The coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic has enkindled many mental health problems across the globe. Prominent among them is the prevalence of post-traumatic stress with hosts of its precipitating factors being present in the surrounding. With India witnessing severe impact of the second wave of COVID-19, marked by a large number of hospitalizations, deaths, unemployment, imposition of lockdowns, etc., its repercussions on children and adolescents demand particular attention. This study aims to examine the direct and the indirect exposure of COVID-19-related experiences (...) on children and adolescents and its subsequent relationship with PTS and post-traumatic growth. The direct exposure was operationalized in terms of death or hospitalization in the family, while the indirect exposure was gauged in terms of exposure to media reports of the COVID situation. Data from 412 children and adolescents aged 9–20 years, collected online, revealed 68.9% of them with PTS. Interestingly, 39.8% of those reporting PTS were also experiencing PTG. Arousal appeared to be the most frequently reported characteristics of trauma. The multivariate analysis of variance endorses significant difference between those with direct and indirect exposures to hospitalization. Those with direct exposure to hospitalization reported higher PTS. The indirect exposure of COVID-19-related news through electronic media was also significantly associated with higher PTS. Exposure through print media did not lead to significant difference in PTS, but those reading only magazines reported significantly higher PTG than not reading magazines. The findings are analyzed in the light of unfolding of events during the second wave of COVID-19 in India. (shrink)

Questions and answers on Theravada Buddhism and philosophy of mind.

Two Sanskrit works on Vedanta and Advaita philosophy.

Aphoristic work, with autocommentary, on realization of truth; includes refutation of some basic concepts in Indic philosophy and author's lectures on Vedanta philosophy.

Study of the Yogasūtra of Patañjali and Yogabhāṣya commentary by Vyāsa.

Study of Yogasūtra of Patañjali and Vyāsabhāṣya, commentary on Yogasūtra by Vyāsa.

Papers on Hindu philosophy and Sanskrit grammar.

Commentary on Yogasūtra of Patañjali, based on other classical commentaries.

Classical commentary on Yogasūtra of Patañjali.

Classical aphoristic work with commentary on Jaina philosophy.

Exegesis of Vyāsa's Yogabhāṣya, commentary of Patañjali's Yogasūtra, basic tenets of the Yoga school in Indic philosophy.

Aphoristic work, with commentaries, of the Yoga school in Indic philosophy.

Samādhīpāda chapter of Yogasūtra of Patañjalī, compendium of Yoga philosophy; Sanskrit text with Sanskrit and Gujarati commentaries.

Critical edition, with classical commentaries in Hindi and Sanskrit, of Yogasutra, basic work of the Yoga school in Hindu philosophy.

Compendium of Yoga philosophy with two classical Sanskrit commentaries and Vaidikayogamīmāṃsā, Hindi commentary.

