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The Traditional Craft of Leather Bellows Making: Technoethnoarchaeological Perspectives from Sholapur, India
Get PDFTowards an Institutional Strategy for the Study of Sustainability (NIAS/U/RR/09/2020)
Get PDFOver the last three decades, NIAS has evolved as one of India’s leading multidisciplinary research and training institutions. It has, during this period, built on its mandate to carry out multidisciplinary research and to use the results of that research to help build a new leadership in India. A major step in this direction was taken by focusing on specific initiatives, drawing on inputs from multiple disciplines. The practice of multidisciplinary research has, over time, thrown up not just answers to questions that have been asked about diverse aspects of the country, but also raised new questions. Some of these questions have been recurring, arising again and again in the course of multidisciplinary research in very different directions. Among the more frequent of these recurring questions are those that relate, directly or indirectly, to issues of sustainability. A strategy for national security would self-destruct if it used resources in a manner that was not sustainable; the protection of our heritage can be seen as a response to the need to sustain memories of our past; the need to study inequality comes from an understanding that grossly unequal societies are not sustainable; and so on. As individual programmes have responded to these challenges, an institute-wide approach to sustainability has evolved from below. This note seeks to make this approach explicit by placing it in the context of the larger debate on sustainability. It then goes on to develop this approach into a strategy to enhance the contribution of NIAS to the larger cause of sustainability, in the realms of theory, empirical evaluation, and policy
Burst mechanisms and burst synchronization in a system of coupled type-I and type-II neurons
No full textThe rich dynamics of a system comprising of a Type-I neuron coupled to a Type-II neuron via an electrical synapse (gap junction) are explored in this paper. Diverse dynamical behaviour ranging from quiescence and periodic spiking, to bursting and burst synchronization, were observed for different coupling schemes. The bifurcation mechanisms underlying the various bursts observed were identified. We report a unique burst mechanism, based on a focus/node bifurcation, occurring for bidirectionally coupled neurons. We attempt to understand the physical basis for the transitions from one burst pattern to another and also between the different aforementioned forms of dynamical behaviour observed on varying the coupling strength, in both unidirectionally and bidirectionally coupled neurons. The various dynamical regimes of the coupled system are exhaustively studied and demarcated through parameter plots. Type-I and type-II neurons exhibit mutually phase synchronized burst patterns at large values of the coupling which tend towards complete synchronization on increasing the coupling strength. Such collective dynamical behaviour can have important implications in biological systems
Communication and management of public risks (with specific reference to the COVID-19 global pandemic)
Get PDFWe are in the midst of a global pandemic, the COVID-19. With no vaccine against the infection or
medicines to treat the infected, the world is struggling to cope up with the increasing infections and
casualties. It is recognized by everyone that the only option available to reduce the spread of the infection is to bring in lifestyle changes. Active participation by everyone is mandatory for success of
this strategy. It is emphasized that the scientific community can play a very effective role in conveying this message across the entire population
Anticipating Future Capital: Regional Caste Contestations, Speculation and Silent Dispossession in Andhra Pradesh
No full textIn 2014, the state of Andhra Pradesh was bifurcated by the Indian government, leaving the truncated state without a capital city. A period of political uncertainty before bifurcation and the announcement of the new capital city created possibilities for land speculation and for the acceleration of the commodification of real estate in different parts of the state. Concentrating on Guntur-Vijayawada in the Coastal Andhra region and Donakonda town close to the Rayalaseema region, this article explores how speculative investments based on political calculations by members of regional elite castes translated into the emergence of competing regional investment zones as possible future choices of the capital city. Through an extended and largely ethnographic study, this article shows how caste politics and regional processes of land speculation led to land transfers without violent struggles between different groups. Rather, the cultural politics of regional differentiation and the economy of anticipation allowed a pragmatic convergence of interests to emerge, where acquisition of agricultural land was followed by silent dispossession