Northeast Part Of India Research Articles

Agro-technologies for greenhouse gases mitigation in flooded rice fields for promoting climate smart agriculture

We investigated methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O), two important greenhouse gases (GHGs) emissions using the closed chamber method from a flooded rice field in Brahmaputra valley of Assam, northeast part of India. We tried to understand the factors responsible for the emission and identify appropriate agro-technologies for their mitigation. Various factors like water level, drainage management, soil organic carbon management, crop management, fertilizer amendment, cultivar type etc. affect the GHG production and emission from the flooded rice soil. In this study, six treatments were employed, namely, farmer's practice (FP), recommended fertilizer dosage (RDF), direct seeded rice (DSR), intermittent wetting drying (IWD), use of efficient methanotrophs (MTH), and use of ammonium sulfate as a nitrogen source for real-time nitrogen management using leaf color chart, (AS). GHG flux was measured through the static closed chamber technique. Soil temperature, pH, and redox potential (Eh) and other soil physico-chemical and biological properties that have a potential role in GHG emission were also assessed. The lowest CH4 flux was observed in IWD treatment. The highest CH4 but lowest N2O flux was observed in RDF thus portraying a tradeoff relationship among these two GHGs. The highest N2O flux was observed in AS. Changes in Eh strongly altered CH4 and N2O emissions. The CH4 flux for the growing season varied from 62.5 to 86.3 kg ha−1 with an average of 72.4 kg ha−1. The average N2O flux was 0.89 kg ha−1 with values fluctuating between 0.72 – and 1.08 kg ha−1. The findings of this study could assist in understanding the factors affecting the source, production, and sink of these two important GHGs. IWD, along with judicious N-based fertilizer use, could provide significant respite from GHG emissions in rice-based agriculture. These climate-smart strategies not only reduce emissions but also have the potential to improve yield.

Brahmaputra River Bank Erosion as a Major Geo-Environmental Problem in Lower Assam, India

Abstract The concepts as well as the methodological approaches for investigating geo-environmental pattern, process and problems in a region have been continuously getting their holds since few decades past to make them firm-footed in the contemporary trend of geo-environmental studies. The lower Brahmaputra River valley of Assam, like other parts of northeast India, stands amidst complex geotectonic and physiographic set-up because, of its hills, foothills and river plain topography. The state of Assam as a whole, eventually have been experiencing natural hazards like floods including flash floods, river bank erosion, landslide, etc. Out of which bank erosion heavily affects on the life and land properties of the peoples in affected area by completely damaging it. The river Brahmaputra has a tendency to shifting southward due to various geo-tectonic and seismic instabilities of the region. It is found that during the last 50 years nearly 100 sq km of the study area is eroded in the southern part of the district of Goalpara only. The intensity of shifting is very high mostly in the lower Brahmaputra valley including western margin of the districts of Goalpara, South Salmara Mankachar and Dhubri. The data derived from 14 cross sections along the selected points of lower Brahmaputra reveals that the average annual southward shifting of the river due to bank erosion is 109.14 m/year. Hence, bank erosion has been a serious problem, which is caused mainly by the seismic instability, stream bed rise-up, continuous sedimentation; Intense rainfall, etc. And eventually the phenomenon results into the loss of large tracts of fertile agricultural lands on both the banks of the river Brahmaputra in the study area. The present paper is an attempt to analyze the cause and consequences of Brahmaputra River Bank Erosion as a major geo-environmental problem with special reference to the bank line at Goalpara district of lower Assam in India.

An Empirical Analysis of Tribal Investors’ Behaviour - A Study of Selected States in North East India

This study tries to understand the behaviour and perception of the tribal investors in the North Eastern India. This study tried to find out using several non- parametric test and factor analysis what are the investment avenues the population in the study responded to and the behaviour. From the study we understood the behaviour of the tribal investors of north east part of India in respect of selected states. The results of the Mann Whitney test in respect show that investment in respect of the Gold, Real Estate and Post office saving are significant across gender in the study. This indicates that these are more important in terms of investment in respect of decision of investment. In terms of significance for self-decision real estate, banking and post office saving are the clear winners and this is quite obvious given the demographic spread of age group and income level and the sector of employment. Earlier studies have shown that government employees at the higher age group are generally risk averse and tend to invest in stable low return assets. Post office savings show as the only significant investment avenue in term of annual income of the tribal investors.

