Indian National Research Articles

The Leadership Factor in the 2024 Elections: Did Narendra Modi’s Impact Peak Much Before the Elections?

This article seeks to examine the role of the leadership factor in the 2024 elections. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) made leadership the centre-piece of its campaign and appeal for votes. While the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) coalition consciously avoided a confrontation with the BJP around the leadership issue, this factor continued to assume salience during the campaign. By locating the debate in the wider context of the 2014 and 2019 elections, this article, assesses whether the impact of the leadership factor, especially in the case of BJP (and the National Democratic Alliance [NDA]) has plateaued and did not add any traction to the campaign of the ruling party. A set of questions asked in the National Election Study (NES) 2024 compared with data from NES 2014 and NES 2019 form the basis of the analysis.

Harnessing Artificial Intelligence to Transform Secondary Education in India: Innovations, Challenges, and Future Directions

India's National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 envisions a comprehensive education system that is inclusive, fair, and geared towards lifelong learning. Artificial Intelligence (AI) has a pivotal role in achieving these goals by enhancing personalized learning experiences, streamlining assessments, and promoting inclusivity within secondary education. This paper explores the integration of AI in Indian secondary education, analyzing its alignment with NEP 2020 objectives. It highlights AI innovations, such as adaptive learning platforms and automated grading systems, while also addressing challenges like data privacy, infrastructure limitations, and the need for teacher training. Through a review of recent literature and case studies, this paper offers recommendations for the responsible adoption of AI in India, underscoring the importance of policy support, ethical standards, and regional infrastructure development.

Staging Statecraft: Dance Festivals and Cultural Representations in Konark, Odisha, India

This essay argues that dance festivals are choreographed spaces that shape cultural heritage. The Konark Dance Festival in Odisha, India, is an annual program situated around the Konark Sun Temple, a UNESCO-recognized World Heritage Site. The following explores the interrelationship between the modern space of the temple monument and the modern format of festival dances in Konark. The festival project juxtaposes the monument’s archaeological value with the dances’ cultural value in choreographic neatness, which requires a critical interrogation to determine the negotiations, appropriations, and discomfort these processes otherwise entail. This article also branches out into cultural discourses beyond the stated festival that examine the historical, diplomatic, and touristic networks the dance festival often encompasses. Following the creation of the modern state of Odisha (in 1936) and of the independent nation of India (in 1947), Odisha regional dance forms were remodelled to produce the state dance Odissi, which gained national “classical” recognition in the 1960s and subsequent international repute. Odissi dance has subsequently been formulated and globally circulated as an anthropomorphic symbol of the geopolitical state of Odisha. Through ethnography, visual study, and choreographic analysis, this essay explores the (re)presentational aspects of the region-state in and through dance, which rhetorically inform the staging of the Konark Dance Festival.

The Saffronization of Public Knowledge in India

Abstract During the political regime of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), public knowledge in India has been tarnished with political colors. The BJP has used the color saffron, which is closely associated with the Indian National Flag, as a sociopolitical tool to signal patriotism, nationalism, indigenization, and decolonization. However, the government’s policies and messages focus on the self-profiting mechanisms of Hindutva ideology. According to the BJP, the notions of pre-colonial knowledge systems and patriotism are only related to the Hindu religion. Thus, public knowledge in India has been politicized through “saffronization”: the color saffron, rightwing political ideologies, and religious fundamentalism combine to create false beliefs about Indian history and culture, which then inspire and excuse hate and crime.

Learning from the Indian National Family Health Survey to assess population based oral, cervix and breast cancer screening in low-and-middle income countries

Learning from the Indian National Family Health Survey to assess population based oral, cervix and breast cancer screening in low-and-middle income countries

Alternative history of indenture: view from margins

ABSTRACT This paper departs from the prevailing approaches to studying the Indian indenture system and examines it from the perspective of marginalised social groups in India. While most studies on indentureship, from contemporary observers to historians and scholars, homogenise labourers’ experiences by neglecting the voices of lower castes and Dalits/untouchables within the Indian hierarchical social structure, this paper brings such marginalised voices to the centre of analysis. In the absence of writings by labourers from marginalised communities such as lower castes and Dalits, this study is based on the close reading of Indian nationalists’ writings, speeches, and memoirs of high caste girmitiyas, mainly Totaram Sanadhya, using the method of reading against the grain.

