81 research outputs found
The corruption of a republic
No full textEminent Indian psychoanalyst and social commentator Dr Ashis Nandy found himself in the middle of a controversy recently after he made a few remarks on corruption at a session entitled ‘The Republic of Ideas’ at the Jaipur literary festival, 24– 28 January 2013. Author and publisher of Tehelka magazine Tarun Tejpal spoke of corruption as an equalising force, to which Dr Nandy said:
Just a response to this part, very briefly. He’s not saying the most important part of the story, which will shock you and it will be a very undignified and, how should I put it, almost vulgar statement on my part. It is a fact that most of the corrupt come from the OBCs (Other Backward Classes) and the Scheduled Castes and now increasingly Scheduled Tribes and as long as this is the case, the Indian republic will survive.
A journalist present at the panel took up this statement, which was later endlessly replayed on a 24-hour television news channel. Dalit organisations and activists protested against Dr Nandy. Not surprisingly, considering the upcoming elections in some key states, some politicians jumped into the fray and called for Dr Nandy’s arrest. In India anti-Dalit speech is punishable under the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act 1989, and is a non-bailable offence. There were demonstrations and police complaints were filed against him in three different locations. Fearing physical harm and the possibility of imprisonment, Dr Nandy and his family went to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court of India did grant a stay order on the arrest warrants against him, but at the same time the Chief Justice of India told Dr Nandy’s lawyer ‘Whatever your intent, you can’t go on making statements. Tell your client he has no license to make such comments.’
The Indian social media and blogsphere exploded, with various arguments emerging on behalf of and against Dr Nandy. The most common complaint against Dr Nandy is that he was casteist, and that he had stereotyped Dalits. Such complaints came even from those defending him. A passionate critique by Anoop Kumar outlined Dalit oppression in India and accused specific media personalities of defending Dr Nandy instead of interrogating ‘upper caste anxieties’. There are blogs that, while disagreeing with Dr Nandy, argue for his right to express his opinion and to ‘be wrong’. There are those who argue that his remarks were made in humour, and lament the dearth of an understanding of wit, satire or irony.6 While the case seems to be closed after the Supreme Court judgment, there is still debate about whether this was a victory for freedom of speech or another instance of the way in which the upper castes in India can get away with any derogatory statement against the lower castes.
The freedom of speech argument is unsatisfying. The difference between ‘provocative speech that forces you to think’ and ‘provocative speech that is intended to hurt, denigrate or provoke’ is very context dependent. The intention of any speaker is not only difficult to prove, but also difficult to know. I would like to base my defence of Dr Nandy neither on his right to say what was on his mind, nor on his intention. Instead, I would suggest that his remarks should be understood through a discussion of corruption, and the way in which Dr Nandy uses the term.
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Shvetal Vyas is a PhD student in the International Centre for Muslim and non-Muslim Understanding, University of South Australia
Amrita Nandy. Motherhood and Choice: Uncommon Mothers, Childfree Women
No full textIn Motherhood and Choice: Uncommon Mothers, Childless Women the author wishes to shed light on gender roles and gendered structures in ideas and practices of motherhood and (non-) mothering in (North) India across “institutions, experience and agency” through a feminist post-structuralist perspective. Struck by her own uncertainty about motherhood despite the apparent ubiquity and compulsions of pro-natalism and the naturalization of women as mothers, Amrita Nandy selected the theme for her d..
Robust flat band and flux induced engineering of dispersive band in a periodic lattice
No full textWe report the existence of flat band state in a periodic diamond dot lattice within the tight-binding framework. An analytical scheme to detect such non-dispersive state has been discussed elaborately. The dispersionless signature is clarified from the study of dispersion relation that is obtained by using real space renormalization group technique. The robustness of the flat band state with respect to the application of a uniform magnetic flux is analyzed along with the extensive numerical calculation of general spectral profile and two-channel transmission property. The amplitudes corresponding to this self-localized bound state are confined either within a finite size atomic cluster or pinned at a particular vertex making the particle immobile owing to the divergent effective mass. The challenging probability to engineer the band curvature (or equivalently the effective mass) using an external perturbation may inspire the experimentalists. The group velocity of the wave train can be manipulated (both in magnitude and sign) by virtue of the applied flux and hence the effective mass exhibits a re-entrant crossover as a function of the same external parameter
COVID-19 and persistence in the stock market: a study on a leading emerging market
No full textData availability:
The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.In this study, we examine how sectors of the National Stock Exchange from India respond to the uncertainties introduced by the COVID-19 pandemic. By examining the synchronization between the sector-specific and overall market index (NIFTY 50) reaction to COVID-19, we contribute to the inconclusive ongoing academic literature regarding the impact of COVID-19 on the stock market, especially in the context of persistence in an emerging market. To analyze the persistence of sectoral indices, we apply multifractal detrended fluctuation analysis (MFDFA). We use the generalized Hurst exponent and singularity spectrum as indicators for persistence and spectral width as a measure of volatility. Our analysis shows that the sample sectoral indices are persistent before and after the announcement of COVID-19; however, volatility in some sectors reduces post-announcement of COVID-19. The findings will enrich the academic literature on the relationship between sector-specific and overall market indexes. In practice, the paper will guide investors to organize their portfolios, especially during future economic uncertainty
Tight-binding chains with off-diagonal disorder: Bands of extended electronic states induced by minimal quasi–one-dimensionality
No full textIt is shown that an entire class of off-diagonally disordered linear lattices composed of two basic building blocks and described within a tight-binding model can be tailored to generate absolutely continuous energy bands. It can be achieved if linear atomic clusters of an appropriate size are side-coupled to a suitable subset of sites in the backbone, and if the nearest-neighbor hopping integrals, in the backbone and in the side-coupled cluster, bear a certain ratio. We work out the precise relationship between the number of atoms in one of the building blocks in the backbone and that in the side attachment. In addition, we also evaluate the definite correlation between the numerical values of the hopping integrals at different subsections of the chain, that can convert an otherwise point spectrum (or a singular continuous one for deterministically disordered lattices) with exponentially (or power law) localized eigenfunctions to an absolutely continuous spectrum comprising one or more bands (subbands) populated by extended, totally transparent eigenstates. The results, which are analytically exact, put forward a non-trivial variation of the Anderson localization (Anderso
A Bioinspired Light Harvesting System in Aqueous Medium: Highly Efficient Energy Transfer through the Self Assembly of β‑Sheet Nanostructures of Poly‑d‑Lysine
No full textNature has beautifully assembled its light harvesting
pigments
within protein scaffolds, which ensures a very high energy transfer.
Designing a highly efficient artificial bioinspired light harvesting
system (LHS) thus requires the nanoscale spatial orientation and electronic
control of the associated chromophores. Although DNA has been used
as a scaffold to organize chromophores, proteins or polypeptides,
however, are very rarely explored. Here, we have developed a highly
efficient, artificial, bioinspired LHS using polypeptide (poly-d-lysine, PDL) nanostructures making use of their β-sheet
structure in an aqueous alkaline medium. The chromophores used herein
are compatible for an energy transfer process and are nonfluorescent
in an aqueous medium but exhibit high fluorescence intensity when
bound to the nanostructure of PDL. The close proximity of the chromophores
results in an energy transfer efficiency of ∼92% besides generating
white light emission at a particular molar ratio between the chromophores
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