Examining the Uses of Social Media for Cultural Tourism by Desi North East Indians

This paper is a study about the penetration of the tourism market through the power of social media from the north east region of India. Gone are those days when money was pumped into expensive advertisement. Social media empowers all equally at the same time even in the covid climate. It distributes power to anyone who has something interesting and unique to offer in the world of instant pleasure. To reap the full benefits of social media different online platforms as Facebook, Instagram, travel blogs, lifestyle sites will be analyzed. It will be a study to analyse what do the other communities look forward while travelling to the north east part of India and how the local indigenous community are promoting their USP on the online platform. It intends to take a closer look in the cost effective ways various social media platforms are cruising its way inside the online platform targeting both its national and international customers.

Geochemical and petrological studies of high sulfur coal and overburden from Makum coalfield (Northeast India) towards understanding and mitigation of acid mine drainage

Opencast coal mining produces trash of soil and rock containing various minerals, that are usually dumped nearby the abandoned sites which causes severe environmental concern including the production of acid mine drainage (AMD) through oxidation pyrite minerals. The current study entailed assessing the potential production of AMD from an opencast coal mining region in Northeast part of India. In order to have a comprehensive overview of the AMD problem in Makum coalfield, the physico-chemical, geochemical, and petrological characteristics of the coal and overburden (OB) samples collected from the Makum coalfield (Northeast India) were thoroughly investigated. The maceral compositions reveal that coal features all three groups of macerals (liptinite, vitrinite, and inertinite), with a high concentration of liptinite indicating the coal of perhydrous, thereby rendering it more reactive. Pyrite (FeS2) oxidation kinetics were studied by conducting the aqueous leaching experiments of coal and (OB) samples to interpret the chemical weathering under controlled laboratory conditions of various temperature and time periods, and to replicate the actual mine site leaching. Inductively coupled plasma-optical emission spectroscopy (ICP-OES) was operated to detect the disposal of some precarious elements from coal and OB samples to the leachates during our controlled leaching experiment. The Rare earth element (REE) enrichment in the samples shows the anthropogenic incorporation of the REE in the coal and OB. These experiments reveal the change in conductivity, acid producing tendency, total dissolved solid(TDS), total Iron(Fe) and dissolved Sulfate(SO42−) ions on progress of the leaching experiments. Moreover, the discharge of FeS2 via atmospheric oxidation in laboratory condition undergoes a significant growth with the rise of temperature of the reaction systems in the environment and follows pseudo first order kinetics. A bio-remediative strategies is also reported in this paper to mitigate AMD water by employing size-segregated powdered limestone and water hyacinth plant in an indigenously developed site-specific prototype station. Apart from neutralisation of AMD water, this eco-friendly AMD remediation strategy demonstrates a reduction in PHEs concentrations in the treated AMD water.

An Empirical Study on the Social Intelligence of Student Teachers Among the Tribal Community

The present study analysed the detailed dimensions of social intelligence of student teachers among tribal community in the northeast part of India. 451 (175 males and 276 females) were selected randomly as sample from the teacher training institutes in Mizoram. The research findings revealed that the student teachers of Mizoram had above average level of social intelligence and there was no significant difference in terms of gender. The findings of the present study revealed that there were no significant difference between male and female on their level of patience, co-cooperativeness, confidence and sensitivity, recognition of social environment, tactfulness and memory. The research findings also revealed that there was significant difference between male and female student teachers on their sense of humour, female student teachers showed higher level in their sense of humour as compared to the male student teachers.

Evaluating causative factors for landslide susceptibility along the Imphal-Jiribam railway corridor in the North-Eastern part of India using a GIS-based statistical approach.

