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Monsoon is crucial for human sustenance and economic stability. This study explores the correlation between long-term climatic conditions and major invasions on the Indian subcontinent. The study utilizes paleoclimate records of 2500 years for different locations across South and Central Asia. The findings reveal that invasions often occurred during periods of favourable Indian Summer Monsoon. The study highlights how these favourable conditions made the region an attractive target for external forces seeking wealth and control. The presence of trade routes further facilitated invasions by providing access to valuable resources. Understanding this complex relationship between climate and invasions deepens our understanding of the historical dynamics of the region and highlights the role of climate in shaping the socio-political landscape. Overall, the study emphasizes the importance of considering climatic factors when analysing historical events and provides insights into the motivations behind invasions in the Indian subcontinent. The correlation between good monsoon seasons, agricultural prosperity, and external interest in the region indicates the influence of climatic conditions on the course of history. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the pattern of female labour force participation since the 2000s in South Asia (SA) and the Latin America and Caribbean (LAC) countries. The objectives of the paper are twofold: first, to identify the factors that have led to changes in the patterns of female labour force participation in the two fastest-growing regions of SA and LAC and compare the underlying reasons behind the disparate trends; and second, to explore the policies appropriate for the two regions that can raise female labour force participation. From descriptive statistics and a review of existing research on gender inequality in employment in the two regions, the paper finds that a plethora of factors shape the extent of gender inequality in labour force participation. However, each of the factors has different roles and importance in the two regions, debunking any particular relationship pattern between economic growth and the gender gap in labour force participation. Hence, it is imperative to formulate multipronged, country- and region-specific policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Individuals with Turner syndrome (TS) have a high risk for prediabetes/type 2 Diabetes Mellitus (T2DM). There is scarce data regarding risk factors for prediabetes in TS, specially from South Asia. Methods: We conducted a cross-sectional study on girls with TS aged 12-30 years who had achieved pubertal stage B3 and above--spontaneously or with oestrogen. Anthropometric measurements and biochemical tests were conducted, and medical records were reviewed for details about pubertal onset and progression, growth hormone (GH) and oestrogen therapy. Results: Out of 129 patients with TS in our database, 99 met the criteria for inclusion, mean age 18.33+/-3.78 years and mean BMI 20.57+/-3.71 kg/m2. Prevalence of prediabetes was 23.23%. Plasma-glucose measured after 75 g-oral-anhydrous-glucose-load (OGTT-PPG) identified five additional prediabetes cases, who had normal fasting plasma glucose (FPG) or HbA1c%. Compared to those without prediabetes, TS with prediabetes (n = 23) had higher mean body weight, BMI, waist circumference (WC) [42.02+/-5.83 vs 36.22+/-8.07, 22.77+/-2.78 vs 19.91+/- 3.72, 85.26+/- 3.52 vs 81.08+/- 4.59, pall < 0.03], higher median WC-to-height ratio (WHtR) and WC-to-hip ratio (WHR) ((0.64 [0.6-0.69] vs 0.59[0.56- 0.66], 0.9[0.84-1.12] vs 0.85[0.75-1.01], pboth < 0.02), and higher LDL-cholesterol, triglycerides, and greater prevalence of hepatosteatosis (47.1% vs 21.1%, P < 0.01). Among GH recipients (n = 36), those with prediabetes had delayed initiation and shorter duration of GH therapy. There were no differences in cardiometabolic parameters or the prevalence of diabetes between different karyotypic variants of TS. BMI, WC and WHR had significant positive correlation with FBG, OGTT-PPG and HbA1c% (pall < 0.004). Delay in oestrogen initiation had a significant correlation with OGTT-PPG (Spearman's-rho = 0.69, P < 0.004). BMI, WHR and pubertal status were independent predictors for prediabetes (OR: 1.27 [1.03-1.57]), 1.18 [1.04-1.34]) and 0.09[0.02-0.38], respectively, pall < 0.02), but karyotype was not. BMI had the highest sensitivity [cut-off: 21.04 kg/m2 (sensitivity: 82.6%, specificity: 62.2%) and WHR had the highest specificity [cut-off: 0.89 (sensitivity: 73.9%, specificity 78.4%)] for predicting prediabetes. Conclusion: Indian girls with TS have a high risk for prediabetes, irrespective of underlying karyotype and should be screened with oral glucose challenge to identify prediabetes. Timely intervention against central obesity and early initiation of GH and oestrogen should be ensured in TS. Late presenting girls should be closely monitored for dysglycaemia before and during treatment with GH and/or oestrogen. