Tiered Community Membership in Australia: The Impact of Constitutional Concepts and Contemporary Developments on Refugee Access to Citizenship

This article explores various ways in which Commonwealth legislation and government policy have shifted in recent years to increase both the legal barriers to inclusion for migrants seeking to become part of the Australian community, and the circumstances in which those already legally recognised as members of the community can become susceptible to exclusion. It examines the ways in which these shifts have produced new “tiers of membership” within the Australian community, and discusses the implications of this, both from a constitutional perspective and on affected individuals. The article illustrates that these shifts have affected some groups of migrants more than others. Relevantly, given the subject of this special issue, they have had a disproportionately detrimental effect on refugees who arrive in Australia by boat seeking asylum.     

Moving beyond nation-state: Framing state-level politics in India

The article refers to the processes that have been critical to the emergence of states as significant categories for the analysis of politics in India after a considerable period of academic neglect. It is in this context that the article considers the following research questions for discussion while referring to the state politics literature: what has been the contribution of the “first generation” of state-specific studies and to what extent has the “second generation” of inter-state comparative studies been able to take this forward? What could be the specific advantages of inter-state studies over single case studies? Finally, the article argues in favour of a need to develop further what may be considered the “third generation” of studies in the discipline, that remain comparative in nature but are in search of a much-nuanced grounded analysis; this would move beyond state-specific or inter-state studies and start taking up intra-state comparative studies, focusing on historical-cultural substate regions that have emerged as political (and economic) units within and across the constituent states of the Indian Union.     

The Microbial Rosetta Stone database: A common structure for microbial biosecurity threat agents

Infectious microorganisms are important to multiple communities engaged in biodefense and biosecurity, including the agencies responsible for health, defense, law enforcement, agriculture, and drug and food safety. Many agencies have created lists of high priority infectious microorganisms to prioritize research efforts or to formally control the possession and distribution of specific organisms or toxins. However, the biological classification of infectious microorganisms is often complex and ambiguous, leading to uncertainty and confusion for scientists involved in biosecurity work. To address this problem, we created a database, known as the Microbial Rosetta Stone, which resolves many of these ambiguities and includes links to additional information on the microbes, such as gene sequence data and scientific literature. Here we discuss the efforts to coordinate organism names from pathogen lists from various governmental agencies according to biological relatedness and show the overlap of high-priority organisms from multiple agencies. To our knowledge, this is the first comprehensive coordination of pathogens, synonyms, and correct taxonomic names. The organized tables and visual aids are freely available at http://www.microbialrosettastone.com. This website provides a single location where access to information on a broad range of disease-causing organisms and toxins is available to members of the biosecurity community.     

Identification of authorship using lateral palm print--a new concept

Identification of individual by signature examination could be improved by the lateral palm print examination. By the use of new technique discussed by the author in this paper, the forensic expert can find out very useful information about the writer of writings even without going into the depth of questioned document/signature examination and without the formal or informal handwriting exemplars. The document expert with little more knowledge of the palm print can identify whether the signature is done by hand/leg/anything else, whether the author is right handed or left handed, the approximate age of the author, whether the signature is genuine or forged. Such information of author would be very much useful in elimination of the list of suspects of anonymous letters. In order to fix the authorship, standard and disputed lateral palm prints can be examined either with photographic superimposition technique or with the statistical study of the outline of the lateral palm print or with the standard method as implied in fingerprint examination. The evidential value of such lateral palm print can be placed at par with the finger prints in the court of law and could be placed right on the top of all other scientific evidences.     

An unusual fatal injury due to tyre burst: a case report

A 20 year-old male driver of a heavy duty crane, employed in an industry located in an industrial area on the outskirts of Delhi was fatally injured while repositioning an ill-fitted locking rim of a crane tyre (Fig. 1). The inner tube of the crane tyre had accidentally burst, dislodging the loose iron-locking rim, which hit the individual with a great force resulting in multiple injuries. He died on his way to the hospital.     

Can disincentives bring accountability in governance? Experiences of Right to Public Services Guarantee Act in Madhya Pradesh State of India

Many Indian states have enacted Right to Public Services Guarantee Act that promises the delivery of public services to citizens in time‐bound fashion, failing to which, responsible government officials face financial penalty. Therefore, effective service delivery, an indicator of good and responsive governance, is being attempted to be achieved through a “system of disincentive.” The paper tries to analyze if the system of disincentive is effective in ensuring administrative accountability. The paper is based on primary and secondary data. The primary data were collected as part of an action research carried out in 2012, which was supplemented with secondary data collected for different studies during 2015 and 2016. The paper uses a governance accountability framework to analyze implementation of the Act. The study finds that although success rate of implementation of the Act is quite high, the Act presents a narrow idea of accountability. There are no accountability norms for higher officials and elected leaders who head the public service departments. The study also finds that necessary accountability structures have not been developed and there is a dearth of enabling environment that makes accountability structures effective. The study also finds that, despite the provisions for financial penalty, responsible officials find ways to escape. The study exposes weak points in the implementation of the Act, which can be strengthened to achieve desired outcomes. The study can be an important source for course corrections in the states/countries where right to public service delivery is in effect.