The Northeast part of India is experiencing an increase in infrastructure projects as well as landslides. This study aims to prepare the landslide susceptibility map of Tamenglong and Senapati districts, Manipur, India, and evaluates the state of landslide susceptibility along the Imphal-Jiribam railway corridor. Efficient statistical methods such as frequency ratio (FR), information value (IoV), weight of evidence (WoE), and weighted linear combination (WLC) were used in model preparation. A total of 322 landslide points were randomly divided into training (70%) and testing (30%) datasets. Nine causative factors were utilized for landslide susceptibility mapping (LSM). The importance of which was obtained using the information gain (IG) method. FR, IoV, WoE, and WLC were used to prepare the LSM using the training datasets and nine causative factors. Moreover, the accuracy and consistency were evaluated using AUC-ROC, precision, recall, overall accuracy (OA), balanced accuracy (BA), and F-score. The validation results showed that all methods performed well with the highest AUC and precision values of 0.913 and 0.95, respectively, for the IoV method, while the WLC method had the highest OA, BA, and F-score values of 0.808, 0.81, and 0.812, respectively. Finally, the results from LSM were used to evaluate the state of landslide susceptibility along the Imphal-Jiribam railway corridor. The results showed that 34% of the areas had high and very high susceptibility, while 40% were under less and significantly less susceptibility. The Tupul landslide area lay in medium susceptibility where the disastrous landslide occurred on 30 June 2022. Susceptibility values around the Noney and Khongsag railway station ranged from high to very high susceptibility. Thus, the study manifests the need for LSM preparation in rapidly constructing areas, which in turn will help the policymakers and planners for adopting strategies to minimize losses caused due to landslides.

Image–Text Multimodal Sentiment Analysis Framework of Assamese News Articles Using Late Fusion

Before the arrival of the web as a corpus, people detected positive and negative news based on the understanding of the textual content from physical newspaper rather than an automatic identification approach from readily available e-newspapers. Thus, the earlier sentiment analysis approach is based on unimodal data, and less effort is paid to the multimodal data. However, the presence of multimodal information helps us to get a clearer understanding of the sentiment. To the best of our knowledge, less work has been introduced on the image–text multimodal sentiment analysis framework of Assamese, a low-resource Indian language mostly spoken in the northeast part of India. We built an Assamese news articles dataset consisting of news text and associated images and one image caption to conduct an experimental study. Focusing on important words and discriminative regions of the images mostly related to sentiment, two individual unimodal such as textual and visual models are proposed. The visual model is developed using an encoder-decoder–based image caption generation system. An image–text multimodal approach is proposed to explore the internal correlation between textual and visual features for joint sentiment classification. Finally, we propose the multimodal sentiment analysis framework, i.e., Textual Visual Multimodal Fusion, by employing a late fusion scheme to merge the three different modalities for the final sentiment prediction. Experimental results conducted on the Assamese dataset built in-house demonstrate that the contextual integration of multimodal features delivers better performance than unimodal features.

Lucio phenomenon or necrotic erythema nodosum leprosum in an untreated case of leprosy?? A diagnostic dilemma…

Lucio phenomenon (LP) or erythema necroticans is a rare reaction pattern seen in untreated or partially treated lepromatous (LL) or borderline lepromatous (BL) leprosy cases. Necrotic Erythema Nodosum Leprosum (nENL), although seen in the same spectrum of leprosy, is seen in cases already undergoing treatment for leprosy and rarely in untreated cases. A 33-year-old male, a serving soldier presented to the medical clinic, in a remote area in the Northeast part of India with complaints of tender violaceous rash over previously normal looking skin, for 10 days along with myalgia and arthralgia, followed by low grade fever for 5 days. Cutaneous examination showed the presence of hyperpigmented to erythematous, irregularly shaped, discrete as well as coalescing purpuric macules and a few papules, with the presence of angular superficial ulcerations and haemorrhagic crusting, located over the trunk, abdomen, bilateral upper and lower extremities, including the palms and soles. He was started on systemic antibiotics by the physicians. Unfortunately, despite the treatment, the patient succumbed to the illness. A post-mortem biopsy sent from various parts of the body showed diffuse infiltration in the dermis with macrophages and lympho-histiocytic cells, numerous foam cells, panniculitis and necrotizing vasculitis. Fite-Faraco stain showed numerous cigar shaped bacilli arranged in the form of globi within macrophages. The cutaneous features were suggestive of LP, but the systemic features and histopathology favoured nENL, even though the patient had not been on any multibacillary therapy for leprosy, and showed no nodular eruptions preceding the haemorrhagic crusting.