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Globally, breast cancer is the leading malignancy in females. Indeed, Asian cohorts show prevalence of breast cancer among women with ages below 40 years. Moreover, these younger cases are globally characterized by poorer prognostic features as well as survival outcomes, than older sufferers with ages above 40 years. Despite this, comparative analyses between older and younger cohorts are sparse from India, where data from the country's eastern part falls shortest. This study attempted a comprehensive analysis of breast cancer between these two cohorts representing the Eastern Indian subcontinent. Methods: Documenting retrospective case-files registered between 2010 and 2015, 394 cases of younger (<40 years) and 1250 older (=40 years) sufferers of primary breast cancer were noted. The relevant features and follow-up information were also retrieved. Kaplan-Meier analyses were performed to evaluate the survival outcome. Results: The data, in general, revealed a high percentage of younger sufferers from Eastern Indian regions. Moreover, this younger cohort showed poor survival. Among the younger cohort, cases with poor pathological features (triple negative, node-positive, grade III) were proportionately higher than the older cohort. Indeed, survival among these categories scored significantly low, compared to the older cohort. Conclusion: This Eastern Indian subcontinental data matched the analyses from other parts of India as well as Asian data and clearly showed the prevalence of younger sufferers of breast cancer with poor clinico-pathological features and survival outcomes. Impact: Analyzing age-based features and outcomes from Eastern India, this study provides data in supplementing Indian and Asian scenarios of breast cancer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the pre-monsoon season (March–April–May), the eastern and northeastern parts of India, Himalayan foothills, and southern parts of India experience extensive lightning activity. Mean moisture, surface and upper-level winds, the sheared atmosphere in the lower level, and high positive values of vertically integrated moisture flux convergence (VIMFC) create favorable conditions for deep convective systems to occur, generating lightning. From mid-2018, the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) Integrated Forecasting System (IFS) operationally introduced lightning flash density on a global scale. This study evaluates the ECMWF lightning forecasts over India during the pre-monsoon season of 2020 using the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM) Lightning Location Network (LLN) observation data. Qualitative and quantitative analysis of the ECMWF lightning forecast has shown that the lightning forecast with a 72-h lead time can capture the spatial and temporal variation of lightning with a 90% skill score. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Conservation agriculture-based sustainable intensification (CASI) technologies comprising zero-tillage with crop residue retention (>30%) on the soil surface, diversified cropping systems, and balanced nutrient management are recognized as operative and efficacious strategies to ensure food security in the parts of South Asia. The present investigation was a component of CASI technologies undertaken in the farmers' field of Malda (old alluvial Inceptisol) Coochbehar (recent alluvial Entisol) district, West Bengal (subtropical eastern India). This study was conducted to evaluate the short-term impact of contrasting tillage (zero and conventional) and cropping systems (rice–wheat and rice–maize) on total organic carbon (TOC) and its fractions, viz., labile pool-1 (LP1), labile pool-2 (LP2) and recalcitrant carbon (RC) fractions after 4-year trial of conservation agriculture (CA) in the old and recent alluvial soils. Soil samples were collected from three depths (0–5, 5–10, and 10–20 cm), and thus, our study was focused on two factors, viz., cropping system and tillage. Results pointed that TOC along with LP1, LP2, and RC fractions under rice–maize (RM) cropping system were significantly (p<0.05) greater (15–35%) over rice–wheat (RW) system as a result of higher residue biomass addition. Zero-tillage (ZT) improved the C fractions by 10–20% over conventional tillage (CT) in all aspects. TOC and its fractions were observed to be greater under the ZT system in the topmost soil depths (0–5 and 5–10 cm), but the same system failed to improve these at 10–20 cm. Interestingly, the CT increased all