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Day: June 16, 2020

Physiology and Immunology of Bats – A Special Reservoir of Deadly Viruses

The Dreadful Myth of Bram Stoker’s ‘Dracula Transforming into a Bat’ seems to be a Reality when Considering the Physiology and Immunology of Bats – A Special Reservoir of Deadly Viruses

Student contributors (Authors): Ms. Animikha Ghosh, Ms. Shrestha Sengupta, Students of B.Tech Biotechnology, Semester-IV, Department of Biotechnology

The vampire fear and the prevailing superstitions in societies:

It’s been one hundred and twenty-three years passed after its publication, the Gothic vampire tale; ‘Dracula’, written by the Irish author Abraham (“Bram”) Stoker is still staggeringly popular worldwide among all age groups and professions. The careful and detailed creations of horror-plots of the original story have terrified the readers and elicited nightmares from the 19th century till today. The radical transformation of ‘Dracula’ into a bat, as depicted by Stoker, contributes a lot to the thrill of the story but unfortunately, it has also strengthened some of the prevailing superstitions, misinformation and credulous beliefs of the human minds about the bats – such as bats as ‘blood-sucking evil creatures’ or ‘symbols of devilish activities’. Some oriental and occidental societies still believe that bats drink human blood.

Bats are largely insectivorous and frugivores though some drink mammalian blood too:

Bats belong to the order Chiroptera, which is the second-largest species-rich mammalian order with over 1300 species that are distributed in every other continent except Antarctica (bats comprise >20% of the classified mammalian species on earth). The order Chiroptera has two sub-orders, Yinpterochiroptera (comprises both families of megabats and microbats) and Yangochiroptera (the remaining microbat families). Bats of these suborders have diverse food habits but a majority of the members of the microbat families are insectivorous, i.e. they feed on moths, mosquitoes, beetles, etc. The consumption of insects can be as high as more than 500 small-sized insects per hour for the single little brown bats. The bulk of the megabats and other microbats however are fruit-eaters or frugivores – eating fruits (bananas, mangoes, figs, and dates), seeds, and pollen from the flowers. Also, some bats feed on birds, frogs, lizards, and other bats, and very few even drink the blood of other mammals. This last group of bats, popularly known as ‘Vampire Bats’, belong to the subfamily Desmodontinae and are native to the Americas, ranging from Central to South America. They represent only three species (Desmodus rotundus, Diphylla ecaudata, and Diaemus youngi) among the 1300 bat species found globally. The commonly seen vampire bat or Desmodus rotundus solely take blood as their food, albeit it’s not the human blood but they feed on the blood of cows, sheep, and horses. Therefore, the prevailing concepts about bats as a human bloodsucker and this is a ‘morph of Vampire’ are biologically invalid.

Bats harbor diverse viruses and high-profile zoonotic viruses – A serious threat to public health:

Before going any further, it is necessary to define what a zoonotic virus is. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), any disease or infection that can be naturally transmitted from a vertebrate animal host (fishes, amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals) to humans is defined as a zoonotic disease, and therefore, any viral pathogen that causes a zoonotic disease is called a zoonotic virus. The novel coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, causing the current COVID-19 pandemic is an example of a zoonotic virus that probably comes from particular species of bats to humans via a second animal host (probably the pangolin). Bats harbor a huge number of zoonotic viruses with the highest number of viruses found to be hosted per bat species among the mammal orders. Estimations have also revealed that there are about 9.8% of the bat species that act as the zoonotic hosts of these viruses (members of more than 15 families of viruses) to cause >25 unique zoonotic diseases. Virological, epidemiological and molecular studies have clearly established the links between the bat species as natural reservoirs of high-profile zoonotic viruses and the emergence and re-emergence of viral epidemics and pandemics in human populations – they include the fatal diseases caused by rabies (transmitted by the vampire bats through carnivores to humans) and other related lyssa viruses, Nipah virus infection with fatal encephalitis (case fatality rate >70%) and diseases caused by other Henipaviruses such as Hendra viruses, Marburg virus disease with hemorrhagic fever (case fatality rate is between 25% and 100%), Ebola haemorrhagic fever (case fatality rate is between 25% and 90%), and the coronaviruses causing acute respiratory syndromes such as the novel SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) coronavirus (case fatality rate of 10%), the novel MERS (Middle East respiratory syndrome) coronavirus (case fatality rate of 34.4%) and the novel SARS-CoV-2 (case fatality rate of 6.2% till 29.05.2020) that is causing the current COVID-19 pandemic.

Apart from the highly pathogenic viruses, the huge viral diversity found in bat species also includes viruses which are not yet reported to be transmitted from bats to other animal hosts or causing human diseases, and even for some of them, it is still unclear whether bats are one of their important natural reservoirs such as particular alphaviruses, flaviviruses, and bunyaviruses.

