Deepak K. Mishra

Interaction of Piriformospora indica with Azotobacter chroococcum.

Microbial communities in rhizosphere interact with each other and form a basis of a cumulative impact on plant growth. Rhizospheric microorganisms like Piriformospora indica and Azotobacter chroococcum are well known for their beneficial interaction with plants. These features make P. indica /A. chroococcum co-inoculation of crops most promising with respect to sustainable agriculture and to understanding the transitions in the evolution of rhizospheric microbiome. Here, we investigated interactions of P. indica with A. chroococcum in culture. Out of five Azotobacter strains tested, WR5 exhibited growth-promoting while strain M4 exerted growth-inhibitory effect on the fungus in axenic culture. Electron microscopy of co-culture indicated an intimate association of the bacterium with the fungus. 2-D gel electrophoresis followed by mass spectrometry of P. indica cellular proteins grown with or without WR5 and M4 showed differential expression of many metabolic proteins like enolase-I, ureaseD, the GTP binding protein YPT1 and the transmembrane protein RTM1. Fungal growth as influenced by bacterial crude metabolites was also monitored. Taken together, the results conform to a model where WR5 and M4 influence the overall growth and physiology of P. indica which may have a bearing on its symbiotic relationship with plants.

Haitian variant ctxB producing Vibrio cholerae OI with reduced susceptibility to ciprofloxacin is persistent in Yavatmal, Maharashtra, India, after causing a cholera outbreak

Vibrio cholerae O1 biotype El Tor producing Haitian variant Cholera Toxin (HCT) and showing reduced susceptibility to ciprofloxacin caused a cholera outbreak associated with a high case fatality rate (4.5) in India. HCT-secreting strains responsible for severe cholera epidemics in Orissa (India), Western Africa and Haiti were associated with increased mortality. There is a pressing need for an integrated multidisciplinary approach to combat further spread of newly emerging variant strains. The therapeutic effect of ciprofloxacin was diminished whereas use of doxycycline in moderate to severe cholera patients was found to be effective in outbreak management.

Vibrio cholerae O1 Ogawa El Tor strains with the ctxB7 allele driving cholera outbreaks in south-western India in 2012

Cholera has been a recurrent epidemic disease in human populations for the past 200years. We present herein a comparative characterization of clinical Vibrio cholerae strains isolated from two consecutive cholera outbreaks in 2012 and associated environmental strains from western India. The clinical and toxigenic environmental isolates were identified as hybrid V. cholerae O1, serotype Ogawa, biotype El Tor carrying the variant ctxB7 allele. Partial sequences of SXT integrase from the isolates revealed 100% identity to ICEVchInd5 (Sevagram, India, 1994) and VC1786ICE (Haiti, 2013). The full clonal relationship of the strains established by RAPD, Box PCR, ERIC PCR and MLST (pyrH, recA and rpoA) analyses, and the short time between the two outbreaks, strongly supported that both outbreaks were due to a single strain. The study corroborated that faecal contamination of the potable water supply was the main reason for the first outbreak, which further spread to other areas and resulted in the second outbreak. The study concluded that the circulating El Tor variant strains of epidemic potential in the region can be a serious concern in the future.

The Difficult Transition

The interrelationship between economic development and gender relations has been found to be multidimensional and complex. This article attempts to analyse the changing gender relations in Arunachal Pradesh, a state that has seen rapid economic transformation in the past few decades, on the basis of women’s relative position in a few socioeconomic spheres. Although Arunachal Pradesh, like other north- eastern states, is generally described as having healthier gender relations than in many other states of India, such a general portrayal, the article has attempted to argue, not only hides the wide variations that exist among the north-eastern states, but also does not pay adequate attention to the continuing and emerging disparities in various dimensions of well-being and empowerment. While in terms of some indicators, women in Arunachal Pradesh have better status in relation to the males in the state as well as women in the country as a whole, clearly there are old and new spheres of marginalisation, segregation and discrimination. The most serious mismatch that emerges from the analysis of secondary data is the divergence between economic and political participation.

Invisible chains? Crisis in the tea industry and the ‘unfreedom’ of labour in Assam's tea plantations

During the post-liberalization period the Indian tea industry has been facing a severe crisis. This study looks at the question of inter-generational occupational mobility among tea garden labour in Assam, against the backdrop of, on the one hand, a fall in tea auction prices, decline in exports, and closure and abandonment of tea gardens; and on the other hand, increasing labour unrest, at times leading to violent protests and confrontations, declining living standards and worsening human security in the tea gardens. On the basis of data collected through first-hand primary research in three tea gardens of upper Assam, the paper analyses limitations on the inter-generational occupational mobility of tea garden labourers. We also probe into the reasons behind the relative mobility or immobility of tea garden labourers within and outside the tea gardens.