the fractions at 10–20 cm depth due to the incorporation of crop residues. The concentration of TOC along with its fractions decreased with increasing soil depth was evident. Comparatively, all the C fractions, including TOC were maximum in soils from Malda sites as compared to Coochbehar sites because of a higher amount of residue biomass application, higher clay content, and greater background content of C in these soils. All the studied C fractions showed a significant correlation (r = >0.635; p<0.01) with TOC among all the soil depths in both the districts but the relationship with soil texture showed some interesting results. TOC fractions were significantly correlated (p<0.01) with clay particles indicating that its higher stabilization with clay in old alluvial Inceptisol (Malda); while in recent alluvial Entisol (Coochbehar), sand particle showed its strong relation with TOC fractions. Higher stratification ratio (SR) in the ZT system suggested that the concentration of TOC and its fractions are confined to the upper soil layers whereas in the case of CT, by and large, the distribution of these was comparatively high in subsequent soil depths due to residue incorporation effect. The concentration of C fractions in soils followed the order: TOC > RC > LP2 > LP1. The present investigation concluded that ZT under the RM system increases the turnover rates of C in both soil types but the amount of clay influences the stabilization/storage of C. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The extent of susceptibility towards miltefosine (Mil), amphotericin B (AmpB), and paromomycin (Paro) was measured among 19 clinical isolates of Leishmania donovani (LD). Thirteen of these clinical isolates were reported to exhibit low susceptibility towards sodium stibogluconate (SSG-R), while six of them were highly susceptible (SSG-S). The degree of clearance of amastigotes (EC50) for these predefined SSG-R- and SSG-S-infected macrophages was determined against Mil, AmpB, and Paro. Two out of the 13 SSG-R isolates (BHU575 and BHU814) showed low susceptibility towards all three drugs studied, while the rest of the 11 SSG-R isolates showed varying degrees of susceptibility either towards none or only towards individual drugs. Interestingly, all the SSG-S isolates showed high susceptibility towards Mil/AmpB/Paro. The total intracellular non-protein thiol content of the LD promastigotes, which have been previously reported to be positively co-related with EC50 towards SSG, was found to be independent from the degree of susceptibility towards Mil/AmpB/Paro. Impedance spectra analysis, which quantifies membrane resistance, revealed lower impedimetric values for all those isolates exhibiting low efficacy to Mil (Mil-R). Our analysis points out that while non-protein thiol content can be an attribute of SSG-R, lower impedimetric values can be linked with lower Mil susceptibility, although neither of these parameters seems to get influenced by the degree of susceptibility towards AmpB/Paro. Finally, a correlation analysis with established biological methods suggests that impedance spectral analysis can be used for the accurate determination of lower Mil susceptibility among LD isolates, which is further validated in the LD-infected in vivo hamster model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a multilingual country like India, script recognition is an important pre-processing footstep necessary for feeding any document to an optical character recognition (OCR) engine, which is, in general, script specific. The present work evaluates the performance of an ensemble of two MLP (multi-layer perceptron) classifiers, each trained on different feature sets. Here, two complementary sets of features, namely, gray-level co-occurrence matrix (GLCM) and Gabor wavelets transform coefficients are extracted from each of the handwritten text-line and word images written in 12 official scripts used in Indian subcontinent, which are then fed into an individual classifier. In order to improve the overall recognition rate, a powerful combination approach based on the Dempster–Shafer (DS) theory is finally employed to fuse the decisions of two MLP classifiers. The performance of the combined decision is compared with those of the individual classifiers, and it is noted that a significant improvement in recognition accuracy (about 4% for text-line data and 6% for word level data) has been achieved by the proposed methodology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Key message: BjuWRR1, a CNL-type R gene, was identified from an east European gene pool line of Brassica juncea and validated for conferring resistance to white rust by genetic transformation. White rust caused by the oomycete pathogen Albugo candida is a significant disease of crucifer crops including