Bats are special reservoir hosts of viruses owing to their unique physiology and immunology – The current status of knowledge:

Bats are the reservoir hosts of a plethora of zoonotic viruses partly because of the lifestyles of the different species to live together in overlapping geographic regions at the same time (a phenomenon called sympatry) which results in increased sharing of viruses between the species due to profound inter-species transmission. Though bats act as the natural reservoirs of viruses that are virulent for other animals and humans, rarely bats die or show clinical symptoms of these viral diseases. The maintenance of high viral diversity with low virulence in bats has led to many speculative hypotheses on the functional mechanisms that bats use to regulate viral replications more efficiently compared to other mammals. One such hypothesis states that evolution of flight is associated with high viral-tolerance in bats as the increased metabolic rate and the higher body temperature of bats during the flight together probably played the role of a general immune booster on an evolutionary timescale to select for the mitigating of virulence of the infecting-viruses at the cost of fostering viral diversity in the bat populations. This eventually enables bats to tolerate a greater diversity of virulent viruses by metabolic and thermal activations of the different branches of the immune system, such as the components of the innate and adaptive immune systems. Support for this hypothesis came from the following evidences – substantial increase in the rate metabolism (15-17 fold) in bats during flight compared to the resting state and this increase is way higher than the increase in metabolic rates of a flying bird (2 fold) or a sprinting rodent (7 fold), laboratory strains of mice inbred for higher metabolic rates surmount significantly stronger and specific immune responses compared to the mice bred for lower metabolic rates when challenged with a specific antigen,  evolution of flight behavior in bats was accompanied by genetic changes linked with the crucial requirement of repairing DNA damages due to increased rate of metabolism, elevation of core body temperature, typically found during mammalian fever (38oC – 41oC), in different bat species during their flights (e.g. Rousettus aegyptiacus: 38.2oC – 41.2oC, Eptisicus fuscus: 41oC, Eumops perotis: 37.8oC – 39.3oC, Carollia perspicillata: 40.2oC), and lastly the possible anti-viral innate and adaptive immune responses that can be induced in bats by high body temperature (enhancement in leukocyte mobility and interferon production, increased antibody production and cytokine responses, and increased T-helper cell responses etc.). These results, in lights of the physiology and immune system of bats and viral diversity, strongly suggest that bats are special reservoir hosts of zoonotic viruses owing to their flight behavior that escalates the immune responses on a daily-basis to possibly promote a form of evolution in the bat-borne viruses which enable them to sustain infections in bats without causing the diseases.

More direct evidence has disclosed two unique anti-viral mechanisms operating in the bats which are never reported previously in any other model system; these are respectively the chronic but regulated inflammatory responses and the antibody-level independent protective immunity. The innate immune system of bats responds to viral infections through type-I interferon (IFN) and the IFN-stimulated genes or ISGs, which eventually leads to the expressions of antiviral and pro-inflammatory cytokines. However, unlike humans, bats can regulate the high-levels of virus-induced pro-inflammatory responses, and thereby limit the tissue damage, by novel mechanisms (one of them is repressing the expressions of cytokine genes) but at the same time preserving the IFN-responses persistently to check viral replication. Interestingly, though bats have all the major subclasses of antibody (IgA, IgG, IgM, and IgE), under conditions of a challenge with the viral antigens, they expressed low titers of antibodies, even sometimes below the threshold of seropositivity, although the animals became seronegative at that time with no detectable viremia or viral shedding. The antibodies isolated from the bats, after they became seronegative, also didn’t show any neutralizing reaction to the antigens. This peculiar behavior of bat antibodies, of not showing viral neutralization, together with the persistent pro-inflammatory responses and the presence of a higher number of germline genes for antibodies than the humans confirm that the immune systems of bats are highly adapted to withstand the chronic load of diverse viruses, including the highly virulent ones, and possibly have substantial functional differences than that of the humans.

Our responsibilities to avoid further infections from the bats:

It is logical to state that virulent viruses although don’t make the bats sick but when transmitted (zoonotic events) from the bats to other animals, especially to human, whose immune pathways are unprepared to cope up with these viruses, can cause fatal diseases. The deadly epidemics and pandemics in humans, such as Ebola, SARS, MERS, Nipah, and the current COVID-19 are some of the blatant examples of human disasters in which bats played the villains by transmitting these viruses. However, accusing bats is nonsensical and is merely a way to escape our misdemeanor of interfering with the bats that have nucleated these catastrophes. Thus, we have to take vital responsibilities at this hour of crisis to avoid further bat-borne epidemics or pandemics, which include (by the WHO-guidelines) avoidance of contacts with the bats (bats are peri-domestic, so they often live in human residence), preserving their habitats, taking measures to check fruits for bat-inflicted perforations before selling them in the markets, planning agricultural land encroachment without destroying the forests, implementing re-forestations, and most importantly stop slaughtering bats for food. In the end, we have to remember that bats are neither our enemies nor vampires, but in reality, they are our true friends who are involved in maintaining the balance of our ecosystem and pollinating important crops to sustain our lives.

References:

  1. Simmons, N.B. (2005). “Order Chiroptera”. In Wilson DE, Reeder DM, editors. Mammal species of the world: a taxonomic and geographic reference. JHU Press; 2005.
  2. Greenhall AM. Natural history of vampire bats. CRC Press; 2018 May 4.
  3. Hawkey C. Plasminogen activator in saliva of the vampire bat Desmodus rotundus. Nature. 1966 Jul;211(5047):434-5.
  4. Han BA, Kramer AM, Drake JM. Global patterns of zoonotic disease in mammals. Trends in parasitology. 2016 Jul 1;32(7):565-77.
  5. Olival KJ, Hosseini PR, Zambrana-Torrelio C, Ross N, Bogich TL, Daszak P. Host and viral traits predict zoonotic spillover from mammals. Nature. 2017 Jun; 546(7660):646-50.
  6. Calisher CH, Childs JE, Field HE, Holmes KV, Schountz T. Bats: important reservoir hosts of emerging viruses. Clinical microbiology reviews. 2006 Jul 1;19(3):531-45.
  7. Banerjee A, Baker ML, Kulcsar K, Misra V, Plowright R, Mossman K. Novel insights into immune systems of bats. Frontiers in immunology. 2020 Jan 24;11:26.
  8. Luis AD, Hayman DT, O’Shea TJ, Cryan PM, Gilbert AT, Pulliam JR, Mills JN, Timonin ME, Willis CK, Cunningham AA, Fooks AR. A comparison of bats and rodents as reservoirs of zoonotic viruses: are bats special?. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. 2013 Apr 7;280(1756):20122753.
  9. Brierley L, Vonhof MJ, Olival KJ, Daszak P, Jones KE. Quantifying global drivers of zoonotic bat viruses: a process-based perspective. The American Naturalist. 2016 Feb 1;187(2):E53-64.
  10. O’shea TJ, Cryan PM, Cunningham AA, Fooks AR, Hayman DT, Luis AD, Peel AJ, Plowright RK, Wood JL. Bat flight and zoonotic viruses. Emerging infectious diseases. 2014 May;20(5):741.

