Sujay Ghosh

NGOs as Political Institutions

Institutions are essentially broadly agreed norms, rules and routines. They might have arisen out of social conflicts with strong influence of power relations, but they also face the demands of democracy. While studying NGOs as political institutions, particularly in the context of a number of developing countries, this article argues that the political context of their action is determined by their relationship with the donors and social movements. Second, NGOs promote democracy when they redefine participation in terms of their relationship with state and society; and contribute to improve the quality of participation, although with much less success in promoting internal democracy.

Citizenship in Practice: Poverty Reduction and Self-Help Groups

Citizenship is essentially about membership in society which enables citizens to participate in the affairs of their community on roughly equal terms and culturally enjoins upon them to collectively surmount their commonly felt problems, such as poverty. The role of Self-Help Groups (SHGs) should be understood in this context. Through observation and conversation-analysis methods, this paper studies two SHGs in India: the successful one practiced citizenship, envisaged a sense of community and made progress towards capacity building and empowerment, especially pertaining to education, health and sanitation. It concludes that in developing countries, citizens acquire the appropriate virtues through participation in the programmes linked with their vision of well-being and thus strengthen the cause of citizenship.

Telomere length analysis in Down syndrome birth

Human reproductive fitness depends upon telomere chemistry. Maternal age, meiotic nondisjunction error and telomere length of mother of trisomic child are someway associated. Reports exhibiting maternal inheritance of telomere length in Down syndrome child are very scanty. To investigate this, we collected peripheral blood from 170 mothers of Down syndrome child and 186 age matched mothers of euploid child with their newly born babies. Telomere length was measured by restriction digestion - southern blotting technique. Meiotic nondisjunction error was detected by STR genotyping. Subjects are classified by age (old >35 years and young ˂35 years) and by meiotic error (MI and MII). Linear regression was run to explore the age - telomere length relationship in each maternal groups. The study reveals that with age, telomere erodes in length. Old MII mothers carry the shortest (p˂0.001), control mothers have the longest telomere and MI lies in between. Babies from older mother have longer telomere (p˂0.001) moreover; telomeres are longer in Down syndrome babies than control babies (p˂0.001). To conclude, this study represents not only the relation between maternal aging and telomere length but also explore the maternal heritability of telomere length in families with Down syndrome child.

Democracy and human development: recent legislation in India

Human Development (HD) requires that development must accompany fundamental human concerns that make life worth living. It is surprising that despite being a democracy, India performs poorly on HD. In this backdrop, four pieces of legislation of different orientations have been passed since 1998–99: ‘Swarnajayanti Gram Swarozgar Yojana’, the ‘Right to Information’, the ‘National Rural Employment Guarantee Act’ and the ‘Right to Education’. Where successful, they have empowered the beneficiaries. Though not expressed as such, nor exclusively directed to this end, these pieces of legislation are bound together with democracys demand for HD: they are influenced externally by various aspects of globalisation; internally, development is continuously interrogated by democracy, competitive politics and social activism.

Learning from community: Agenda for citizenship education

Citizenship is about individual’s membership in the socio-political community. Education for citizenship conceives issues such as quality education, learning society and inclusion. Educational thinking in India has long valued community as a learning resource. With empirical experiences drawn from the programme of ‘Ecology and Natural Resource Education’ (ENRE), executed by local non-governmental organisations in three Blocks in West Bengal, India, this study argues that learning from community has potentials to contribute to quality education and democratic citizenship. Since the local community and non-governmental organisation efforts are insufficient, involvement of the state is necessary, to place it as a universal agenda for citizenship education.

Effect of Toxic Heavy Metal Containing Industrial Effluent on Selected Life History Traits, Adult Morphology and Global Protein Expression Pattern of Drosophila melanogaster

Accumulation of heavy metal laden industrial effluent into natural aquatic body leads to disruption of balance of that ecosystem as well as imperils the life cycle of the organisms living thereof. The present work aims to demonstrate the effect of toxic heavy metal containing industrial effluent on several life history traits, adult morphology and global protein expression pattern of insect model Drosophila melanogaster. Flies were reared for five generations in the effluent containing medium. One pair of virgin male and female fly from the stock was transferred to the vials. On the next day the male was removed and the female was transferred to fresh vials for successive days. Daily egg production of the females in different trials was recorded. Developmental time, pupation height, sex-ratio, egg-to-adult viability and mean body and wing length of the emerging flies from both treated and control groups were measured. We noted a drop in mean daily egg production rate, reduction in developmental time, shortening of pupation height, decreased egg-to-adult viability and a reduction in body and wing length in treated group in comparison to the control. However, no significant change was found in the sex-ratio of treated adult flies. Alterations in the expression pattern of body proteins in all the developmental stages were revealed by SDS-PAGE.

Exploration of teratogenic and genotoxic effects of fruit ripening retardant Alar (Daminozide) on model organism Drosophila melanogaster

Abstract Alar (Daminozide) is a plant growth regulator which is widely used as a fruit preservative for apple and mango to prevent pre-harvest fruit drop, promote color development and to delay excessive ripening. The aim of the present work was to demonstrate the effect of Alar on several life history traits, adult morphology, Hsp70 protein expression and in vivo DNA damage in the brain of the model organism Drosophila melanogaster. We assessed the life history and morphological traits including fecundity, developmental time, pupation height, egg-to-adult viability and mean wing length, body length, arista length and sternopleural bristle number of the emerging flies. The results showed a significant delay in the developmental milestones, increase in body length, wing length, arista length, a decrease in fecundity, pupal height and variation in sternopleural bristle number in the treated flies in comparison to the controls. Overexpression of Hsp70 protein suggests alar induced subcellular molecular stress and comet assay validates genotoxicity in the form of DNA damage in the treated larvae. Mutation screening experiment revealed induction of X lined lethal mutation.