Sexual and gender minorities in contemporary India are formed in the interstices between the neoliberal, Hindutva state; transnational discourses of liberal democracy and sexual ‘rights’; as well as cosmopolitan culture and global LGBT movements. As is evident in recent court judgments and legislation, particularly since 2014, postcolonial Hindu nationalism has created cultural conditions where forms of queer gender are permissible while queer sexuality is generally unacceptable. In recent years, significant developments have focused on transgender communities, complicating activism surrounding sexual and (...) gender identities. By positing some identities as state-sanctioned acceptable citizens and others as not, certain ‘transgender’ individuals are conceptualised as bearers of rights while finding other facets of their identities discriminated against and maintained as illegal. The 2014 Supreme Court NALSA v. Union of India judgment and The Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Bill, 2016 passed by the Lok Sabha, alongside further judgments and legislation affecting wider LGBT communities, have kept discourses fixed on sexual and gender identities and their relationship to Indian citizenship at the forefront of discussions of gender justices and injustices in India today. Focusing on recent judicial and legislative developments, this paper examines how transgender rights are being granted in the context of the neoliberal, Hindutva state and considers which forms of transgender identity are currently being conceptualised as legitimate and authentic in such discourses, which can serve to bolster larger right-wing visions and ideologies of the nation and its citizens. It contemplates the ways in which gender ‘justices’, framed in relation to both transnational LGBT rights discourses and right-wing agendas, are conceptualised and played out on the bodies of sexual and gender minorities. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Feminist Studies 45, no. 1. © 2019 by Feminist Studies, Inc. 253 Sonja Thomas The Women’s Wall in Kerala, India, and Brahmanical Patriarchy On January 1, 2019, a human chain of women, between three and five million strong and 385 miles long, gathered to protest the barring of menstruating women from entering Sabarimala Temple in Kerala, India. The so-called Women’s Wall received widespread news coverage; in the United States, (...) NPR, the BBC, the Washington Post, and the New York Times all had stories on it. Debra Messing, Kerry Washington, and Rose McGowan tweeted about it. As a scholar of caste, gender, and religion in Kerala, India, I watched the news and international attention with a good deal of interest and a bit of unease about how the intersections of casteism and patriarchy (brahmanical patriarchy) were glossed over in the reporting. The issues surrounding the Women’s Wall reveal the ways in which certain groups invest in the protection of brahmanical patriarchal power; a power that is reflected in political tensions between the Kerala state and the Indian central government that may come to a head in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections. Casteism and religious divides in Kerala are rarely discussed in depth because Kerala is largely seen as a progressive state, with a 94 percent literacy rate. Other development indicators also point to the assumption that Kerala is exceptional: low infant mortality rates, low maternal mortality rates, low fertility rates, and a population where there are more women than men. Kerala is seen as secular because there is a large number of both Christian and Muslim religious minorities. In 1957, 254 News and Views Kerala made history by democratically electing a communist government and initiating a set of far-reaching (although not all-encompassing) land distribution policies. The state is seen as transgender friendly with a transgender beauty pageant and support for trans surgery. The “feminist ” Women’s Wall protest fits in quite neatly within the dominant narrative that Kerala is exceptional, progressive, and thus a model for other Indian states and for countries in the Global South to follow. However, even as “progressive” Kerala is celebrated today, it is not clear that women in the state are necessarily as empowered as commonly believed. The state has some of the highest rates of violent crime in the nation and violence against women is widespread.1 Kerala’s suicide rates are two times the national average, and Kerala leads all other states in India in the number of family murder/suicides.2 Women are vastly underrepresented in politics.3 Although women are educated, the female workforce participation rate is one of the lowest in India.4 There is evidence to suggest that educated, nonworking women are using their education toward securing a better marriage match rather than for employment or empowerment.5 Kerala has a history of extremely repressive caste practices. This area of India once not only practiced untouchability, but what is known as “distance pollution.” A Dalit (the most oppressed caste in the caste hierarchy) was not allowed within sixty feet of a Brahmin (the most privileged caste), and the mere shadow of a Dalit falling upon a dominant-caste person could result in a Dalit’s death.6 Dalit Bahujans were prohibited 1. See Swapna Mukhopadhyay, ed., The Enigma of the Kerala Woman: A Failed Promise of Literacy (New Delhi: Social Science Press, 2007). 2. Jocelyn Lim Chua, In Pursuit of the Good Life: Aspiration and Suicide in Globalizing South India (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2014). 3. J. Devika and Binitha V. Thampi, New Lamps for Old? Gender Paradoxes of Political Decentralisation in Kerala (New Delhi: Zubaan: 2012). 4. Praveena Kodoth and Mridul Eapen, “Looking Beyond Gender Parity: Gender Inequities of Some Dimensions of Well-Being in Kerala,” Economic and Political Weekly 40, no. 30 (2005): 3278. 5. Sonja Thomas, “Education as Empowerment? Gender and the Human Right to Education in Postcolonial India,” in Human Rights in Postcolonial India, ed. Om Prakash Dwivedi and V. G. Julie Rajan (New York: Routledge, 2016), 82; Ritty A. Lukose, Liberalization’s Children: Gender, Youth, and Consumer Citizenship in Globalizing India (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2009), 104. 6... (shrink)