Silent Voices -Understanding Mental Health

On a Wed 27th of May,2020 a mentally challenged boy in his mid 20s was taken to the local hospital by his parents. His body was covered in cuts and bruises . The day after this incident angry locals ransacked the boys house claiming that the victim was hacked to death by his parents and younger brother.

July 17, 2018 a mentally challenged woman was beaten by a mob in Jalpaiguri over the suspicion of child theft.  This incident was an echo of an earlier incident in 2017, where a mentally challenged women was mercilessly beaten to death in Murshidabad. Through her incoherent speech and confusion she could not speak in her defence, so she was tied to a tractor and beaten for three hours.

Attitudes towards Mental illness 

Mental illness  , ‘pagol’ , the word immediately bring forward images of people like Norman Bates in the Alfred Hitchcock story Psycho , a murderer – voyeur who kept the corpse of his mother to a serial killer who skins his victims to make a suit of their flesh , (The Silence of the lambs). Mentally ill people are viewed by people as violent, aggressive, crazy, talks to themselves, stupid, born with brain defect.  The stigmatization is so extreme that it has led to prejudice and stereotype  regarding them. The truth and reality of the situation is quite different .Recent studies point out that individuals with severe mental illness are at a higher risk than the general population to be victimized .(Khalifeh et al 2016)

TLLLF_2018 Report How IndiaPerceives Mental Health.

According to the National Mental Health Survey 2016, conducted by National Institute of Mental Health 1.25 crore of Bengal ’s estimated population of 9.67 crore suffer from various mental health problems and are in need of immediate treatment.  When it comes to severe mental health disorders 1.8% of Bengal’s population is affected, the highest in the country. So an awareness regarding mentally illness needs to be there.

Risk Factors for victimization 

Studies have also attempted to seek risk factors for victimization. A meta-analysis of 20 studies found female gender, homelessness, substance abuse and history of child sexual abuse to be the most significant factors involved . Most patients get abused verbally through harsh voice, abusive language, blaming and threatening. Physical abuse takes forms of slapping, beating, being attacked with a weapon, whipping, chaining, mutilation or keeping patients locked up. Social neglect and discrimination are common. In a significant number of these cases, the abusers are acquaintances or family members of the victim (Brown and Anderson,1991). Intimate partner violence and domestic violence in females needs a mention in this regard (Coker et al., 2002) There are certain factors in the mentally ill people which makes them unable to perceive risk and protect oneself,  making  them vulnerable to abuse. These factors are:

  • Impaired Reality testing
  • A disorganized thought process
  • Impulsivity
  • poor planning and
  • problem solving
  • Feelings of hopelessness
  • helplessness 

In the upcoming months post covid a huge mental health crisis awaits us. Prolonged isolation will lead to both economic and mental health crisis. Unemployment, alcoholism, economic hardships, indebtedness, domestic violence and  child abuse specially if the perpetrator is in close contact with the victim will all become  contributing factors to mental illness. According to a survey conducted by the Indian Psychiatry Society, within a week of the start of the lockdown, the number of reported cases of mental illness in India had risen by 20%. Therefore it is important to de-stigmatize mental illness.

Certain common myths and facts about mental illness: 

Myth: Only ‘crazy’ people have mental illness 

Fact: When you are physically ill for eg. You have got a cold . What do you do? You would go to the doctor take medications for some time, take rest and get cured. In case of mental illness it is similar. The only difference is there is no stigma attached to you going to a doctor but you would think 10 times before you go to a mental Health professional. Change your perceptions 

Myth: People with mental ill health are violent and dangerous. 

Fact: Most people with psychiatric problems are not violent . It is true some subset of mental illness does contribute to the risk of violence, however the findings are inconclusive as there are other contributing factors such as substance abuse which aggrevates this risk. Do be alert but treat mentally ill people with compassion. Because their aggression is brought about by neurochemical changes and disturbed cognition.  

The unfortunate truth is that individuals with mental illness are more likely to be victims of violence than perpetrators.  

Myth: Seeking help for mental illness will lead to being ostracized.

Fact: A problem is categorized as mental illness when it is persistent and leads to disturbances in personal, social and occupational functioning. Seeking mental help would help one to come back to the optimum level of functioning. First you need to be convinced before you can convince others and alleviate their fears. 

Myth: Anybody with a counseling certificate are mental health professionals.