Geochemical constraints on the petrogenesis of mafic rocks (metadolerites) from the Proterozoic Shillong Basin, Northeast India: implications for growth of the Greater Indian Landmass

AbstractThe Paleo-Mesoproterozoic Shillong Basin of the Assam-Meghalaya Gneissic Complex is exposed in parts of Northeast India. The studied metadolerites are from the volcano-sedimentary sequence of Shillong Basin from the Borjuri area in the Mikir Massif. This episode of mafic magmatism can be correlated with the Columbia supercontinent formation and bears significance to its reconstruction. The present work discusses the field, petrography and geochemical characteristics of the metadolerites, which occur in close association with the quartzites of the Shillong Group of rocks (metasedimentary rocks of the Shillong Basin). Our data show distinctive characteristics of subduction-related magmatism exhibiting high LREE/HREE, large ion lithophile element/high field strength element ratios and pronounced negative Nb anomaly. Elemental ratios such as Zr/Ba (0.21–0.46), La/Nb (1.23–2.32) and Ba/Nb (30.08–56.90) point to a fluid-enriched lithospheric mantle source in a subduction regime. Metadolerites plot in the field of ‘back-arc basin basalts’ in tectonic discrimination diagrams reinforcing a subduction zone tectonic setting. The mafic rocks correspond to a 6–10 % partial melting of a mantle source incorporating spinel+garnet lherzolite. The metamorphic P-T of the metadolerites estimated from plagioclase-hornblende geothermobarometer (7–8 kbar, 664 °C) is indicative of amphibolite facies metamorphism in a medium P-T zone. Based on the comparative analysis of field observation, petrography, geochemistry and geological ages given by previous workers, we infer that the Shillong Basin represents a back-arc rift region and is the eastern continuation of the Bathani volcano-sedimentary sequence of the Chotanagpur Granite Gneiss Complex marking continuation of the Central Indian Tectonic Zone to the Mikir Massif.

Ethnobotanical usages of grasses by the tribals of Mizoram, North East India

Plant explorations in various parts of north east India were carried out with special emphasis to the state of Mizoram, which forms a major part of the Himalayan and the Indo-Burma biodiversity hotspots in the world. Information on ethnobotanical usages of 15 grass taxa as documented from the vast tribal communities from different districts of Mizoram has been presented in the paper.

Assisted reproductive technologies (ARTs) in Mithun (Bos frontalis): What progress has been made so far? An overview.

Mithun, a unique bovine species, endemic to parts of North East India and plays an important role in the socioeconomic, cultural and religious fabrics of the local tribal population. To date, Mithuns are reared in a traditional free-range system by communities and increased deforestation, agricultural commercialization, disease outbreaks and indiscriminate slaughtering of elite Mithun for table purposes have significantly decreased its habitat and the elite Mithun population. Greater genetic gain is achieved with the implementation and effective use of assisted reproductive technologies (ARTs); however, presently it is limited to organized Mithun farms. At a slow pace, Mithun farmers are adopting semi-intensive rearing systems and interest in the use of ARTs is gradually escalating in Mithun husbandry. This article reviews the current status of ARTs such as semen collection and cryopreservation, estrus synchronization and timed artificial insemination (TAI), multiple ovulation and embryo transfer and in vitro embryo production and future perspectives in Mithun. Mithun semen collection and cryopreservation have been standardized, and estrus synchronization and TAI are suitable technologies that can be easily implemented under field conditions in near future. The establishment of an open nucleus-breeding system under community participatory mode along with the introduction of the ARTs is an alternative to the traditional breeding system for rapid genetic improvement of Mithun. Finally, the review considers the potential benefits of ARTs in Mithun and future research should include the use of these ARTs which will provide additional opportunities for improved breeding regimens in Mithun.