Brassica juncea (mustard), a major oilseed crop of the Indian subcontinent. Earlier, a resistance-conferring locus named AcB1-A5.1 was mapped in an east European gene pool line of B. juncea—Donskaja-IV. This line was tested along with some other lines of B. juncea (AABB), B. rapa (AA) and B. nigra (BB) for resistance to six isolates of A. candida collected from different mustard growing regions of India. Donskaja-IV was found to be completely resistant to all the tested isolates. Sequencing of a BAC spanning the locus AcB1-A5.1 showed the presence of a single CC-NB-LRR protein encoding R gene. The genomic sequence of the putative R gene with its native promoter and terminator was used for the genetic transformation of a susceptible Indian gene pool line Varuna and was found to confer complete resistance to all the isolates. This is the first white rust resistance-conferring gene described from Brassica species and has been named BjuWRR1. Allelic variants of the gene in B. juncea germplasm and orthologues in the Brassicaceae genomes were studied to understand the evolutionary dynamics of the BjuWRR1 gene. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Indian plate passed over four plumes on its way toward the Eurasian plate. These interactions with plumes certainly affected the upper mantle and crust of the Indian plate as manifested by its thinned lithosphere and relatively low shear velocities both in the crust and upper mantle, but the depth extent of these effects of plume-lithosphere interaction remains ambiguous. In this study, we investigate the mantle transition zone beneath the Indian shield using P receiver functions computed at 23 stations covering the entirety of the Indian shield to investigate the depth extent of the imprints of the plume-lithosphere interaction as well as to study the lateral variations of transition zone beneath a stable intraplate setting like the Indian shield. Our results show good agreement with the results of previous studies as well as with the tomographic models in terms of the average apparent depths of the 410 and 660 discontinuities and the transition zone thickness. However, unlike previous studies, we find compelling evidence of a persistent mid-transition zone discontinuity beneath all the stations and a low-velocity layer beneath some regions. We also investigated the frequency dependence of amplitudes of receiver functions and found that most of the stations showed a strong dependence of amplitudes on frequency. Based on the evidence from our investigation, we demarcate the regions potentially containing relatively more weight percentage of water inside the otherwise considered as a 'dry' mantle transition zone. These regions should be further investigated in detail by a dense seismic network and a realistic 3-D velocity model. [Display omitted] • Mantle Transition Zone is imaged using receiver functions beneath 23 stations situated across Indian subcontinent. • Observed variations of depths of 410 and 660 discontinuities and thickness of mantle transition zone match with those observed in previous studies. • Frequency dependence of receiver function amplitudes and presence of prominent low velocity layer beneath some stations suggest the presence of a "wet" mantle transition zone. • Stations showing evidence of potentially wet mantle transition zone are marked and should be investigated further using larger amounts of data and a local high resolutional 3D velocity models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The word 'urbanity' literally means 'quality or state of being urban' where the criterion of urban economic and civic culture is assumed despite the general celebration of cultural uniqueness of urban centers. The narratives celebrating the uniqueness of urban centers since the ancient past till recent times could not get rid of the broad categorization of the urban models depending on their contextual networks of trade, mobility and culture. This paper attempts to explore whether the urban cultures in South Asia even preceding a global phenomenon like colonialism were actually reflecting an idea of urbanity where the urban culture, including planning and architecture reflected a trans-national model. This paper particularly concentrates on the medieval period when a pattern of urbanity took shape in this subcontinent under the influence of Islam, which could be explained by its particular idea of urban model, cultural exchange and vibrant trade networks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: In an endeavor to find an orally active and affordable antileishmanial drug, we tested the efficacy of a cationic amphiphilic drug, imipramine, commonly used for the treatment of depression in humans. The only available orally active antileishmanial drug is miltefosine with