Fact: Don’t get confused by seeing the word counselor. There are different types of counseling for eg, academic counselor, career counselor and psychologists. It is important that the person you go to have a background in psychology preferably RCI registered. Just doing a course from different background is not sufficient to deal with ones mental health. 

Myths: Mental illness is incurable

Fact: When you have thyroid or diabetes you need to be on medications for prolonged periods. This helps you to manage your physical problems and adjust to your daily routine. Similarly in mental illness at times lifelong management through intake of drugs may be necessary, but with social support and lack of stigma it may be possible for them to be rehabilitated back in society.

Concluding Remarks

A lot of discussion remains on this issue, a lot of attitudes needs to be changed.  We all have to be in this together and change the social constructs based on misinformation. It is then only we can call ourselves truly humane.

References

ব্যবধানের চলচ্চিত্র

ব্যবধানের চলচ্চিত্র

ধীরে ধীরে উঠছে লকডাউন। শুরু হয়েছে ‘আনলক 1’। তবু অন্য অনেক কিছুর মতোই সিনেমাহল বন্ধ। কবে খুলবে, তার একটা আভাস মিললেও, কবে জনসমাগম হবে… বোঝা যাচ্ছে না। অনেক শিল্পী কাজ হারিয়েছেন, তারকারাও কাজের জীবনে ফিরতে না পারায় ম্লান। বন্ধ হয়ে যাওয়া পুরনো সিনেমাহলের পাশে একইরকম খাঁ খাঁ করছে মাল্টিপ্লেক্স। সপ্তাহান্তের ভিড়ে উপচে উঠছে না কাউন্টার। রুপোলি পর্দা তার দ্যুতি হারিয়ে স্থির।

কিন্তু তা বলে কি মানুষের সিনেমা দেখায় ভাঁটা পড়েছে? মোটেই না। যার যার মোবাইল, ট্যাব, ল্যাপটপে ঠাসা ফিল্ম লাইব্রেরি কতটা সঙ্গ দিচ্ছে একার জীবনে, ফেসবুক খুললেই বোঝা যাচ্ছে। নিত্যনতুন সিনেমা, সিরিজের আলোচনায় মুখর যুবসমাজ। তাহলে, বিনোদনের চাহিদা কমেনি, জোগানও নয়। বিনোদন স্রেফ মাধ্যম পাল্টেছে। আর এই পথ ধরেই বদলে যেতে চলেছে বিনোদনের আঙ্গিক।

যে সমস্ত চলচ্চিত্র ‘হিট’, ‘বক্স অফিসে সাফল্য’ আনে, তাদের অধিকাংশই ‘লার্জার দ্যান লাইফ’। সেখানে বিরাট পর্দায় বিরাট হয়ে দেখা দেন নায়ক, পর্দায় আগুন ধরিয়ে দেন রূপসী নায়িকা। এক-একটা action দৃশ্যে উড়ে যায় গাড়ি, দশ-বারোজন গুন্ডা। প্রেম আসে বিদেশের বিস্তৃত সুরম্য ল্যান্ডস্কেপে, হলের স্পিকারে গমগম করে ওঠে গান। গায়ে কাঁটা দেয় সকলের, যখন রহস্যের উন্মোচন ঘটে। চোখে জল ঝিলমিল করে সবার, যখন বিচার পায় শোষিত। সকলে একসঙ্গে উল্লাসে ফেটে পড়ে যখন নায়কের চোখের দিকে তাকিয়ে মৃদু হেসে চোখ নামায় নায়িকা। বাহুবলী-দেবসেনার যৌথ লড়াই, কিং খানের দু’হাত ছড়িয়ে দাঁড়ানো, জোকারের শেষ দৃশ্যে নৈরাজ্যের কার্নিভাল, ‘Avengers, assemble’-এর উদাত্ত আবাহন – সমস্ত দর্শকের হলভর্তি প্রতিক্রিয়া নিয়ে অধিকতর সত্য হয়ে ওঠে।

কিন্তু আজ, যখন পর্দায় কিচ্ছু নেই, তখন কী নিয়ে থাকবে দর্শক? অ্যাডামাস বিশ্ববিদ্যালয়ের বাংলা বিভাগের একটি ওয়েবিনারে সাহিত্যিক সম্রাজ্ঞী বন্দ্যোপাধ্যায় এরকমই একটা প্রশ্নের উত্তরে বলেন, ‘কন্টেন্ট’। এখানেই লুকিয়ে আছে লকডাউন পরবর্তী সিনেমা জগতের মূল সূত্র। মানুষ এখন হাতের মুঠোয় কিংবা বিছানায় শুয়ে শুয়ে সিনেমা-সিরিজ দেখতে শিখেছে। তার কানে ইয়ারফোন। সে জগৎ থেকে বিচ্ছিন্ন। এই সময়ে সে আর গ্ল্যামার চায় না, জাঁকজমক চায় না। এখন তার প্রয়োজন, একটা ভাল গল্প। নায়কের পেশী বা নায়িকার সৌন্দর্য যখন ছোট ফ্রেমে সীমাবদ্ধ, তখন তা দিয়ে আর তেমন বিভ্রম তৈরি করা যাবে না। ফলে এবার মানুষ অভিনয় দেখবে। দেখবে ‘স্টোরিটেলিং’। দেখবে প্রতিটি শট, আলোর কাজ। তীক্ষ্ণতর কান নিয়ে শুনবে সংলাপ। মন দিয়ে যাচাই করবে, কোথায় যাচ্ছে গল্প। এখন আর তাকে ভোলানো তত সহজ নয়।

