The internal and external constraints on foreign policy in India: exploring culture and ethnic sensitivities

The main argument of this contribution is that the distinction between internal and external is at best blurred and in reality does not make much sense in the case of India’s foreign policy. It may start and end at the border and be determined by negotiations, diplomacy or brute force but there is no conclusive evidence in the literature to decide what determines what. There are important dynamics and interplays across the thin line between the domestic and international spheres, especially in terms of understanding the reciprocal challenges related to how factors of culture and ethnicity relate with the legitimacy of the state. The aim of the paper is to serve four purposes. To unpack and give a critical overview of the debates concerned with the internal and external aspects of India’s foreign policy; to situate the literature dealing more specifically with domestic issues related to culture and ethnicity and outline the main approaches involved; to give an overview of how external factors impact foreign policy conduct and relate to India’s role in defining international norms and regulations; and, finally, to give some theoretical markers, suggestions and concluding remarks.     

Fatal poisoning by protriptyline and haloperidol following an extreme overdose

In this paper the authors report on a case of lethal suicidal toxification with protriptyline and haloperidol after oral ingestion. Gas chromatographic and radioimmunologic investigations were used for quantitative determination of protriptyline and haloperidol in blood, urine, and tissues. The highest concentrations were found in lung and liver. These concentrations are discussed with reference to the cause of death.     

Jurors' perceptions of child victim-witnesses in a simulated sexual abuse trial

Two studies investigated the effects of a child witness's age (5, 10, or 15 years old), communication style (powerful vs. powerless), and prosecuting attorney questioning methods (leading vs. nonleading) on perceptions of her testimony in a videotaped mock trial. In Experiment 1, as predicted, ratings of a child witness's credibility were most extreme when the child's communication style contrasted with adults' age-related expectations. Results of Experiment 2 showed that the child's communication style strongly affected perceptions of the defendant as well.     

Enzyme chemical studies of pericardial fluid

The authors examined the enzyme activities of LDH, CK, GOT, GPT and gamma-GT in blood-free pericardial fluid. The cases were divided into seven groups: a shot in the head with instant death, sudden cardiac death, poisoning, brain death with a long survival time, sudden infant death syndrome, and asphyxia. Taking all five enzymes into consideration, the cases of cardiac death differed significantly on the 1% level from the head shooting. However, concerning CK sudden cardiac death differed on the 5% level from the deaths as a result of poisoning. The wide range of the results, however, does not permit any reliable association of one single value with any of the respective groups.     

Paradox of voting under an urn model: The effect of homogeneity

We propose a simple Pólya-variety urn model for calculating paradox-of-voting probabilities. The model contains a homogeneity parameter, and for specific values of this parameter the model reduces to cases previously discussed in the literature. We derive a Dirichlet family of distributions for describing the assignment of preference profiles in large committees, and we show how the homogeneity parameter relates to measures of similarity among voters, suggested in prior studies.     

Drowning in the bath tub after choking: Unusual death, accident or suicide? Reconstruction of an unusual fall

A thirteen-year old girl attending a special school who had been suffering from genuine epilepsy for about one year was found dead completely clothed in the full bathtub in the bathroom of her parent's flat. The characteristic features of death by drowning but also signs of strangulation as well as a condition after shackling of the hands were found in the forensic post-mortem examination and autopsy. The putative strangulation instrument was a pair of tights which was floating in the bathwater. The hands were probably tied with the lace of a sneaker. In the further course of events, the inquiries and investigations initially commenced on the assumption of a capital crime gave reason to consider suicide. A reconstruction experiment under comparable external conditions indicates that this is possible. From a forensic-psychiatric point of view, an exacerbative mental crisis situation can be inferred as a final motive from the known personality configuration and the immediate circumstances. The tragic outcome in the final phase appears to have been determined by the additional complication of a provoked grand mal epilepsy attack. All in all, this hypothesis is the most plausible. However, subjective and objective observations do not rule out the possibility of homicide.