The article focuses on the issue of patterns of religious engagement among Indian Hindus during last decade. It tries to look at both the issue of private religion practiced in the form of offering puja at home and public religion seen in terms of participation in Katha, Satsang, Bhajan-Kirtan etc. by Indian Hindus. Sizeable numbers of Indian Hindus offer puja every day; sizeable numbers of them are also engaged in public religious activities. This is more prevalent among the urban, educated, (...) upper-caste, upper-class Hindus compared to their counterpart. Along with factors, which influence religious practices, is gender. Hindu women are more religious compared to the Hindu men. Similarly, upper-caste Hindus practice religious activities more regularly compared to other Hindus. There is hardly any change in patterns of engagement in religious activities among Hindus over the last five years. The levels of engagement in religious activities also have an impact on voting behavior. The higher the engagement in religious activities, the greater is the support for the BJP and vice versa. Between the 2004 and 2009 Lok Sabha elections, there had been a decline in the vote share of BJP due to its declining popularity amongst all the Hindu voters, but the decline in the support for the BJP is much sharper amongst highly religious Hindus compared to those who are not so religious. Along with other factors, this may be one of the important factors that led to the defeat of BJP in the 2009 Lok Sabha elections. The article draws evidence from the National Election Study 2004 and 2009 conducted by the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies during these two elections. (shrink)

In a recent article in JAOS, Y. Bronner and L. McCrea presented cogent argu ments for the authenticity of the “nonbitextual” version of Śiśupāla’s speech in the fifteenth canto of Māgha’s Śiśupālavadha and concluded that the “bitextual” version of the passage, in which each verse could be read with a double meaning, was a later alteration. Whereas they discussed the issue on the basis of internal criteria, the present article approaches it by means of external comparison with its presumptive source (...) text in the Sabhā-parvan of the Mahābhārata. This analysis confirms Bronner and McCrea’s conclusion, while also raising some new issues and problems. Also discussed is the legacy of the popular, if unauthentic bitextual version in the Bhāgavata-purāṇa and its commentarial tradition. (shrink)

ABSTRACT The construction of the modern Buddhist ‘Holy Land’, in present-day India and Nepal, was part and parcel of the formation of Buddhism as a world religion in the early twentieth century and continues to represent a potent expression of Buddhist materiality in the contemporary moment. This article explores the location of the Buddha’s birthplace at Lumbinī within the discourse of modern Theravāda missionisation, reform and preservation. I assert that the project of locating and restoring Lumbinī was essential to Buddhism’s (...) modern revival in Nepal and the domestication of Theravāda. The Maha Bodhi Society and Nepal’s Dharmodaya Sabha were formative in the construction of Lumbinī as a monument of Buddhist heritage and operated as the leading voices in efforts to repatriate the site to Buddhist custodianship. Exploring the material dimensions of early modern Theravāda reform signals a shift from domestic encounters with colonialism and Christian missionisation in locales of Buddhist majority to the transnational flow of persons, practices and knowledges that have come to shape the contours of modern Buddhism. 1. (shrink)

In the election of 17th Lok Sabha held in mid-2019, the Indian political parties tried hard to be a tie-up with each other against the present Modi-led NDA dispensation. In independent India, first, such attempt was made early in 1974 and started a new process of consolidation of opposition forces by the merger. In line, the Bharatiya Lok Dal was formed by the merger of seven political parties and in this process, the constituent units lost their identity in the (...) BLD. At the time although Congress and the Jana Sangh were ready to cooperate but refused to lose their existence. Their experiences of emergency proved a blessing for them and they came together and formed an alliance called Janata Party, to challenge the Congress leadership of the time. Likewise, as of today in 2018-19 the Bharatiya Janata Party is the country’s largest political party in terms of representation in the national parliament and state assemblies and all political parties of present-day India with Indian National Congress as forerunner with the help of regional party try a futile attempt first to challenge and then to defeat the BJP in various elections. Although with a great difference in the situation the motto of opposition parties has been one and only to give weighty protest to turn the events in their favour. This ups and downs of Indian politics may prove a path-breaking for other developing countries where political parties are struggling hard to gain power but did not succeed on account of causes best known to them. (shrink)