পাশাপাশি, এই সময়ে প্রাধান্য পাচ্ছে গল্পে থাকা সূক্ষ্মতর সংবেদন। একজন দর্শকের নীরবতা, চোখ ভিজে আসা, চাপা কষ্ট, আনন্দে মুখ জ্বলজ্বল করে ওঠা, উত্তেজনায় লাফিয়ে ওঠা – এগুলো এখন বেশি গুরুত্বপূর্ণ। মোটাদাগের হাসিকান্না নয়, এখন স্ক্রিপ্টের শক্তি মানুষের মর্মস্থল স্পর্শ করা। সেইমতো লেখা হচ্ছে গল্প। যেসব সিনেমা বা সিরিজে এইসব উপাদান ছিল, কিন্তু চর্চিত হয়নি – তাদের ফিরিয়ে আনছে মানুষ। ওয়েব পোর্টাল, ওটিটি, ইউটিউব, ডাউনলোডিং সাইট ঘেঁটে। নিজস্ব প্রতিক্রিয়াকে আলোচনায় ফেলছে, মিলিয়ে নিচ্ছে অন্যের সঙ্গে।

একদিন সিনেমাহল খুলবে ঠিকই। ফের রুপোলি পর্দা ঝলমলাবে, হাউজফুল হলে বেজে উঠবে প্রোডাকশন হাউজের শীর্ষসংগীত। কিন্তু মানুষের রুচি ততদিনে সূক্ষ্মতায় অভ্যস্ত হয়ে যাবে। ঘরমুখী মানুষ, একটি কোণে কুশন পেতে ‘নেটফ্লিক্স অ্যান্ড চিল’ প্রজন্মের মানুষকে যদি হলে ফেরাতে হয় – তাদের যোগ্য সিনেমা প্রয়োজন। তাদের প্রত্যেককে আলাদা আলাদা করে আবেগে উদ্বেলিত করতে পারে, এমন গল্প, সংলাপ, অভিনয়, ক্যামেরার কাজ প্রয়োজন। না হলে এই খরা কাটিয়ে সিনেমাশিল্প আগের শক্ত মাটি ফিরে পাবে না।

যে কোনও অসময়ের পর মানুষ কিছুটা সময়ের জন্য প্রখর বাস্তববাদী হয়। সে জানে কোনও হিরো তাকে অসুখ থেকে বাঁচাতে আসেনি। সে জানে কারফিউর মধ্যে বেরিয়ে পুলিশের লাঠি খেলে হিরোইনের চোখের রং তাকে সান্ত্বনা দেবে না। সে জানে এখন সত্যিকারের নায়ক-নায়িকারা হাসপাতালে, আপৎকালীন পরিষেবায় ব্যস্ত। সে জানে, কোন গল্প জীবনের। এখন বহুদিন মানুষ রঙিন স্বপ্ন দেখবে না। একটা মানবিক, সংবেদনশীল, মায়ায় ঘেরা পৃথিবীর স্বপ্ন দেখবে। আগামীর চলচ্চিত্রকারদের কাজ সেই স্বপ্নকে অবয়ব দেওয়া। যদি তাঁরা পারেন, তাহলে একদিন ফের উপচে উঠবে হল। একদিন ফের ‘কী খালি মোবাইল দেখিস, চল সিনেমা দেখে আসি’-র আবদার ফিরে আসবে। একদিন ফের স্ক্রিপ্ট পড়ে আমাদের প্রিয় তারকাদের চোখ জ্বলজ্বল করে উঠবে।

আশা রাখি, ঘুরে দাঁড়াবে চলচ্চিত্র শিল্প। সময়ের সমস্ত সংকেত সঠিকভাবে পড়তে পড়তে। কারণ, অন্ধকারের পর আলো খুঁজে পাওয়া ছাড়া আমাদের গতি নেই।

George was not the Blue Eyed Black Boy: Police Brutality and African American Community

The identification of recent case of George Floyd with a class lecture on African American History by one of my students attracted my attention to reevaluate the aspect of police brutality as a tool of oppression and its expression of its effects in the lives of the oppressed people in the works of many African American intellectuals.

African American bodies were always treated like objects of brutality of every genre even medical as expressed in the book by Harriet Washington entitled Medical Apartheid (2007). Adding to this sexual exploitation and toils of slavery were present from the very day the first ship full of slaves embarked on its voyage from a coast of the African continent to touch another coast across the Atlantic ocean, where their dark complexioned bodies would be sold at a high price, to eventually turn slave trading into a hundred percent profitable trade.

Books like Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852) and Cudjo’s Cave (1864) though showcase a sense of mercy by the ‘Whites’ towards their ‘colored’ counterparts yet depict a grotesque picture of violence practiced by the ‘White’ masters upon their slaves.  Both these works have characters of runaway slaves. In numerous autobiographies by the runaway slaves like, A Narrative in the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave (1845), My Bondage and My Freedom (1855), Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom (1860), Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (1861) and so on we get a first hand record and sometimes experience of these brutalities over the bodies of the slaves.

After the abolition of slavery in the era of Ku Klux Klan, lynching and mobbing of African Americans became a common practice in the name of protecting the body of the white woman from the African American male. History has seen many examples of police brutality becoming a part of this practice. Many African American writers of the Harlem Renaissance have questioned and have criticized this brutal practice over the body of the African Americans.

