IIT Madras is a public technical and research university located in Chennai, Tamil Nadu. Founded in 1959, it is recognised as an Institute of National Importance.

IIT Madras has been ranked as the top engineering institute in India for four years in a row by the National Institutional Ranking Framework of the MHRD

It currently offers undergraduate, postgraduate and research degrees across 16 disciplines in Engineering, Sciences, Humanities and Management. About 596 faculty belonging to science and engineering departments and centres of the Institute are engaged in teaching, research and industrial consultancy.

IIT Madras

The political trajectory of the Indian Union Muslim League in Kerala displays a unique engagement of religion-based political mobilisation of Muslims with secular-democratic politics in India. In the contemporary context of aggressive Hindutva politics, the Muslim League is faced with the dual challenge of resisting majoritarian communalism while simultaneously countering new mobilisations from within the community that are based on a radical Islamic identity, but deploy explicitly secular discourses. A critical appraisal of this situation requires moving beyond the pre-occupation with the formal aspects of secularisation and instead arrive at more substantive conceptions of "being secular" that embrace deeper commitments to secularism, such as plurality and toleration. © 2020 Economic and Political Weekly. All rights reserved.

Department of Humanities and Social Sciences

World University root node

Economic and Political Weekly

Muslim league in Kerala: Exploring the question of 'Being secular'

We examine the competing processes of ethnicization taking place among Hindu and Muslim religious communities in the coastal region of Karnataka state in South India in the broader context of hegemonic ascendancy of Hindu nationalism in the country. We describe how an array of militant Hindutva organizations use an institutionalized system of religious vigilantism and violence against minorities to construct an ethnicized, exclusivist moral community of Hindus in the region. This construction of an ethno-Hinduism by a clever depoliticizing of caste inequalities and violence seeks to produce and naturalize religious difference into an incorrigible and exclusivist ethnic identity that thrives on a continuous process of enemy-making. Responding to this predatory ethnicization executed by militant Hindutva organizations, and capitalizing on the pervasive sense of alienation and anxiety of the Muslims in the region, radical Islamic organizations engage in a counter-predatory ethnicization of Muslim communities in the region. These organizations, while officially articulating secular positions, use the language of self-defence and securitization, coupled with radical Islamic identity for mass mobilization, to create an exclusive Islamic moral community, often mirroring the tactics of Hindutva vigilante organizations. We conclude that these competing processes of ethnicization of religious identities and the emergence of a ‘vigilante public’ will have far-reaching consequences for the central facets of democracy such as citizenship and secularism while leaving the socio-cultural spaces in coastal Karnataka highly polarized on religious lines and peaceful co-existence of religious communities challenging and undesirable. © The Author(s) 2020.

Ethnicities

Ethnicization of religion in practice? Recasting competing communal mobilizations in coastal Karnataka, South India

This paper examines the historical development, growth, and contemporary articulations of the Bhumihar caste associations in Bihar by focusing on their relationship with land, political economy, and ideological orientations. As a landowning upper caste, the Bhumihars negotiated with a host of structural as well socio-political transformations in the state primarily by constructing the self-image of a warrior caste holding a Brahmin status. The paper in particular examines the impact of land reforms, violence unleashed by the Bhumihar caste militia during the agrarian unrest and the rise of Backward Caste mobilisation followed by the Hindutva mobilisation on the changing articulation of the Bhumihar caste associations. The paper also focuses on the emergence of the Bhumihar middle class and points out that through a visible process of culturalisation, the Bhumihars are able to maintain their exclusivity and purported superiority in the contemporary Bihar society even while upholding the mantle of Hindutva unity along with other lower castes. © 2020 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Department of Aerospace Engineering

Journal of Historical Sociology

Associational Structures and Beyond: Evolution and Contemporary Articulations of Bhumihar Caste Associations in Bihar, India

Oily sludge on the floor of the tank is a significant problem for petrochemical industries and floor inspection robots. Oily sludge is a hazardous material containing a complex mixture of hydrocarbon, water, sand, and minerals deposited on the floor of the oil storage tanks. Sludge accelerates corrosion, reduces storage capacity, sticks to floor inspection robots and disrupts further tank operations Industries have started deploying robots in a tank to automate and replace the hazardous manual tank tasks. This paper presents the design of a screw conveyor based sludge cleaning mechanism to clean the sticky sludge from the floor of aboveground oil storage tanks and interface effectively with tank inspection robots to perform cleaning and inspection synchronously. The cleaning mechanism consists of a screw conveyor mounted on a 'C' shaped case with a bearing on both sides, a waterproof motor connected to the screw conveyor with a worm-wheel gear. A Rheometer is used for measuring sludge properties to understand its flow behavior. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) based numerical simulation is performed to visualize the flow of oily sludge through the proposed cleaning mechanism.

