History

<p>Shiv Nadar University is a comprehensive, multidisciplinary, research-focused, and student-centric University offering a full range of academic programs at the undergraduate, postgraduate and doctoral level. With state-of-the-art infrastructure, the University comprises of academic wings, sophisticated labs, international standard sports facilities, amphitheaters, auditorium, conference rooms and smart classrooms. The University&rsquo;s goal is to become internationally recognized for the quality of its research and creative endeavors and their applicability to improving quality of life, generating new insights and expanding the boundaries of human knowledge creativity. Committed to excellence in teaching, research and service, the University aims to serve the higher education needs of India and the world beyond.</p>

Shiv Nadar University

(SoHSS) School of Humanities and Social Sciences

Global Governance and India's North-East: Logistics, Infrastructure and Society

Financialisation of infrastructure and the construction of a 'seamless Asia'

World University root node

Logistical hubs and the look east and act east policy: The case of Kolkata and its port

Logistical Asia: The Labour of Making a World Region

Spatialization of calculability, financialization of space: A study of the Kolkata Port

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

This ethnoarchaeological study, carried out in the Upper Ganga Plains of North India, contributes to our understanding of the variation that exists in the organization of household ceramic production. The paper describes techniques, tools and facilities; division of work/tasks; location of production; range of products; differences in the scale and intensity of production between rural and urban households; and interweaves the archaeological implications in relation to the locus of production, scale, intensity and specialization. © 2017 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

Ethnoarchaeology

Households at Work: An Ethnoarchaeological Study of Variation in Ceramic Production in North India

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.

Life Sciences

(SoNS) School of Natural Sciences

Mechanical Engineering

(SoE) School of Engineering

ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces

Friction Stir Processing of Stainless Steel for Ascertaining Its Superlative Performance in Bioimplant Applications

There have been quite a few significant studies on the relationship between political economy as a discipline and the modes of colonial governmentality in India, emphasising the contradictions that were perceived to exist between the universality of the discipline and the irreducible concreteness of local conditions. In this article, I shall try to argue that a nuanced study of these contradictions would require exploring the modalities of vernacularisation of the economic discipline in the colony. The central focus of this article will be at three Bengali textbooks of political economy, mostly inspired by the famous Irish educationist Richard Whately’s textbook for children. A close reading of these books will demonstrate how a modality of translation was operative in the second half of the nineteenth century where the equivalence between ‘illustrations’ from the original and translated texts produced curious displacements and defined the vernacular domain on the basis of an exchange-based sociality grounded in the notion of the family. © 2016, © 2016 SAGE Publications.

Fulltext

Indian Economic and Social History Review

Exchanging words and things: Vernacularisation of political economy in nineteenth-century Bengal

This chapter attempts to foreground the question of migrant labour and their survival in contemporary Kolkata with a study of workers in both ‘formal’ and ‘informal’ sectors of the solid waste management industry. In the age of ecological awareness and hygienic aesthetics, the image of a solitary woman/man sweeping the city streets in the early mornings, carrying the hazardous waste on her/his shoulders, clearing the overflowing litterbins with sharp dexterity produces a strong and darkly ironical visual effect. Apart from these heart-wrenching stories of exploitation and under-appreciation, there are other aspects of the waste disposal industry which deserve attention-especially the institutional details of their participation in the city workforce. In this chapter, the authors look at these issues by exploring work forms and life stories of conservancy workers who have migrated from different parts of the country and have been employed by the Kolkata Municipal Corporation, and of homeless rag-pickers who participate in the apparently non-official systems of waste management in the city. Closely looking at a group of ‘settled migrant’ rag-pickers, mostly women, this chapter seeks to understand the time, territory, family structures and the pattern of shifts in occupation taking place in and around a particular dwelling area. Put differently, it explores the relationship between the contingencies of occupation and the question of social reproduction, keeping the question of space alive in the context of a burgeoning rent economy in the city. © Mahanirban Calcutta Research Group (MCRG) 2017.

Accumulation in Post-Colonial Capitalism

Life, labour, recycling: A study of waste management practices in contemporary Kolkata

This volume looks at how accumulation in postcolonial capitalism blurs the boundaries of space, institutions, forms, financial regimes, labour processes, and economic segments on one hand, and creates zones and corridors on the other. It draws our attention to the peculiar but structurally necessary coexistence of both primitive and virtual modes of accumulation in the postcolony. From these two major inquiries it develops a new understanding of postcolonial capitalism. The case studies in this volume discuss the production of urban spaces of capital extraction, institutionalization of postcolonial finance capital, gendering of work forms, establishment of new forms of labour, formation of and changes in caste and racial identities and networks, and securitization-and thereby confirm that no study of contemporary capitalism is complete without thoroughly addressing the postcolonial condition. By challenging the established dualities between citizenship-based civil society and welfare-based political society, exploring critically the question of colonial and postcolonial difference, and foregrounding the material processes of accumulation against the culturalism of postcolonial studies, this volume redefines postcolonial studies in South Asia and beyond. It is invaluable reading for students and scholars of South Asian studies, sociology, cultural and critical anthropology, critical and praxis studies, and political science. © Mahanirban Calcutta Research Group (MCRG) 2017.

Accumulation in post-colonial capitalism

The introduction makes three main points, which characterize this volume. (a) It looks at how accumulation under post-colonial capitalism tends to blur various geopolitical boundaries of space, institutions, forms, financial regimes, labour processes, and economic segments on the one hand and creates zones and corridors on the other. In this context, it draws our attention to the peculiar but structurally necessary coexistence of both primitive and virtual modes of accumulation in the postcolony. With increasing inflow of virtual capital in the form of offshore funds, venture business, hedge funds, Internet-based investment and banking, and forward trading, more people are forced to accept precarious work conditions in the unorganized sectors resulting in massive de-peasantization and creation of footloose labour, otherwise known as migrant or transit labour. (b) At the same time, family household becomes the new site of capitalist production and market system, which is different from what is assumed to be a site of non-capitalist production, something that is outside of capital. (c) The introduction also draws attention to what is now called affective labour that is to say labour actualized in the forms of care work and reproductive work. Affective labour leads to the conceptualization of affective value by focusing on the labouring body and subjectivity. Affective value is often mistaken to be essentially a cultural category, and not an economic category, in spite of its vulnerability to exploitation, thus becoming an element in the dynamics of capitalist accumulation. These three aspects taken together reflect on one of the principal features postcolonial capitalism, namely the overwhelming existence of informal conditions of production. These new forms of accumulation result in new discursive and political terrains of struggle. The chapters of the volume reflect from different discursive, analytical, and conceptual perspectives on these new forms of accumulation and unique modes of struggle. © Mahanirban Calcutta Research Group (MCRG) 2017.