Playwright like Georgia Douglass Johnson protested lynching and mobbing of the African Americans in her plays. One of her famous one act plays is Blue Eyed Black Boy (c.1930). Racist society along with biased police and judiciary system against an innocent ‘Black’ boy occupies the centre state of this play. In this short one act play the playwright has put the power hierarchy on the basis of complexion, present in her contemporary United States of America, under scrutiny.  The end of the play takes the audience to a realization that the birth of the Blue eyed Black boy was also a result of an exploit and his death would also have been the result of a similar brutality.

Jack, the absent protagonist of the play Blue Eyed Black Boy reminds us of various colored victims of police brutality like George Floyd in Minneapolis, Michael Brown in Ferguson, Eric Garner in New York and many more. Such cases also got dramatic and fictitious depictions in various political and court room dramas like Scandal, The Good Wife and so on.

While talking about the victim we ignore the family members who are indirectly and sometimes even directly get affected by such brutalities. In this play Georgia Douglass Johnson has tried to depict the pain suffering and anxiety of the family members of these victims. While looking into the collective aspect of the impact of police brutalities we land up at the conclusion that racial oppression and sexual oppression are not different from each other they get triggered from each other.

Modern feminist scholars tend to identify feminism as a collective movement. In other words it is a movement against injustice of every kind and in support of every victim of any oppression, irrespective of the sex, creed, color, ethnicity or nationality. Modern African American collective feminist movements have kept such collective racial issues at their focal point.

In the year 1970 one such communist feminist Dr. Angela Davis was arrested on account of her association with the protest movement against the wrongful imprisonment of three African American youngsters in Soledad prison of California. These three young men were together referred to as Soledad Brothers. It is interesting to note that the then President of the United States of America Mr. Nixon congratulated the FBI immediately after the arrest of Dr. Davis saying:

“…capture of the dangerous terrorist, Angela Davis.”

History then witnessed a huge movement almost all over the world demanding freedom of Dr. Davis. 

This picture seemed to have remained unchanged even after almost 50 years of Dr. Davis’s arrest. President Trump’s statement regarding the protest movements across the United States of America against the police brutality towards the African Americans gives us a similar picture as he said:

“You’ve got to arrest people, you have to track people, you have to put them in jail for 10 years and you’ll never see this stuff again…,”

These collective movements never remain limited to family and friends but involve the whole community. Sometimes such movements even gather supporters of social justice from every part of the world. The works of various African American writers give us an insight within the complex framework of racial oppression and Black feminist theories. Thus encouraging the study of the intertwined issues of race, gender and class as represented in works of African American authors during different time periods. Interestingly incidents of lynching, mobbing and police brutality remained at the centre of these works. It would not be wrong to consider Anti-lynching plays as an early way to give expression to today’s Black Lives Matter movement.

Anti-lynching plays are the forms of protest theatres which foregrounds the struggle against the white male dominant order of the American society. It would be interesting to note that in the first half of twentieth century both White and Black playwrights were documenting anti-lynching plays. Anti-lynching plays are important references to the public movements protesting the brutality practiced on the Black bodies. Many of these plays highlight the role of both Black and White women in such protests, sowing the seeds of defining feminism as a collective movement.

A painful past is always difficult to reconnect with. But as the well known African American author Toni Morrison has always emphasized on the fact that it is extremely important to stand face to face with the history irrespective of its unpleasantness, otherwise it haunts us. These anti-lynching plays may serve as the historical documentation of the struggle of a community for social justice. Through their works they have developed a collective movement which is still going on.

Current protests all over America can looked upon as an extension of the same protest movements that took place in the past. A literary piece can be banned, people can get killed but ideas and concepts hardly die. These movements have proved that ideas and concepts related to social justice never remain limited to pen and paper. The protests on the streets are the practical reflections of people’s understanding of their history and their identity. It is now setting new dimensions to the race relations in the country.

The apologetic gesture of various government and non government organizations across the nation can actually be read as the joining of voices in favor of social justice around the world. The dialogue between the two races which was always a matter of emphasis of all the social reformers from the very beginning, is probably going to commence very soon. Are we witnessing an important juncture of history? The answer is resting deep in the womb of time.

 

Digital Learning – a paradigm shift in delivering education

In ancient times education was conveyed through Ashram by a Guru-Shisha mechanism. It required the student to stay in the Ashram and the education or the knowledge gained was a continual process. With time the modes of imparting knowledge has changed but the principle remained the same. For knowledge to flow it requires a “teacher” and a “student”. The present education system which is guided by a syllabus and a gradation system needs physical infrastructure such as classroom, laboratories etc. Thus the quantum of people who can receive quality education is limited as the seats are limited. Covid-19 has brought in an era where the seats can be limitless. Thanks to the use of technology for imparting education, known as “Digital Learning”.

Every system has its own process, which makes it sustainable and acceptable to man. The new big question is whether digital learning will be the new system of education or is it just a temporary stop gap arrangement?

Digital learning can solve many problems which has been part of our brick & mortar classroom system for ages.

  • Affordability
  • Outreach
  • Flexible Learning Environment
  • Active and Engaging
  • Unlimited Classroom Capacity

Affordability

The biggest issue that many students face is the lack of opportunities and resources. While some of them discontinue their studies due to monetary issues, others quit. Students who are interested to learn and gather knowledge on different in-demand courses usually face difficulty as traditional coaching centers are not well equipped. Relocating to another city for study requires economic stability which everyone does not possess. In such cases, digital learning comes to the rescue as it does not ask you to travel anywhere to reach your education institution.