Risk of Down syndrome birth: Consanguineous marriage is associated with maternal meiosis-II nondisjunction at younger age and without any detectable recombination error: Risk of Down syndrome birth: Consanguineous marriage is associated with maternal meiosis-II nondisjunction at younger age and without any detectable r

Consanguineous marriage was examined as a risk factor for Down syndrome birth. We genotyped Down syndrome family trios using short tandem repeat markers on 21q‐to interpret the parental and meiotic stage of origin of errors as well as to record recombination profile along long arm of chromosome 21. We then compared nonconsanguineous (N = 811) group with‐the consanguineous (N =157) marriages. We report for the first time that consanguineous marriage is associated with an increased risk for nondisjunction of chromosome 21 in oocytes‐during the second meiotic division. We observed the absence of recombination more frequently in younger mothers in nonconsanguineous meiosis I cases. This was in contrast to an equal distribution of nonrecombinant cases across the age categories in the meiosis I consanguineous group. Moreover, the non‐consanguineous group exhibited preferential telomeric recombination in meiosis I error among younger women and centromeric recombination in meiosis II errors in older women. In contrast, the consanguineous group exhibited medially placed recombination events in both meiosis I and meiosis II nondisjunction errors. Additionally, we recorded reduced maternal age at conception in the‐consanguineous group. These findings suggest novel risk factors associated that increase the risk of chromosome 21 nondisjunction in the families with consanguinity.

Book Review: Jan Wouters, Antoon Braekman, Matthias Lievens, and Emilie Bécault (eds), Global Governance and Democracy: A Multidisciplinary AnalysisGlobal Governance and Democracy: A Multidisciplinary Analysis by WoutersJanBraekmanAntoonLievensMatthiasBécaultEmilie (eds). Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 2015. 304pp., £80.00 (h/b), ISBN 9781781952610

bullied by other countries. Foreign policy is not aggressive enough to make the world stand up and take notice of India and the diplomats are satisfied with making India dance to the tune of other great powers in the system. To take India out of this quagmire, Karnad presents a list of targeted solutions. These require India to actively engage with Central Asia, Africa, the Gulf and Southeast Asia. According to the author, to pursue ‘strategic autonomy’ as an end in itself instead of a means to an end is foolhardiness. I would categorise this book as an effort to make India act on the basis of the theory of ‘offensive realism’. The author is very convincing in his arguments and backs up his theory with hard facts. Karnad’s approach to make India a great power is steeped in pragmatism. However, one gets a feeling that his approach is not people-centric. Pursuing power for the sake of power and thereby making India a great power without being inclusive of the most marginalised people in the country is not a line of thinking many would be comfortable with.

Book Review: Sanjay Ruparelia, Divided We Govern: The Paradoxes of Power in Contemporary Indian DemocracyDivided We Govern: The Paradoxes of Power in Contemporary Indian Democracy by RupareliaSanjay. London: C. Hurst & Co., 2015. 288pp., £29.99 (h/b), ISBN 9781849042123

The book starts with a promising note when it seeks to ‘break new ground in three realms’ (p. 4) while analysing the evolution of India’s party system. It outlines, first, how the coalition governments created new institutions, improved the overall democratic scenario and externally improved relations with smaller neighbours in the Indian sub-continent. Second, the author studies internal party debates for understanding the power-sharing dimensions of Indian democracy, and third, he attempts to understand coalition politics through ‘the dynamic interplay of political institutions, social interests and human agency’ (p. 5). After the introduction and chapter 1, where we find exhaustive discussion on various relevant theories, particularly those on coalition politics and institutionalism, the book is further divided into three parts with another 11 chapters, followed by a conclusion, some endnotes and a bibliography. The first part provides a historical survey of the growth of the ‘Third Force’ – the broader Indian left, regional parties, the formation of the Janata Party (as an alternative to the ruling Congress) and the National Front. The subsequent two parts of the book chronicle the maturation and decline of the ‘Third Force’ vis-à-vis the rise of the Hindu right. Generally, journalists, students and researchers of Indian political history, democratisation in the developing world, election studies and coalition politics would find the book useful. Any reader would also appreciate the level of hard work that has been put into the production of this book. We find many tables to assist the reader, as well as an exhaustive list of abbreviations and a glossary which details the names of all the national and regional political parties and social groups. There is also a convenient English-language explanation for many of the terms that are part of daily Indian politics and numerous photographs which help to enrich the content and appearance of the book. However, had the author organised the book more prudently, its value might have greatly increased. While Sanjay Ruparelia has touched on all three topics that were mentioned in the early part of the book, they subsequently became lost in the chronological description of various political events. Therefore, instead of a chronological division of the book, the author should have organised it around the three topics and streamlined the discussion accordingly. The book will certainly still be of value for readers, but I am afraid this will be more for the information and invaluable list of references it contains than for its original purpose.