A cross sectional study on tobacco usage among COVID 19 Positive patients admitted in a tertiary care centre in Mizoram India

Background: Mizoram is one of the states in India with the high prevalence of tobacco usage both in terms of smoke form and smokeless form. In spite of high prevalence of smoking, the state has reported less COVID-19 related mortality. The prevalence of tobacco usage among the COVID-19 positive patients and its relation to clinical symptoms and mortality has not been studied in North East part of India. Aims and Objectives: The aim of the study was to study the association of tobacco usage and its relation to clinical symptoms and mortality in COVID-19 patients. Materials and Methods: A total of 100 COVID 19 positive patients admitted in wards of Zoram Medical College, Mizoram between June and August 2020 were selected using convenient sampling. The patients were interviewed over mobile phone after getting informed oral consent. The details regarding socio-demographic variables, tobacco usage, co morbidities, and clinical symptoms were collected from the patients. Comorbidities and smoking were considered as primary outcome variables. The mean values were compared between study groups using independent sample t-test (two groups). Categorical outcomes were compared between study groups using Chi-square test/Fisher’s Exact test (If the overall sample size was <20 or if the expected number in any one of the cells is <5), Fisher’s exact test was used. Results: Out of 100 patients, 54% were males, the mean age was 27.71 years. Recent history of travel was noted in 82% and 12% had history of contact with positive case. Smokers were 42% and 36% were past smokers. The various other forms of tobacco products used were Gutkha (10%), Tuibur (3%), Sahdah (13%), and Kuhva (52%). About 37% were symptomatic. The common symptoms observed were fever (19%), cough (14%), body pain (9%), and sore throat (9%). Only 4% had difficulty in breathing. 19 (45.24%) of the smokers were symptomatic while 18 (31.03%) were symptomatic among nonsmokers (P=0.092). Mortality was 0% among our study population. Conclusion: The present study showed that symptomatic patients were more among smokers when compared with nonsmokers, but the findings were not statistically significant. Hence, further studies needed to be done in this area with a larger sample size.

Probabilistic seismic hazard analysis of the North-East India towards identification of contributing seismic sources

The North East (NE) India is regarded as one of the most seismically active regions of the globe. It is surrounded by two active plate boundaries (the Indian-Eurasian Plate boundary and the Indian-Burmese plate boundary), followed by rotation in the central part. As per the Seismic zonation map of India, most parts of NE India is classified under single seismic zone (zone V). However, numerous studies have shown significant variations in seismic activity as well as seismic hazard values across the NE. Present work attempts deaggregation of seismic hazard to identify seismic sources which control probabilistic seismic hazard values across the NE. With dominating fault mechanisms, seismic activity, and non-uniform past earthquake (EQ) records across NE, identifying controlling sources is crucial in order to understand the present and future seismic scenarios. Spatial distribution of seismic hazard levels and uncertainties are estimated using the Monte Carlo approach to sample a logic tree with alternate methods and models. As per the present findings, Manipur and Nagaland have highest seismic hazard in the NE, controlled by Indo-Burmese ranges. Further, seismic hazard of Guwahati, Shillong and Gangtok are significantly influenced by great EQs. In other parts, regional major to strong EQ sources control the seismic hazard values. Additionally, EQs with magnitude lesser than 4.5 have lower contributions to regional seismic hazards.

Additional Notes on Morphology and Distributional Records of the Snake Genus <i>Smithophis</i> Giri, Gower, Das, Lalremsanga, Lalronunga, Captain et Deepak, 2019 (Squamata: Serpentes: Natricidae) from North-East India

Recent publications provided some detailed insight into the genus Smithophis, but a paucity of information still exists on the distributional range, conservation, biology, and life history of the members of this genus from the northeast part of India. In the present study, we present new distribution records of the two sympatric Smithophis species, S. atemporalis and S. bicolor from Mizoram State, north-east India. We also provide an updated morphology and descriptions of hemipenes in both the species based on 32 specimens newly collected during the course of our studies (2008 – 2020). The occurrence of a distinct color forms in S. bicolor is documented.

A clinicoepidemiological and management profile of metastatic carcinoma gallbladder in the northeast part of Indian patients in a tertiary care center.