Outreach

Digitalization in India led to the development of technologies and provided the students with an opportunity to study through any device at any time. Now, getting 75% attendance marked on the teacher’s register is not essential to get a job; however, being 100% skilled is the pre-requisite for the same. Digital learning ensures that the syllabus must be parallel to global education. Moreover, digital learning is not bounded by geography or time. The digital learning courses are self-paced and learner centric and targets every individual who wants to enhance their knowledge.

Flexible Learning Environment

Live learning events require that those who participate align their schedules to the training calendar.  Digital learning eliminates this because the course can be accessed anytime, anywhere. The combination of multimedia and instructional design can produce a very rich learning experience that is repeatable. Digital learning includes all sort of online technologies.  If some of the tools that allows collaboration and conversation, can be incorporated, knowledge can be captured for future learners. In present education system if you need a refresher, you need to take good notes.  Otherwise, refresher is not possible. That’s not the case with digital learning.  Ideally, you continue to have access to the online content and resources to brush up on what you learned.

Active and Engaging

Learning through the conventional methods becomes a little boring, if done in a monotonous flow. Online learning through the mobile, laptop or tablet makes users more engaged in the learning process. This method is highly dynamic and can be manipulated accordingly to the requirements, timing and priorities hence giving one the ability to develop better learning ability.

Unlimited Classroom Capacity

Digital learning is accessible 24 hours a day. This is very useful option for professionals and other persons who are busy in their day jobs. Managing an online course and work schedule according to the daily routine becomes easier with digital learning. There is no pressure to meet deadlines, etc. Being able to access almost all sorts of information without worrying about the fact that it is going to be a “crowded” environment ensures a better level of understanding and productivity.

To sum up, while there are many advantages in digital learning, slow internet connection sometimes causes disruption. Both physical learning and digital learning can be used to achieve the same goals. Which one you choose depends on the logistics of delivering your training as well as the subject matter being taught. However, in a more and more globalized workplace, live online lessons are becoming an increasingly obvious choice for any professional development program.

History of Medical Awareness: Women’s Health and Education in Colonial India

Introduction

The British discussion on Indian civilization was full of criticism in many ways. The women’s question was very much prominent amongst them because their condition was taken as the symbol of standard and status of a society. The degraded and poor condition of women was marked with many social rituals and superstitions like child marriage, ‘Sati’ System, female infanticide, illiteracy, system of ‘Purdah’ and very importantly the poor condition of health and mortality during child birth due to ignorance of proper medical training. Colonial intervention into Indian cultural space as well as the response it got from and the impact it had on the contemporary Bengali society was noteworthy in terms of women health and medical education.

Causes behind the Poor Condition of Women Health

Women health is a newly born debatable issue in this country. Since time immemorial health condition of women was almost same as of nineteenth century.

  • The treatment was dependent on the indigenous systems of medicine and very limited advancement and modification took place in these systems. Nobody questioned its methods or the way of treatment and never took any interest to raise the issue of poor condition of women health or mortality and thus remained unsolved. The major reason behind that was undoubtedly ignorance about any other better options of treatment. It was only after the western encounter in India people became aware of a second method (Allopathy) which in many ways proved superior to the existing ones. When the global concept of women health care, consciousness of public health and sanitation etc. (including education) brought into this country by different personnel assigned in different projects, the question of poor health condition and mortality of women became prominent. The indigenous people found reason to protect and improve the sate of women health. This was a time when already a trend of spreading education among women was started taking place in Bengal Presidency. It was not at all a simple and trouble-free process, but certainly this ripe condition of the society, had made the process little easy for the medical science to penetrate into the sphere of the ‘protected’ world of women.
  • Another problem was social obstacles or Zenana culture, which was related with good and respectable families. Others, who were out of such social customs, were considered as impure and non-respectful. Social customs became the symbol of elitism and civilized. Thus many upper class and caste families restricted their female members for acquiring medical knowledge.
  • The worst part of purdah system was its restriction in consulting a male doctor during the period of pregnancy. Messages were forwarded by the husband and servants to the male doctor. If there was a case of cataract operation, the doctor had to remove it through a hole cut in a sheet. The other treatments were more or less done by local midwives including childbirth, where normal deliveries were definitely handled by them, but not the critical cases. Thus there was a huge rate of women and child mortality and untimely deaths
  • The contemporary society restricted women from gaining the benefits of education. Instead of empowering them through education, the society was more conscious to protect the customs and superstitions. Husband’s death was related to literacy of women and co-education in school was also prohibited. There was a fear in the society that education would lead to independent thinking, competition in the workforce, and finally, “disintegration of cultural norms

Medical Education and Awareness

It is true that the Purdah system restricted women from availing the western medical facilities or treatment from a male doctor but in the nineteenth century educated Bengalis as well as Indians started thinking seriously about this condition and gradually women also became conscious for their medical awareness and education. However, it was easy to adopt the readily available advanced western medicine than to re-work on the existing one. The late nineteenth century witnessed an impressive growth in the sphere of women’s medical education. Progressive Brahmo reformers like Durga Mohan Das and Dwarakanath Ganguly were in support of women medical education. Gradually, consciousness increased among people and under the influence of such reformers, their relatives too felt the urge to enroll in the medical classes also, thereby gaining the social acceptance from the larger Bengali society. Dufferin Fund was raised in 1885 to improve women healthcare and impart medical education. Trained midwives were able to reduce women and child mortality and most importantly medicine became a strong profession for women too, which to some extent altered the position of women in the society.

