in Bengaluru are detectable or not. On discovering that lawn N2O emissions are detectable, I examine the spatial distribution of lawns to understand the nature of lawn spaces found in the city and their transformation with respect to the city’s growth and expansion. Following this, I study the process of lawn design and installation in landscaped projects; and their subsequent use and management in residential, commercial and corporate office spaces. I thereby document and analyze lawn management practices in different types of lawns found in Bengaluru in terms of their resource use and intensity, and implications for the environment in general, and particularly for atmospheric N2O emissions
Gandhi's idea of trusteeship: Relevance in the 21st century (NIAS/CSS/CRPR/U/IB/12/2021)
Get PDFGandhi believed that God is the master of all wealth and material universe. According to him,
wealth does not ‘belong’ to the businessman, he is rather the person entrusted with managing
the wealth for the welfare of the society - namely a ‘trustee’. And only by sharing his wealth with
the relatively less privileged, can a businessman truly become useful to his society. For Gandhi,
economy with social justice promotes good of all, equally, including the weakest, and is
indispensable for a decent life. Arguably, such a position of Gandhi would hardly find any
criticism for political and social equality would mean little without economic equality being
guaranteed. He also believed that if nature’s abundant resources were to be distributed equally,
there would be no poverty in the world
Poverty and deprivation in India: Divergence between consumption and asset based estimates (NIAS/SSc/IHD/U/WP/10/2021)
Get PDFConsumption expenditure has been widely used in India to estimate poverty. It has
recently been argued that these estimates have several weaknesses and an asset based
index is a better indicator of deprivation. Building on the asset based indicator developed
earlier, this paper estimates deprivation in India. It looks at two specific aspects of
deprivation: (i) region and time-wise variations in deprivation in terms of absolute and
relative deprivation, (ii)difference between deprivation and consumption-based poverty.
The results suggest that there is a difference in the regional ranking of poverty depending
on whether to consider the immediate consumption expenditure or the longer term
picture of vulnerability provided by the asset based indicator of deprivation
A Multidimensional Approach to Sustainable Rural Development
Get PDFA little more than seven decades after independence, India has undoubtedly emerged as a global
player- politically, economically, and strategically. However, Indian villages seem to be missing
out on the overall progress of the country even though they form the backbone of India’s selfsufficiency
in food.
Indian villages are rich in natural resources of one kind or another. We argue that there exist
considerable economic opportunities for the marginal farmers outside standard agriculture such
as in animal husbandry, poultry farming, apiculture, pisciculture, mushroom farming, organic
agriculture, etc.
Increasing the use of local renewable energy resources can, not only address the energy needs of
the villages but also trigger innovation and entrepreneurship in the villages creating jobs and
wealth. The villages can also benefit by exporting the surplus electricity to the grid or by
producing storable and transportable fuels like hydrogen and ammonia for several transport
and industrial applications in the future.
The need for country-wide mapping of resources at the village level, widespread dissemination of
success stories that can be replicated, incentives for entrepreneurship, and investments in villages
are also highlighted
Shrinking tree cover and increasing tourist arrivals create an existential crisis for the lion-tailed macaque and other denizens of the forest in Valparai
No full textA shy, exclusively fruit-eating, arboreal primate endemic to the Western Ghats, the lion-tailed macaque has been classified by the International Union for Conservation of Nature as endangered. Reduced to a few thousands thanks to their picky eating habits in a shrinking rainforest, such as at Valparai in Tamil Nadu, lion-tailed macaques are in danger of extinction
Urban Migration, Skilling, and Employment in the New Service Economy (NIAS Policy Brief No. NIAS/SSc/UMP/U/PB/01/2021)
Get PDFThe most recent phase of India’s economic development has
been marked by a shift from manufacturing to services. The
growth of organised services, or the ‘new service economy’,
in the metro cities has created new employment opportunities
for relatively unskilled workers with a few years of school
education, attracting youth from small towns and rural
areas. In response to this shift, skill training programmes
are oriented to preparing young people for low-end service
jobs in sectors such as hospitality, housekeeping, organised
retail, security services, and transportation. The issue is:
Do skill training programmes, in their current avatar, lead
to stable jobs and decent work? How can they be improved
to strengthen employment opportunities for youth from
disadvantaged backgrounds