Metastatic gallbladder cancer (GBC) is a highly fatal malignancy and it is difficult to treat the advanced stage of GBC. In India, northern and northeastern states are the worst affected by this disease. We, hereby, report the clinicoepidemiological and management profile of 242 patients of metastatic carcinoma of GB. In this study, a total of 242 cases of metastatic GBC (detected either on the first presentation or during follow-up) were managed at the Department of Medical Oncology tertiary care oncology center in the northeast part of India from May 2018 to September 2019. On presentation, all patients were subjected to detailed history and clinical examination, followed by requisite investigations and were treated as per the existent guidelines. One-hundred and forty-two patients were female, while 100 patients were male out of 242 patients. Female patients with metastatic GBC presented with the mean age of 54, while for males, 51.4 years. The most common presentation was pain abdomen (81.8%), while the second most common was anorexia (77.2%), followed by weight loss (62.8%) and mass per abdomen (60.7%). The most common site of metastasis recorded in our study was the liver (79.7%), followed by nonregional abdominal lymph node (69.4%) and ascites (64.4%). Out of the 242 patients, 24 patients had presented in poor Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group Performance Status (≥3) hence were deemed unfit for any oncological interventions. About 136 (56.1%) patients had presented with features of obstructive jaundice, however only 108 patients were subjected to biliary drainage procedure. After the biliary drainage procedures, only one-third (38 out of 136; 35.1%) of patients were finally able to receive chemotherapy. In India, unfortunately, many patients present very late during the course of their illness. There is a need for the development of effective chemotherapy or targeted therapy and also there is an unmet need for patients' education. There has been an increase in the incidence of this malignancy, especially in the Northeast part of India; hence, it is the need of the hour to study various epidemiological and causative factors of the disease. Furthermore, the development of therapies for the effective management of this malignancy is really required.

Ethno-Cultural Identity of Northeast India with Reference to Temsula Ao’s Select Poems

Northeast part of India is known for its ethnogenic significance which has many roots of civilization, and it is distinct from the other part of the country. Therefore, the culture of Northeast India faces tremendous challenges due to its vast ethnographic diversity. Temsula Ao, is one of the most widely read and studied women writers of North-East India. She has been the recipient of many awards including the Padma Shri in 2007 and the Sahitya Akademi award in 2013. She is also a pioneer writer from Nagaland. The main aim of this study is to explore ethno-cultural aesthetics of the Northeast Indian region which exists in Temsula Ao’s poetry. For that purpose, fifteen of her poems are selected from her anthology titled Books of Songs. The select poems were analysed qualitatively. This descriptive qualitative research methodology deals how Ao-Naga regional people know about human values, beliefs, behavious, and social conditions within their own environmental contexts. The major finding of this paper is in what way Temsula Ao revitalizes Ao-Naga culture and tradition by picturising her region, history and condition of women relating them with nature through her poems. Implications were identified for the people of diverse cultural backgrounds. And, it is concluded that the beauty of a region is retained by the people who have a staunch belief in their traditional cultural values and ethics.

New insights on the tectonic framework using EIGEN6C4 gravity data, seismicity, and finite element stress analysis: An attempt to map earthquake vulnerable zones in parts of North-East India and surroundings

Shillong Plateau and its surroundings experience frequent seismic activities characterised by the complex tectonic setup covering different parts of the Eastern Himalaya, Indo-Burma ranges and their conflux at the Assam syntaxis; which need further multivariate investigations. The present study deals with a combined analysis of EIGEN6C4 Bouguer gravity data, 56 years (1964–2020) seismicity data, 11 stations GPS velocity data (1996–2015) and focal mechanism of twelve earthquake events (1996–2017). We have enhanced Bouguer gravity data using the Theta derivative. Upward continuations of the Bouguer gravity were estimated at the heights of 5 km, 10 km, 20 km, 40 km, 60 km, and 100 km, which helped to infer the approximate persistent depth of the structures. Theta derivatives for the upward continued maps have also been estimated to enhance structures and fault zones at different approximated depths. Large numbers of smaller lineaments and shallow crustal smaller blocks are delineated at ∼2.5 km depth, whereas medium grade lineaments are mostly limited within the depth range of 2.5–25 km. However, relatively longer crustal-scale lineaments are highlighted at a greater depth of ∼30 km or more. Euler depth solutions of Bouguer gravity indicate a density heterogeneity interface in the depth range of 12–23 km that corroborates well with upward continuation results and past seismicity data. We have estimated Moho depth using the Parker-Oldenburg algorithm from the Bouguer gravity data. It delineates nine thin crustal structural features (S1–S9), twelve thick crustal structural features (D1-D12) and eleven crustal-scale lineaments (L1-L11) based on the distinct variations of Moho depths and their extensions. The b-value analysis indicates the highest order of b-value in the 15–30 km depth range, mainly in Mikir hill (∼1.7), the eastern part of Shillong Plateau (1.5) and the Indo-Burma ranges (2.3) that perhaps correlate well with the heterogeneity interface delineated by Euler depth solutions. The Eastern Himalaya generally exhibits characteristic low-Bouguer anomaly, high lineament density, low to moderate b-value, and deep-Moho/thick crust. The seismic stress model estimated using the finite element approach exhibits higher-order stress (∼34 MPa) around the central part of Shillong Plateau and at the northern part of Mikir hill with an SW-NE trend. Seismic stress correlates well with the regional lineament trend, GPS velocity/strain direction and low b-value, the joint analysis help to delineate a possible zone of future large earthquakes.