Chandramukhi Basu, a pupil of Native Christian Girls’ School of Dehra, applied for the admission to the Entrance Examination of the University. On 12th May, 1877 it was decided that the Entrance Examination should be the same as for the men but women should examined in a separate place under the supervision of women. In the 1879 for the first time women were permitted to take admission in Indian Universities. Mention may be made of in this connection that the Medical College of Calcutta opened its doors for women medical students for the first time in 1880s. But first woman student Mrs. Kadambini Ganguly was admitted only in 1884. In 1889 Miss Bidhumukhi Bose became the first Indian women graduate from Medical College. But it is noticeable here that Miss Ganga Agarwal was appointed first Indian woman house physician of Medical College in 1934, that means it took 68 years for women to break the overt and covert gender bias in society.

Conclusion:

Historically Bengal Presidency had the first hand advantage of experiencing the implementation of policies by the British Government in every sector. The modern approaches to policy making gave a new shape to the society. But in imparting medical training to the women, it was not Bengal which acted as the pioneer. Madras Presidency played the pioneering role in this field by giving permission to the female students for attending medical classes in Madras Medical College in 1875. However, late nineteenth and the twentieth century witnessed a massive growth of medical education for women. Initiatives came from both the indigenous society and Government sector and thus gradually improved the ruined condition of women health.

References:

Balfour Margaret. I and Young Ruth, The Work of Medical Women in India (British Library)

Forbes, Geraldine, Women in Colonial India: Essays on Politics, Medicine and Historiography, Chronicle Books, New Delhi, 2005

Mukherjee, Sujata Gender, Medicine and Society in Colonial India: Women’s Health Care in Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Century Bengal, Oxford University Press, New Delhi

Trending Job: Data Analyst

Have you ever filled forms for any online mock test? If yes, then you may experience that the website is asking for some basic details of yourself like your name, age, qualification, location etc.

Have you ever bought anything online? If yes, then you must have provided your name, address and payment details.

I guess almost everyone of us has at-least one account in any social networking site or any email service providing site. To open that account you have given facts about yourself like your name, DOB, gender, hobbies etc.

Now the questions which may strike in our mind are where these facts and figures are going into or what those are used for.

These unorganized facts of every user of individual website, which may be shopping website or social networking site or any other email provider site, are known as Data. In our everyday life, whenever you start any online activity, you may experience that you are compelled to provide data regarding yourself.  

Therefore in the definition it can be said that Data is a collection of unorganized facts, likely a number, any word, observation etc. that can be arranged in an organized way so that computer can process.

In general English, data is simply a synonym for information. But in computing purpose data only means machine readable information as opposed to human readable information.

Human Readable vs. Machine Readable information

Human readable information is such kind of information, say for example- an image or a block of text etc., that only human can study and interpret. It may or may not have uniform structure.

On the other-hand, Machine readable information refers to a set of information which can be processed by computer programming. Computer program is a set of instruction that can take machine readable information as an input, and gives us output after processing the input data. Eventually we also call computer program as Software. To maintain uniformity in the performance of those software worldwide, machine readable information must have arranged in some uniform structure.

Classification of Machine Readable information

In computer world we can divide the data into following categories:

Personal Data: It is anything that depicts you. Your DOB, location, email id, phone no etc. all these data are personal data. There are a lot of companies, who collect personal data from various social or shopping sites, to provide you personalized suggestions after analysing those. In many of the cases, these data are also sold to other companies mainly for advertising and competitive research purpose.

Transactional Data: It is a kind of information generated by monitoring and storing every activity of each potential customer who visits those websites. Transactional data helps to plan the marketing strategies.

Web Data: When users search for any information in any search engine, it gives a list of some related websites. The users visit only those websites which are relevant to them, and retrieve information for analysing and frame their marketing strategies. These data accumulatively are called Web Data. It is very much useful for monitoring potential customers, studying the actions of competitors, creating new apps etc.

Sensor Data: It is set of facts which are sensed from physical environment. With the help of IoT (Internet of Things) devices sensor data can be generated to analyse the characteristic behaviour of any physical or anthropogenic events. Say for example- sensors of weather instruments usually record data for various weather components like temperature, relative humidity, wind speed and direction etc., and send those to data center for analysing purpose.

Needs for Data Collection

Data collection is a process of collecting and measuring the information.

  • Data collection helps to study the market scenario.
  • With the help of Data collection process companies are able to track the demand and supply of various commodities.
  • It also helps to adopt new marketing strategies to increase their business revenue.
  • It is very helpful for establishing new start-ups.
  • Data collection also helps student for their research purpose also.

Conclusion

As the importance of Data collection is increasing rapidly in business or research, there are very high demands for data analysts in almost every sector. In the year of 2019, there were almost 97K job positions available for data analysts. Top industries like e-commerce and telecom sectors are hiring data analysts and there has been a noticeable increase in job positions. So it is my suggestion to all aspiring data analysts, opt to study computer science engineering or computer science application in those universities who are providing big data analysis, machine learning in their syllabi. Adamas University is one of those, who is encouraging all data science aspirants by facilitating all the specializations in syllabus. Hope this initiative taken by our university may enhance efficiency of students who want to pursue data science as their career and may widen scope in job market.

Reference site:

  1. https://www.import.io/post/what-is-data-and-why-is-it-important/

2. https://analyticsindiamag.com/study-analytics-and-data-science-jobs-in-india-2019-by-great-learning-aim/

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