long half life and teratogenic potential limits patient compliance. Thus there is a genuine need for an orally active antileishmanial drug. Previously it was shown that imipramine, a tricyclic antidepressant alters the protonmotive force in promastigotes, but its in vivo efficacy was not reported. Methodology/Principal Findings: Here we show that the drug is highly active against antimony sensitive and resistant Leishmania donovani in both promastigotes and intracellular amastigotes and in LD infected hamster model. The drug was found to decrease the mitochondrial transmembrane potential of Leishmania donovani (LD) promastigotes and purified amastigotes after 8 h of treatment, whereas miltefosine effected only a marginal change even after 24 h. The drug restores defective antigen presenting ability of the parasitized macrophages. The status of the host protective factors TNF α, IFN γ and iNOS activity increased with the concomitant decrease in IL 10 and TGF β level in imipramine treated infected hamsters and evolution of matured sterile hepatic granuloma. The 10-day therapeutic window as a monotherapy, showing about 90% clearance of organ parasites in infected hamsters regardless of their SSG sensitivity. Conclusions: This study showed that imipramine possibly qualifies for a new use of an old drug and can be used as an effective orally active drug for the treatment of Kala-azar. Author Summary: The disease Kala-azar or visceral leishmaniasis is still a big problem in the Indian subcontinent. The antimonials were used for the chemotherapy of Kala-azar but with time its efficacy has reduced dramatically. The newer version of orally active drug miltefosine has been introduced, but its efficacy has decreased considerably as relapse cases are on the rise. Other drugs like liposomal form of amphotericin B is expensive and the patients require hospitalization. Thus there is a genuine need for an orally active antileishmanial drug. There are reports that the cationic amphiphilic molecule, imipramine, a drug used for the treatment of depression in humans, kills the promastigotes of Leishmania donovani. We tested the efficacy of imipramine in experimental infection in hamster and mouse model. Our study showed that the drug is highly effective against antimony sensitive and antimony resistant Leishmania donovani infected hamsters as well as mouse and offered almost sterile cure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

South Asia is home to one of the largest population of people with metabolic syndrome (MetS). The prevalence of MetS in South Asians varies according to region, extent of urbanization, lifestyle patterns, and socioeconomic/cultural factors. Recent data show that about one-third of the urban population in large cities in India has the MetS. All classical risk factors comprising the MetS are prevalent in Asian Indians residing in India. The higher risk in this ethnic population necessitated a lowering of the cut-off values of the risk factors to identify and intervene for the MetS to prevent diabetes and cardiovascular disease. Some pharmacological and nonpharmacological interventions are underway in MetS to assess the efficacy in preventing the diabetes and cardiovascular disease in this ethnic population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the European security calculus, terrorism has become one of the key strategic threats. Alarmingly, the continent has also become a centre of radical Islamist propaganda and activism, with a number of European countries worried over the potential of their own "home-grown" religious extremists. Latest studies indicate a disturbing trend of a section of the youth, generally belonging to the Muslim communities of West African and South Asian origin from a poor or middle class socioeconomic background, embracing extremism and terrorism in Europe. This article examines the agenda of some prominent radical Islamic organisations, namely, 'Hizb ut-Tahrir' and 'Al-Muhajiroun', active in Europe, which also have South Asia in their focus. Taking advantage of the communications revolution, these organisations have succeeded in establishing an effective propaganda network. A silent radicalisation of young Muslims in Europe is also influencing Muslim youth in the subcontinent because of the inter-linkages and continuous propaganda established through the Internet. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyses the fate of gender mainstreaming, the strategy adopted at the UN Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing to forward the gender equality agenda within development institutions. Using case studies from Mukhopadhyay's own research and advisory work, she shows how the political project of gender equality is being normalised in the development business as an ahistorical, apolitical, decontextualised and technical project that leaves the prevailing and unequal power relations intact. She suggests that in repositioning gender in development policy and practice we need to consider how to get back to the political project while not abandoning the present mode of engagement with development institutions. Citing the experiences of a recently concluded action research programme undertaken by the Royal Tropical Institute, Amsterdam, in collaboration with organisations in South Asia and Southern Africa, the author suggests that getting back to the political project involves working on rights and citizenship issues within development institutions and on the outside to create a "voice" of the most marginalised and their organisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Typically, urban South Asia is characterised by narrow streets, heavy traffic, visible haze, unplanned city architecture and the use of kerosene or wood-burning stoves at home. However, some urban areas in South Asia are clean and modern, with concrete housing, vehicle emission regulations and use of smoke-free household fuel. The purpose of this study was to compare wheeze prevalence in 13-14-year-olds between two South Asian cities (Galle, Chandigarh), representing each of the above two archetypes. The validated one-page International Study on Asthma and Allergies in Childhood (ISAAC) questionnaire for 13-14-year-olds was used for the study. Of 1814 distributed questionnaires, 1737 (95.8%) were completed correctly and returned (Galle: n=1162; Chandigarh: n=575). Crude prevalence rates, and prevalence odds ratios (with 95% two-sided confidence intervals (CI) for comparison of prevalence rates), were calculated. The prevalence rate for wheezing in Galle (28.7%) was higher than in Chandigarh (12.5%). The prevalence odds ratios (Galle versus Chandigarh) for lifetime wheezing (2.3; 1.8-2.9), wheezing in the previous year (2.1; 1.6-2.7), exercise-related wheeze (4.8; 3.5-6.7) and physician-diagnosed wheeze (1.7; 1.2-2.3) demonstrated significant differences in wheeze prevalence between the two cities ( P<0.05). The numbers of 13-14-year-olds experiencing less than 12 wheezing episodes per year or sleep disturbance due to wheeze of less than 1 night per week were also significantly higher for Galle than Chandigarh. There is a higher prevalence of wheeze in 13-14-year-old children living in an old-fashioned, congested city than in a clean and modern city in South Asia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The performance of the present operational global forecast system (GFS) at T1534 (~12.5 km) horizontal resolution with modified fractional cloud condensate to precipitation conversion parameter in the revised simplified Arakawa-Schubert (RSAS) convection scheme is evaluated for the summer monsoon seasons of 2018 and 2019 over the Indian region. The modified parameter has the form of an exponentially decreasing function of temperature above the freezing level. In contrast, below the freezing level, it is constant and is similar to default conversion parameter. The results reveal that the GFS T1534 with modified conversion parameter (EXPT) shows better fidelity in forecasting the mean summer monsoon rainfall over the Indian subcontinent region as compared to default GFS T1534 (CTRL). The rainfall probability distribution function analysis indicates a notable improvement in forecasting moderate and heavier category rainfall in EXPT as compared to CTRL. The improved distribution of total rainfall is found to be contributed by the proper forecasting of convective and large-scale rainfall in EXPT. It is likely that the reduced rate of conversion of cloud condensate to convective precipitation above the freezing level leads to a reduction in the convective rainfall, which eventually increases the moisture in the upper level through detrainment and hence enhances the large-scale precipitation. Further, EXPT shows relative improvement in forecasting outgoing longwave radiation, wind circulation, cloud fraction, dynamical-thermodynamical processes, and moist-convective feedback through improved lower tropospheric moistening over the Indian region. Finally, various skill score analyses suggest that EXPT shows better skill in predicting moderate and heavier category rainfall with longer lead time over the Indian subcontinent region. Considering the large socioeconomic impact of heavy and extreme precipitation over India, the modified conversion parameter can be incorporated in the present operational GFS T1534 model. • Prediction of Indian summer Monsoon in GFS T1534 • Cloud condensate to precipitation conversion parameter • Improved prediction of moderate and heavy rainfall in EXPT over Indian region [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]