Case series of maternal mortality and maternal near miss due to severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2

The severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-COV-2) that causes the COVID-19 pandemic has affected every household of the remotest part of North East India, Mizoram. The pregnant women do not have a higher chance of getting infected, yet the infection seems to be more severe. We are reporting five cases of maternal death and two cases of maternal near miss in ZMC of Mizoram. Case 1 to 5 were maternal death due to COVID-19. All of them were multigravida within the age group of 27–41 years with a period of gestation 24–37 weeks. The presenting complaints were fever and cough more than 3 days with an investigation report revealing raised C-reactive protein (CRP) and severe pneumonia. Case 6 (Near miss) was 20 years, primigravida at term pregnancy in labor with a history of fever for 2 days with an investigation report revealing raised CRP and severe pneumonia, the baby was delivered asphyxiated and died. Case 7 (Near miss) was 17 years old primigravida at term pregnancy admitted as asymptomatic COVID-19 positive, elective caesarean section was done for Obstetrics indication, the patient later developed fever and moderate pneumonia on 5 days of hospitalization, she also developed eclampsia on 7th hospital day, she survived after intensive care in the intensive care unit.

Awareness regarding foot self-care practices among diabetic patients in Northeast part of India. Can primary care physician make a difference? A hospital based cross-sectional study.

ABSTRACTBackground:About 10% of patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus at the time of diagnosis have more than one risk factor for developing foot ulceration, and it increases to 15% in a lifetime. The risk of development of Diabetic foot ulcers/gangrene can be prevented by the patient’s self-foot care practice at home. The present study aimed to determine the prevalence of awareness of self-foot care practice among diabetic patients in a rural setting. The study also aimed to identify the factors preventing dry or wet diabetic gangrene development and subsequent amputation.Methods:A hospital-based cross-sectional study was carried out among 1687 people with diabetes mellitus (DM) who attended orthopedic and diabetic OPD in a tertiary care hospital in Kamrup, Assam, India. An appropriate self-explanatory questionnaire about knowledge of self-foot care practice was given to all study participants. Foot examination was performed by authors participated in the study on all patients. The observations and results were categorized according to the International Diabetes Federation foot risk categories.Results:Of 1687 patients included in this study, 298 (17.7%) had foot ulcers of various grades, 164 (9.76%) had peripheral vascular disease, and 484 (28.7%), had peripheral neuropathy of different grades. After multivariate analysis, patients on insulin and combination therapy and peripheral neuropathy were significantly associated with the presence of foot ulcers. The mean knowledge score was as low as 9.7 ± 4.8 out of a total score of 23. Low awareness and knowledge were associated with low mean scores due to a lack of formal education (8.3 ± 6.1). Among the 1687 patients, only 381 (22.5%) are aware and have some knowledge about self-foot care, and 686 (40.6%) had their feet examined by a doctor only once since their initial diagnosis. The incidence of development of diabetic-related complications was significantly low in those who know about foot self-care as well as those whose feet had been inspected by a physician at least once.Conclusion:The incidence of development of diabetic-related complications was significantly low in those who know about foot self-care as well as those whose feet had been examined by a physician of family doctors at least once. There is a need to educate all patients of diabetes about self-foot care. It is prudent to establish an integrated foot care services within primary care centers and in the diabetic clinic to identify feet at risk, institute early preventive measures, and provide continuous foot care education through images videos on WhatsApp to patients and primary health care givers.