Evaluation of Fuel Consumption and Exhaust Emissions in a Single Cylinder Four-Stroke Diesel Engine Using Biodiesel Derived from Chicken Waste with Additives

Biodiesel is a renewable, locally generated fuel made from vegetable oils, trans fats, or recycled restaurant grease for use in diesel automobiles and other diesel-powered equipment. The physical qualities of biodiesel are comparable to those of petroleum diesel. Biodiesel is used in compression-ignition engines in the same way as petroleum diesel. Biofuel can be made from biomass, but according to the Indian National Policy on Biofuels, biofuel extraction from edible oils is not permitted because it would result in a massive increase in consumer goods prices and perhaps lead to product scarcity. Hence, there is a need to search for alternative biofuel so that it does not affect our nation's national policy. Recently there has been a drastic increase in the consumption of chicken grown in farms. There is a huge problem in disposing of their waste. One major difficulty in waste treatment is poultry manure, often known as slaughter waste. This waste is sometimes dumped on wastelands, roadsides, and the banks of rivers, lakes, and ponds. This creates more sanitary problems for society. According to polls, poultry feces begin to decompose in around three hours. The odor of butcher's waste causes a lot of pollution in the air, as well as an increase in the density of bacteria in the atmosphere. Measures have been taken by the government for the safe disposal of these wastes. One of the major ways of disposal is to recycle this chicken slaughter waste in a useful manner so that it can serve society in a positive way. This could be done by converting this waste into fuel through various processes such as rendering, hydrolysis, extraction, acid esterification, alkaline transesterification, and finally by the extraction process. This produced fuel could be blended with existing diesel in varying concentrations and used in diesel engine-powered vehicles. In this work, the fuel is extracted from the chicken waste and blended with pure diesel and an Al2O3 additive in various proportions. These combinations are then tested on a single-cylinder diesel engine for fuel consumption and emission analysis. The results exhibited an overall better performance when compared to pure diesel.

Against #CoronaJihaad: Online Somatic Nationalism and Offline Social Distancing in India during covid-19

Abstract This article examines the two waves of the covid-19 pandemic in India in 2020–2021. It disaggregates the different narratives constructed by the Hindu right-wing in online circles. It shows that by instrumentalizing the interactive and multimodal features of social media, the Hindu Right amplified the notion of Muslims as contaminants in the first wave of the breakout, accusing them of weakening the otherwise sacred, virus-resistant Indian nation. During the second wave, the Hindu Right downplayed the role of the Kumbh Mela, a major Hindu pilgrimage and festival, as a super-spreader event. Criticisms of the Hindu festival was deemed a foreign conspiracy aimed at harming India’s body politic. The article argues that the Hindu Right capitalized on the covid-19 crisis to promote religified and somatisized ideals of a ‘muscular Hindu India’ weakened by the Muslim Other from within. This narrative heightened the schism between Hindus and Muslims in India, with long-lasting effects that outlive the pandemic itself. Finally, the article problematizes the notion that digital technologies and virtual spaces necessarily overcome physical barriers and divisions, arguing instead that in the case of the right-wing Hindu Twittersphere, social media congealed intra-communal solidarities and inter-communal antagonisms online echoing divisions in the non-digital, offline world.

Issues and Challenges of the Digitisation of the Capital Market in India

Governance involves the use of political, economic, and administrative power to manage a nation's affairs and ensure citizens' rights. E-governance utilizes electronic means for efficient, transparent public service delivery. India's National e-Governance Plan (NeGP) aims to enhance governance through a Public-Private Partnership (PPP) model, establishing over 100,000 Common Service Centres (CSCs). These CSCs act as delivery hubs for public and private services, addressing regional development while fostering private sector and community participation for sustainable livelihoods. Mitigating the challenges of digitization requires raising user awareness and advancing the regulatory system through the use of cybersecurity practices

