46 research outputs found
Silent Conversations in Rudyard Kipling’s Kim and Ruskin Bond’s Rusty novels
No full textThe essay undertakes an analysis of the connections and conversations between Rudyard Kipling’s Kim (1901) and Ruskin Bond’s largely autobiographical Rusty (1955-) novels. Kipling’s Kim has evoked many literary responses and reactions across India. While writers such as Sarath Kumar Ghosh, Rabindranath Tagore, T.N. Murari, and even Sashi Tharoor have boldly written back to Kim, Ruskin Bond silently acknowledges it in his Rusty series of children’s fiction. At times, Bond’s pointed and conscious avoidance of Kipling becomes his means of accepting Kipling’s influence on him. The essay traces the implicit dialogue between these two Anglo-Indian authors and their protagonists. It undertakes a close reading of their novels to analyse the evolution of English literature and Anglo-Indianism in India, while also examining the divided identities of the authors and their fictional protagonists
Vesicular (liposomal and nanoparticulated) delivery of curcumin: a comparative study on carbon tetrachloride–mediated oxidative hepatocellular damage in rat model
No full textSomsubhra Thakur Choudhury,1 Nirmalendu Das,2 Swarupa Ghosh,2 Debasree Ghosh,2 Somsuta Chakraborty,2 Nahid Ali1 1Infectious Diseases and Immunology, 2Drug Development, Diagnostics and Biotechnology, CSIR-Indian Institute of Chemical Biology, Kolkata, West Bengal, India Abstract: The liver plays a vital role in biotransforming and extricating xenobiotics and is thus prone to their toxicities. Short-term administration of carbon tetrachloride (CCl4) causes hepatic inflammation by enhancing cellular reactive oxygen species (ROS) level, promoting mitochondrial dysfunction, and inducing cellular apoptosis. Curcumin is well accepted for its antioxidative and anti-inflammatory properties and can be considered as an effective therapeutic agent against hepatotoxicity. However, its therapeutic efficacy is compromised due to its insolubility in water. Vesicular delivery of curcumin can address this limitation and thereby enhance its effectiveness. In this study, it was observed that both liposomal and nanoparticulated formulations of curcumin could increase its efficacy significantly against hepatotoxicity by preventing cellular oxidative stress. However, the best protection could be obtained through the polymeric nanoparticle-mediated delivery of curcumin. Mitochondria have a pivotal role in ROS homeostasis and cell survivability. Along with the maintenance of cellular ROS levels, nanoparticulated curcumin also significantly (P<0.0001) increased cellular antioxidant enzymes, averted excessive mitochondrial destruction, and prevented total liver damage in CCl4-treated rats. The therapy not only prevented cells from oxidative damage but also arrested the intrinsic apoptotic pathway. In addition, it also decreased the fatty changes in hepatocytes, centrizonal necrosis, and portal inflammation evident from the histopathological analysis. To conclude, curcumin-loaded polymeric nanoparticles are more effective in comparison to liposomal curcumin in preventing CCl4-induced oxidative stress–mediated hepatocellular damage and thereby can be considered as an effective therapeutic strategy. Keywords: reactive oxygen species, mitochondria, apoptosis, antioxidants, histopathology, Western blo
Studies of Nutritional and Phytochemical Profiles of Fermented Sourdough
No full text<em>Lactobacillus</em> sp. isolated from sourdough (collected from local bakery) in whole wheat flour, refined flour and in cow milk curd were analyzed based on the nutritional and phytochemical profiles of sourdough. In antibiotic disk diffusion assay, <em>Lactobacillus</em> sp. shows negligible resistance towards streptomycin discs while no resistance was reported in case of chloramphenicol discs. The biochemical parameters show increase in carbohydrate, protein, riboflavin and folic acid contents in sourdough fermented with lactic acid bacteria. Curd made with only lactic acid bacteria isolate shows higher riboflavin content compared to other fermented food samples. Phytochemical profile shows that, the amount of bioactive compounds decreases with fermentation and present in higher amount in newly fermented sourdough with flavonoid and phenolic contents.</jats:p
Application of principal component analysis (PCA) as a sensory assessment tool for fermented food products
No full textPreparation of idli batter, its properties and nutritional improvement during fermentation
No full textA Literature of One's Own: British Literary Influence on the Development of Indian Children's Genres
