Negotiating constitutions for political unions

This paper provides a cradle-to-grave model of political merger between two states and highlights the role of cross-border disparities in material and technological endowments in state formation. This issue has not received adequate theoretical attention in the existing scholarship that has largely focussed on factors like defence, trade, and public goods provision. In this paper, merger negotiations are modelled using a bilateral bargaining model with inside options and contest as an outside option. It is shown that the threat of contest constrains the set of mutually acceptable taxes and, more importantly, it provides stability to the federal constitution by making the punishment strategy in the secession rule credible. The existence of negotiated and contested constitutional merger agreements that are path dependent but time-consistent is shown. Also, the rent extracted by the advanced province in the union for transferring technology to the backward province is shown to be increasing in the complexity of technology but bounded from above. Finally, the impact of demographic heterogeneity on the feasibility of inter-state mergers is discussed.     

DNA profiling of disputed chilli samples (Capsicum annum) using ISSR-PCR and FISSR-PCR marker assays

A case of marketing of spurious seeds of chilli, Capsicum annum in the brand name of an elite variety referred to us from an Indian court of law, for identification is described here. The highly reproducible molecular marker assays, inter simple sequence repeat polymerase chain reaction [ISSR-PCR] and FISSR-PCR (for fluorescent ISSR-PCR) were used for differentiating the four disputed chilli samples. A total number of 17 ISSR anchored primers, which included nine di-, and eight tri-nucleotide primers were used for the analysis. The ISSR-PCR products were separated on a 2% agarose gel. A total of 212 and 288 bands were resolved by seven di- and eight tri-nucleotide primers, respectively, with an average of 30 bands per primer. Five out of nine dinucleotide primers and four out of eight trinucleotide primers could unambiguously differentiate all the four disputed chilli samples. The sensitivity and informativeness of the ISSR-PCR assay were further enhanced by the use of FISSR-PCR technique. The FISSR-PCR assay revealed a total number of 566 bands using three tri- and one di-nucleotide primers with an average of 141 bands per primer. These four primers could reliably distinguish all the four disputed samples unambiguously. In developing countries like India, violation of Plant Breeder's Rights is a major concern of law. The present report is, therefore, a step to protect the Plant Breeder's Rights by making use of reliable and modern DNA technologies.     

Ableing work,Disableing workers?

Grounded within the substantive conception of ableism (Wolbring 2008 Wolbring, G. 2008. “The Politics of Ableism.” Development 51 (2): 252–258. doi: 10.1057/dev.2008.17[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]), this article explores the prejudices and discriminations that arise out of many different forms of ableism: of bodily abilities/disabilities, gender, social structure, and economic organisation. It illustrates the processes and outcomes of ableisms deployed on the shop-floor of a multiple-award winning small-scale manufacturing unit in India. By employing a number of persons with disabilities, single women, and widows, and with plans for engaging juvenile delinquents in the near future, the manufacturing unit has seemingly created opportunities for “empowerment” of those subjected to discrimination. However, the outcomes are not necessarily so.     

Thinking and speaking in the philosophy of K. C. Bhattacharya

Although the following essay does not strictly fall within the discipline of classical Indian philosophy, in which our Journal specializes, we publish it here for two reasons: (1) K. C. Bhattacharya was an outstanding philosopher of India in the past generation, and his thought was deeply influenced by his thorough study of classical Indian Vedanta and Jainism, as well as by the study of Kant (four of our consulting editors were his direct students). (2) His view about the notion of the speakable and philosophy is unique, and it has remained opaque to most of us. Hence some discussion will be illuminating.     

Genetic profile of nine autosomal STR loci among Halakki and Kunabhi populations of Karnataka, India

POPULATION: Blood samples were collected from a total of 84 healthy and unrelated Halakki (44) and Kunabhi (40) populations, with their informed written consent. The geographic location of the sampled area is shown in Fig. 1. Both the populations are endogamous, and they belong to Dravidian linguistic family. Halakki is a tribal group having a population size of approximately 3383. They claim that they originally belong to Gujarat and Rajasthan, and migrated through Andhra Pradesh to Karnataka. Kunabhi is also a tribal population, who are approximately 35,214 in number. The male Kunabhi can be identified by their tattoo marks. A necklace is the symbol of married women. They were hunters and gatherers, but at present they practice agriculture.