Identification of Relationship between Meta Cognition and Misconceptions

This study investigates the complex interplay between meta cognition and misconceptions within the educational context, focusing on implications for effective teaching and learning strategies. Aligning with India's National Education Policy (NEP) 2020, which advocates for a transition from rote memorization to in- depth understanding, this research explores the concurrent presence of misconceptions and meta cognition in elementary science education. Meta cognition, the process of reflecting on one's cognitive processes, and misconceptions, or predefined notions that impede authentic learning, are analyzed through influential frameworks, including those developed by Flavell and Nelson and Narens. The MASRL model by Efklides is also incorporated to understand the interplay of meta cognitive knowledge, control strategies, experiences, task characteristics, and learning outcomes. The study highlights the impact of misconceptions as cognitive barriers and their influence on meta cognition, emphasizing the need for effective educational strategies. The literature review explores existing research on meta cognition and misconceptions, showcasing how meta cognition acts as a cognitive mirror, enabling learners to navigate and rectify misconceptions. This research has significant educational implications, highlighting the importance of cultivating self-directed learning, critical thinking, and evidence- based study strategies to enhance academic outcomes. The study concludes by emphasizing the dynamic interplay between meta cognition and misconceptions, offering insights for educators and researchers to design interventions fostering accurate conceptual understanding in learners.

Patterns of change in the association between socioeconomic status and body mass index distribution in India, 1999-2021.

Body mass index (BMI) is an important indicator of human health. However, trends in socioeconomic inequalities in BMI over time throughout India are understudied. Filling this gap will elucidate which socioeconomic groups are still at risk for adverse BMI values. This repeated cross-sectional study analysed four rounds of India's National Family Health Surveys (1998-1999, 2005-2006, 2015-2016, and 2019-2021). The outcome was BMI categories, measured in kilogram per metres squared (kg/m2), defined as severely/moderately thin (<17.0 kg/m2), mildly thin (17.0-18.4 kg/m2), normal (18.5-24.9 kg/m2), overweight (25.0-29.9 kg/m2), and obese (≥30.0 kg/m2). We examined the prevalence, standardised absolute change, and odds ratios estimated by multivariable regression models by household wealth and levels of education, two important measures of socioeconomic status (SES). The study population consisted of 1 244 149 women and 227 585 men. We found that those in the lowest SES categories were more likely to be severely/moderately thin or mildly thin. Conversely, those in the highest SES groups were more likely to be overweight or obese. The gradients were steepest for wealth, and this was substantiated by the results of regression models for every wave. There has been a decline in the difference in the prevalence of severely/moderately thin or mildly thin between SES groups when comparing the years 1999 and 2021. SES-based inequalities in BMI were smaller in 2021 compared to 1999. However, those in low SES groups were most likely to be severely/moderately thin or mildly thin while those in high SES groups were more likely to be overweight or obese. Future research should explore the pathways that link SES with BMI.

Sikh Religion and Contentions around Caste

Caste has been a contentious subject in Sikhism. While the Sikh theological canons have vehemently opposed its practice, it continues to be present among the Sikhs, including its discriminatory culture. The obvious response of the Sikh leaders and scholars has been to ask for ‘a moral self-criticism’. The issue thus becomes praxeological, a matter of aligning ‘practice with the theory’. This is a simplistic response. Such a narrative also does not allow us to raise relevant questions about the contemporary framings of caste as a hegemonic construct. It also does not permit us to engage with its diverse empirics among the Sikhs and its other contextual dynamics. The paper argues that to move forward, we need to critically explore the currently popular notions of caste, most of which are drawn from orientalist and colonial constructs. They present India as being a land of Hindus and the practice of caste being its essential feature. The Indian nationalists enthusiastically endorsed such a framing because they found it useful for making claims about India’s cultural unity. Drawing from a large volume of historical and empirical writings, the paper identifies problems with such a narrative of caste which sees it as a purely religious practice. It further argues for a need to look at the materiality of caste. Religious prescripts, such as Manusriti, function as ‘ideological signals’ that promote and legitimize it. In contrast, the ideological signals provided by the Gurus and the Sikh religious canons are unambiguously opposed to such ascription-based hierarchies.

Sentiment Analysis of Political Parties on social media: A Machine Learning and Lexicon-Based Approach

Social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube have become central to communication and entertainment, with users sharing opinions on various topics. These opinions, often categorized as positive, negative, or neutral sentiments, provide valuable data for sentiment analysis. Our research analyzed political YouTube comments related to India’s Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) and Indian National Congress (INC) using a combination of the AFINN lexicon and machine learning techniques. We applied feature representation methods such as Bag of Words (BoW) and Term Frequency-Inverse Document Frequency (TF-IDF), alongside five machine learning algorithms: Multinomial Naïve Bayes, Logistic Regression, Random Forest, Support Vector Machine (SVM), and K-nearest neighbor (K-NN). We aimed to determine the most efficient sentiment analysis approach by comparing the performance of these models using standard evaluation metrics. For the BJP dataset, Logistic Regression performed best with BoW, while SVM was most effective with TF-IDF. Similarly, for the INC dataset, Random Forest excelled with BoW, and SVM outperformed others with TF-IDF. The AFINN lexicon showed poor performance across both datasets, and K-NN consistently achieved lower accuracy. Our findings suggest that SVM and Random Forest are more suitable for political sentiment analysis.