No full textAbstract “We become writers before we learn to write. The rest is simply learning how to put it all together.” Ruskin Bond “The 1835 English Education Act of William Bentinck,” states Gauri Viswanathan in Masks of Conquest (1989) “which swiftly followed Macaulay’s minute of that same year, officially required the natives of India to submit to the study of English literature” (45), thereby establishing its presence as an ineluctable result of colonial rule. English literature played a pivotal role in the colonial project and according to colonialists like the former governor-general Lord Hardinge and James Mill, would both “control” (Viswanathan, 91) and endow educated natives with “a chance of having their understandings better enlightened” (Viswanathan, 91), thereby ‘rescuing’ them from the realms of ignorance. This thesis argues that Indian children’s literature draws on the influence of English literature and takes shape in accordance with English genre conventions, while adapting these conventions to produce a distinct and unique canon of juvenile writing (for children privileged enough to read), which is far removed from colonial, ‘civilising’ intentions. My research demonstrates how the consumption of and engagement with British literary genres by Indian writers of juvenile literature helped define a local literary identity of the colonised child.Significantly, Indian children’s literature from the 19th century onwards is not merely a derivative discourse, which would have only furthered the colonial agenda. Instead, its complex interactions with English literature result in a range of localised adaptations, radical appropriations, and subtle subversions of British genres, all of which developed in accordance with the evolving notion of Indian childhood. This thesis focuses on, but is not restricted to, the literature emerging from Bengal, since Calcutta was the Imperial capital until 1911 and the seat of colonial education. The chapters on science fiction, the adventure story, detective fiction and the ghost story set out to survey the field in Bengal before focusing on close readings of Bengali texts by writers like Satyajit Ray, Leela Majumdar, Premendra Mitra, Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay and Hemendra Kumar Roy among others, all of whom acknowledge their debt to English literature. The next two chapters titled “In the Jungle” and “The Anglo-Indian Conversation” study the lasting influence of Kipling’s legacy on the English writing of the Bengali-American expatriate Dhan Gopal Mukerji and the Anglo-Indian writer Ruskin Bond. The final chapter offers a close reading of “Bhondar Bahadur” (1926), a short story in the vernacular by Gaganendranath Tagore which is inspired by a classic text of English literature, Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865). The conclusion presents a short reading of Ruskin Bond’s novella, The Blue Umbrella (1980) to reinforce the arguments of the thesis, meditates on whether Indian adaptations of English genres have successfully rescued juvenile readers from the peripheries of readership and offers some insight into the current energies of children’s writing emerging from contemporary India.</p
Comparison of fatty acid contents of the neutral and phospholipids of the trematode Paramphistomum cervi and liver of its host, Capra hircus
No full textCadmium induced histopathology in the olfactory epithelium of a snakehead fish, Channa punctatus (Bloch)
No full textHistopathology on the olfactory organ of a snakehead fish, Channa punctatus (Bloch, 1793) were assessed after exposing the fish to 2.5 mg/L and 5mg/L of CdCl2 for 15 days, 30 days and 45 days. Cellular organization of the epithelium was affected severely with degeneration of sensory and supporting cells and hyperplasia of basal cells and mucous cells. Mucous cell proliferation indicates the upregulation of mucous secretion to protect the epithelium from toxic effect of cadmium. The olfactory epithelium was endowed with the multipotent basal cells which differentiate into sensory cells, supporting cells and other cell types of the epithelium during normal cells turn over and in the event of cell death. However, due to cadmium exposure proliferating basal cells failed to differentiate into normal cells and the undifferentiated proliferated cell formed lump and intraepithelial lesion altering the composition of the entire epithelium. Present study indicates that in prolonged exposure to cadmium chloride olfactory functions of the fish might be impaired due to loss of all sensory cells