Proteomic identification of proteins differentially expressed following overexpression of hTERT (human telomerase reverse transcriptase) in cancer cells

Reverse transcriptase activity of telomerase adds telomeric repeat sequences at extreme ends of the newly replicated chromosome in actively dividing cells. Telomerase expression is not detected in terminally differentiated cells but is noticeable in 90% of the cancer cells. hTERT (human telomerase reverse transcriptase) expression seems to promote invasiveness of cancer cells. We here present proteomic profiles of cells overexpressing or knocked down for hTERT. This study also attempts to find out the potential interacting partners of hTERT in cancer cell lines. Two-dimensional gel electrophoresis (2-DE) of two different cell lines U2OS (a naturally hTERT negative cell line) and HeLa revealed differential expression of proteins in hTERT over-expressing cells. In U2OS cell line 28 spots were picked among which 23 spots represented upregulated and 5 represented down regulated proteins. In HeLa cells 21 were upregulated and 2 were down regulated out of 23 selected spots under otherwise identical experimental conditions. Some heat shock proteins viz. Hsp60 and Hsp70 and GAPDH, which is a housekeeping gene, were found similarly upregulated in both the cell lines. The upregulation of these proteins were further confirmed at RNA and protein level by real-time PCR and western blotting respectively.

Globalisation, Economic Citizenship, and India’s Inclusive Developementalism

Harriss-White, Mishra, and Prakash argue that citizenship is a universal concept that might have a tenuous bearing on reality. There is no consensus about the concept of economic citizenship, which, they suggest is currently being exported from the European heartland to developing countries in private aid-driven projects of social entrepreneurship. It is replete with tensions. Unlike the concept of political citizenship, economic citizenship is not a concept of formal equality. Hariss-White et al. analyze the role of the state, markets and civil society in furthering the project with a range of proxy labels which de facto advances economic citizenship. Through a case study of Arunachal they show the role of a non-state, non-market institution—ethnicity—in structuring and differentiating economic citizenship.

Deforestation and Women’s Work Burden in the Eastern Himalayas, India: Insights from a Field Survey

Abstract The effects of environmental degradation on livelihoods are significant in many parts of the developing world. This article attempts to quantify the impact of deforestation on women’s work burden in the eastern Himalayas through a primary survey in three villages of Arunachal Pradesh, a state in India. Our findings suggest that although deforestation increases women’s work in forest-related collection and gathering activities, the net impacts are also mediated through processes of commercialization of the subsistence economy. While women share a disproportionately higher work burden in terms of the time spent in collection and processing of forest products, commercialization of some products has also resulted in higher participation of men in collection, marketing, and transport activities. It was found that the quality of village forest is a strong factor in reducing women’s total work burden. Forest degradation increases the work burden of women, as does the distance of agricultural land from house, and dependence on shifting cultivation.

‘Crisis’ in the Tea Sector: A Study of Assam Tea Gardens

This paper attempts to analyse the trends in production and employment in the tea sector in Assam at a disaggregated level. While much of the discussion on the impact of globalisation on tea sector revolves around trends in tea auction prices and exports, the present study looks at the post-reform changes in production and labour use in the tea producing districts of Assam. The analysis of growth performance of the tea sector clearly brings out the fact that declining productivity in the sector at the all India level gets manifested in the tea gardens of Assam much more pronouncedly than in any other state or region. Within Assam, while there have been some gains in terms of area in few districts, the dismal performance in productivity growth has been all pervasive, particularly in the last few years.

Public Distribution System in Uttar Pradesh: Access, Utilization and Impact:

The public distribution system (PDS) in Uttar Pradesh (UP), India’s most populous state, was widely recognized as dysfunctional. However, following the introduction of reforms in recent times, analysts have put this state in the category of “reviving” states. Against this backdrop, this article presents recent evidence of improved accessibility, utilization and impact of PDS in UP using data from the 68th Round of the National Sample Survey Office (NSSO) Consumer Expenditure Survey (CES) and primary data collected from six villages of western UP. The main findings show that the accessibility to PDS rationing is higher among lower socioeconomic groups and regions, which also have a higher share of PDS commodities in their food consumption and calorie intake in comparison to the non-poor categories. PDS has also made a positive and significant contribution towards ensuring food security among poor families. However, entitlements for the non-poor have been gradually phased out as the majority of them do not purchase food items and consider their entitlement for “kerosene only.” With high levels of corruption and lower income margins, ration dealers siphon off a part of the PDS quota for sale in the open market or charge higher prices to cover their losses.