A Study on Historical Context and Significance of Journalism in India

As mentioned earlier, the first newspaper in India, the Bengal Gazette, was launched in 1780 by James Augustus Hickey. The paper was published in English and had a circulation of only 400 copies. Despite its small readership, the Bengal Gazette paved the way for the growth of the Indian press. In the early years of Indian journalism, most newspapers were owned and operated by British colonizers. These newspapers mainly focused on the interests of the British ruling class and catered to their needs. However, as Indian nationalism grew, Indian journalists began to challenge British dominance in the media and started publishing newspapers that reflected the views and aspirations of the Indian people.

Trends in Prevalence and Predictors of Anemia in Adolescents Between the Ages of 15 and 19 Years in India and Its States: Evidence From the National Family Health Survey 2015-16 and 2019-21.

Limited research has been conducted on trends in anemia among a nationally representative sample of adolescents in India. We aimed to determine the trends in anemia prevalence and predictors of anemia among adolescents aged between 15 and 19 years in India and its different states. We utilized data from India's National Family Health Survey (NFHS-4) conducted during 2015-16 and NFHS-5 conducted during 2019-2021, comprising 237,446 adolescents aged between 15 and 19 years. The prevalence of anemia was 54% (95% CI 53.8-54.4) in NFHS-4 and 59.2% (CI 58.9-59.5) in NFHS-5. Twenty-one of 28 Indian states and five of eight union territories (UTs) reported an increase, depicting state-wise variation. While Assam, Jammu and Kashmir showed a substantial rise, the UTs of Lakshadweep, Andaman and Nicobar Islands recorded great declines. Younger age and rural residence were significant predictors of anemia (p<0.05) in NFHS-5 but not in NFHS-4. Anemia prevalence among adolescents in India increased significantly in NFHS-5 compared to NFHS-4. Strategies to reduce anemia among adolescents need to focus on affected states and UTs, pregnant adolescents, those with unimproved sanitation, no education, and rural residents.

Population-based cohort across stroke life course in India-The NIMHANS-NH-SKAN stroke project: A study protocol.

Stroke is a leading cause of death and disability worldwide. In India, it is the fourth leading cause of death and fifth leading cause of disability, posing a major public health concern. National surveys reveal an increasing trend in stroke risk factors such as tobacco use, physical activity, alcohol use, hypertension, and dyslipidemia. However, knowledge regarding the combined effect of these risk factors and their various combinations is limited. Understanding the individual, combined, and synergistic effects of known risk factors, along with new risk factors, is essential to address gaps in stroke epidemiology. This study aims to examine the effect of various risk factors of acute stroke and their association with stroke occurrence and its outcomes (survival, disability and quality of life). This retrospective-prospective cohort will be conducted in one taluka of Kolara district and two urban wards of Bengaluru with a total population of ~400,000. All stroke-free individuals above 30 years of age ~200,000 individuals in the selected sites will be participants of stroke-free period and all first ever stroke patients in the community will be part of stroke and post-stroke period respectively. The study subjects will be recruited through a complete house-to-house survey at baseline and undergo annual follow-ups during the stroke-free period, with specific assessments at defined time points during the stroke and post-stroke period for a period of one year. Efforts are implemented to minimize loss to follow-up, including community engagement, a helpline number, and hospital-based surveillance. This large population-based cohort study addressing stroke epidemiology in the country, is one -of-its-kind, attempting to fill certain critical gaps in the natural history, management, and outcomes of stroke in India. This research has the potential to provide important insights into the effect of novel risk factors of stroke and various combinations of risk factors of stroke. Furthermore, the development of a stroke risk predictability calculator will add value to the existing Indian National Programme for Prevention & Control of Non-Communicable Diseases (NP-NCD) and offers a model for similar countries once developed.

