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Shiv Nadar University

This paper examines the spatial and temporal dimensions of varied schooling agendas for poor and oppressed caste children and adults in the princely state of Travancore in nineteenth-century colonial south India. Schools became socially contested and politically charged spaces in which various subaltern castes, particularly the Dalits and Nadars, articulated a new language of social and religious self-fashioning. British Protestant missionaries played a crucial role in provoking these imaginations and yet, the joint workings of caste and racial prejudices resulted in ambivalent cultural encounters in the educational landscape. Caste was central to these contestations and negotiations in making modern child subjectivities and tended to produce new forms of inequality and reproduce existing ones. I argue that schooling campaigns for the poor resulted in the perpetuation of hierarchised, caste-inflected norms of childhood and produced multiple marginal children in local society. This paper draws upon British Protestant missionary archives to highlight the unstable and violent geographies in which children of subaltern castes navigated the sphere of modern schooling in colonial Travancore and the constitutive function of schools in the making of marginal childhoods. © 2022 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

History

(SoHSS) School of Humanities and Social Sciences

Children's Geographies

Caste, space, and schooling in nineteenth century South India

This chapter explores the complex encounter between the missionaries of the Basel German Missionary Society (BM) and local children raised in their boarding schools/orphanages based at various parts of British-ruled Malabar in present-day south India. The BM played an instrumental role in establishing the earliest residential institutions for the children of the labouring poor in the Malayalam speaking region where they sought to also forge ‘model’ Christian communities. Poor, colonized children belonging to lower caste communities were targeted for conversion, which resulted in varying contestations about childhood. In their attempt to erase previous caste-inscribed markers, the missionaries negotiated with local power dynamics and sites of authority, and the children themselves. Often, ‘orphans’ were not always without parents, and the BM employed coercive measures to admit poor children into their orphanages, by arguing against the so-called ‘barbarity’ of Indian parenting, and reorienting norms of childhood. They were not entirely successful as children also influenced decision-making processes and resisted the rigorous disciplinary order and labour regime inflicted on them. This chapter attempts to trace the politics of these boarding institutions and demonstrates ambiguity and racial tension marking the missionary project of schooling poor children in colonial south India even as Christianity brought new ideas of morality and self. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

Palgrave Studies in the History of Childhood

Recasting Poor Children: Basel Mission Boarding Schools in Colonial Malabar

World University root node

Special issue: modernity, schooling, and childhood in India: trajectories of exclusion

Cerebral malaria caused by Plasmodium falciparum is the severest form of the disease resulting in the morbidity of a huge number of people worldwide. Development of effective curatives is essential in order to overcome the fatality of cerebral malaria. Earlier studies have shown the presence of salicylic acid (SA) in malaria parasite P. falciparum, which plays a critical role in the manifestation of cerebral malaria. Further, the application of SA for the treatment of acute symptoms in cerebral malaria increases the activity of iNOS leading to severe inflammation-mediated death, also called as Reye’s syndrome. Therefore, modulation of the level of SA might be a novel approach to neutralize the symptoms of cerebral malaria. The probable source of parasite SA is the shikimate pathway, which produces chorismate, a precursor to aromatic amino acids and other secondary metabolites like SA in the parasite. In this work, we performed the immunological, pathological and biochemical studies in mice infected with chorismate synthase knocked-out Plasmodium berghei ANKA, which does not produce SA. Fewer cerebral outcomes were observed as compared to the mice infected with wild-type parasite. The possible mechanism behind this protective effect might be the hindrance of SA-mediated induction of autophagy in the parasite, which helps in its survival in the stressed condition of brain microvasculature during cerebral malaria. The absence of SA leading to reduced parasite load along with the reduced pathological symptoms contributes to less fatality outcome by cerebral malaria. © 2020. Published by The Company of Biologists Ltd.

Fulltext

Biology Open

Chorismate synthase mediates cerebral malaria pathogenesis by eliciting salicylic acid-dependent autophagy response in parasite

Introduction: Currently, there is no efficient vaccine available against clinical malaria. However, continuous efforts have been committed to develop powerful antimalarial vaccine by discovery of novel antigens with in-depth understanding of its nature, immunogenicity, and presentation (delivery adjuvants). Moreover, another important part of vaccine development includes discovery of better immunostimulatory formulation components (immunostimulants). A protective vaccine against malaria requires antigen-specific B and T helper cell responses as well as cytotoxic T lymphocyte (CTL) responses. A long-lasting B and T memory cell production is also required for effective malaria vaccine. Since activation of Toll-like receptors (TLRs) promotes both innate inflammatory responses as well as the induction of adaptive immunity, several initiatives have been mounted during the last few years for the use of TLR agonists as malaria vaccine adjuvants. Areas covered: The review summarizes reports related to the use and development of TLR agonists as malaria vaccine adjuvants and describes various strategies involved for the selection of specific antigens and TLR agonists. Expert opinion: TLR agonists are promising adjuvants for the development of effective malaria vaccine, allowing for both innate inflammatory responses as well as the induction of adaptive immunity. © 2018, © 2018 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

Expert Opinion on Therapeutic Patents

Synthetic Toll-like receptor agonists for the development of powerful malaria vaccines: a patent review

Substrate-cell interactions for a bioimplant are driven by substrate's surface characteristics. In addition, the performance of an implant and resistance to degradation are primarily governed by its surface properties. A bioimplant typically degrades by wear and corrosion in the physiological environment, resulting in metallosis. Surface engineering strategies for limiting degradation of implants and enhancing their performance may reduce or eliminate the need for implant removal surgeries and the associated cost. In the current study, we tailored the surface properties of stainless steel using submerged friction stir processing (FSP), a severe plastic deformation technique. FSP resulted in significant microstructural refinement from 22 μm grain size for the as-received alloy to 0.8 μm grain size for the processed sample with increase in hardness by nearly 1.5 times. The wear and corrosion behavior of the processed alloy was evaluated in simulated body fluid. The processed sample demonstrated remarkable improvement in both wear and corrosion resistance, which is explained by surface strengthening and formation of a highly stable passive layer. The methylthiazol tetrazolium assay demonstrated that the processed sample is better in supporting cell attachment, proliferation with minimal toxicity, and hemolysis. The athrombogenic characteristic of the as-received and processed samples was evaluated by fibrinogen adsorption and platelet adhesion via the enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay and lactate dehydrogenase assay, respectively. The processed sample showed less platelet and fibrinogen adhesion compared with the as-received alloy, signifying its high thromboresistance. The current study suggests friction stir processing to be a versatile toolbox for enhancing the performance and reliability of currently used bioimplant materials. © 2017 American Chemical Society.