The India League and the Condition of India: Agnotological Imperialism, Colonial State Violence and the Making of Anticolonial Knowledge 1930–4

Abstract This article explores the 1932 visit to India of a delegation of Labour party figures associated with the India League, a prominent anticolonial organisation based in London, charged with investigating the colonial state violence unleashed by ‘Ordinance Rule’. It also examines efforts taken by the Government of India, India Office and Indian Political Intelligence to suppress their findings, through which it explores a dialectic between anticolonial knowledge-making and agnotological imperialism, which often took the form of the latter ‘exceptioning’ examples produced by the former of excessive colonial state violence. It offers the conclusion that the contradictions between liberal imperialism and the rule of colonial difference and repression in the age of mass nationalism in India and mass democracy in Britain meant that liberal imperialism in India increasingly flowed, paradoxically, from illiberalism in Britain.

The illusion of home and belongingness: a representation and (dis)location of home in Tabish Khair’s novels

ABSTRACT This paper foregrounds Khair’s two novels, The Bus Stopped and Filming: A Love Story, examining the concepts of home, representation, (dis)locations and its non-belongingness, focusing on the discourses of Indian nationalism and national identity. There is a massive gap between the living styles of rural and urban people in India. How people live in a country is vital to a modern nation and its nationalism. Khair says, ‘houses do not make homes’ because the concept of home varies according to the socio-economic conditions. Many poor people in India do not have a permanent home and constantly migrate from one place to another. They mostly make a temporary one-night stand for home, but unfortunately, their journey becomes a permanent home. That makes their existence neither inside nor outside society, creating a different kind of third space, but far more precarious than Bhabha’s notion of a third space. In Khair’s novels, the concept of third space is far less empowering than Bhabha’s notion of third space in postcolonial studies. Khair also shows that home is an illusion, not a permanent place that constantly changes like a dream and never gets concretised.

Association between child marriage and high blood glucose level in women: A birth cohort analysis

ObjectivesChild marriage prematurely forces girls (<18 years of age) to perform adult roles prior to physical and psychological maturity. Such precocious transitions to young adulthood can have consequences on their long-term health, however, limited work has examined such relationships to date. As such, this study examines whether child marriage is associated with the risk of having hyperglycemia, or high blood glucose, in adulthood. Study designObservational study using repeated cross-sectional data. MethodsUsing data from the 2015-16 and 2019-21 waves of the India National Family Health Survey, we matched 432,080 and 418,409 women, aged 20 to 49 years, by birth year and month to create birth cohorts. Fitting multivariable binomial and multinomial logistic models, we compared the odds of having hyperglycemia across groups by marriage age (i.e., before or after age 18 years) within respective birth cohorts. ResultsWe found that the adjusted odds of having high blood glucose among women married as children were 1.12 (95% CI: 1.07 – 1.16) times that of their peers married as adults in the full-sample. The adjusted relative risks of having blood glucose levels higher than normal but lower than diabetic and diabetic ranges were 1.09 (95% CI: 1.04 – 1.14) and 1.23 (95% CI: 1.15 – 1.31), respectively, in comparison to blood glucose within normal range. These results were persistent across sub-groups of different birth cohorts. ConclusionOur findings suggest that child marriage was associated with higher risk of having high blood glucose in women, later in life.

AN ANALYSIS OF BEHAVIOURAL FINANCE AND ITS INFLUENCE ON INVESTMENT DECISION

This research delves into the fascinating realm of Behavioural Finance, exploring its significant influence on investment decision-making among residents in India's National Capital Region (NCR). By drawing on insights from relevant studies, this work seeks to uncover the intricate link between human behaviour and financial decision-making within this demographic. The study begins by examining the unique financial behaviours of investors in the region, aiming to identify the key investor profiles that shape the investment environment. As a multidisciplinary field combining elements of psychology, sociology, and finance, Behavioural Finance provides the primary framework for this exploration. The research distinguishes between its micro and macro perspectives: the detailed analysis of individual behavioural traits of investors and the broader identification of inefficiencies in the market. Recognizing the pervasive impact of behavioural biases on investment behaviours and decisions, this study offers an in-depth review of diverse research within the Behavioural Finance domain. It sheds light on how human psychology and social dynamics interact with financial decision-making, highlighting the crucial role of Behavioural Finance in contemporary financial practices. In an era where financial markets are not merely governed by rationality but are also shaped by complex human behaviours, this research offers valuable insights into the dynamics of Behavioural Finance. By illuminating the distinct investment choices, the study aims to deepen our understanding of the factors influencing these decisions, ultimately equipping investors and financial professionals with more informed decision-making strategies.