Department of Mechanical Engineering

AIR 2019: Proceedings of the Advances in Robotics 2019

Design and Simulation of a Tank Floor Cleaning Mechanism for Mobile Robots used in Storage Tanks

Set in the context of the development of bioinspired robotics systems, this paper seeks to understand the influence of the choice of the flapping orientation of fins on the propulsive performance of small underwater vehicles. In particular, the thunniform mode of Body and/or Caudal Fin (BCF) propelled systems is studied. This research is motivated by the fact that not much literature is available on the influence of flapping orientation of marine organisms and a number of mechanisms are found in nature. Dorso-ventral flapping with a positive metacentric height is shown to yield better self-stabilizing effects and lesser energy consumption compared to sideways flapping. Moreover, with dorso-ventral flapping, the choice of metacentric height could lead to the possibility of adjusting the body's rotational oscillation amplitudes to positively affect the downstream fluid interactions for the caudal fin. This is not possible with sideways flapping where the designer would be forced to change the flapping kinematics or the body shape in the sagittal plane, to adjust the body oscillation amplitudes. While the main body of results are obtained using simulations for underwater vehicle dynamics with coefficients of the REMUS underwater vehicle, stability analysis for a generalised case is also presented.

Department of Engineering Design

Numerical Study on Swimming Performance Based on Flapping Orientations of Caudal Fins for Bio-robotic Systems

In this paper, we reflect on the caste-violence perpetrated on lower castes by Bhumihars, one of the dominant castes in Bihar, India, as it indicates their complex relationship with important socio-economic and political issues such as land relations, identity assertion and socio-economic differentiation, among others. We also pay attention to ideological and moral constructs embedded in the narratives about Bhumihars, which provides legitimacy to their violence. Several narratives and personal interviews have been incorporated in our analysis along with a broader mapping of Bhumihars’ historical engagement with violence as a form of caste assertion and its changing character in the contemporary era marked by ‘backward-caste’ mobilisation and the rise of Hindu right-wing politics in Bihar. Our critical study traces these historical trajectories and points to a decisive shift from Bhumihars’ engagement with direct violence towards a more subtle and symbolic form of violence, often masquerading as their articulation and expression of caste identity. © 2019, © 2019 European Sociological Association.

European Journal of Cultural and Political Sociology

Exploring the changing forms of caste-violence: A study of Bhumihars in Bihar, India

Cation-π interactions are known to be important contributors to protein stability and ligand-protein interactions. In this study, we have analyzed the influence of cation-π interactions in single chain 'all-alpha' proteins. We observed 135 cation-π interactions in a data set of 75 proteins. No significant correlation was observed between the total number of amino acid residues and number of cation-π interactions. These interactions are mainly formed by long-range contacts and there is preference of Arg over Lys in these interactions. Arg-Phe interactions are predominant among the various pairs analyzed. Despite the scarcity of interactions involving Trp, the average energy for Trp-cation interactions, was quite high. This information implies that the cation-π interactions involving Trp, maybe of high relevance to the proteins. Secondary structure analysis reveals that cation-π interactions are formed preferrably between residues, in which at least one of them, is in the secondary structure of alpha-helical segments. Among the various types of folds of 'all-alpha' proteins considered for the analysis, proteins belonging to alpha-alpha superhelix fold have the highest number of cation-π interaction forming residues. © 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Department Of Biotechnology

Journal of Theoretical Biology

Role of cation-π interactions in single chain 'all-alpha' proteins

Protein–DNA recognition plays a crucial role in gene expression and regulation. In this work, we have analyzed the influence of cation–π interactions to the stability of 62 protein–DNA complexes. A new criterion has been formulated to delineate the cation–π interactions based on (i) the distribution of atoms in the π system (5 and 6-member rings) of DNA bases around the positive charged atoms of Lys and Arg and (ii) the energetic contribution of contacting atoms from electrostatic and van der Waals interactions. Our method shows the presence of cation–π interactions in 92% of the complexes. The side chain of Arg is more likely than that of Lys to be in cation–π interactions. In both Lys and Arg, the cationic groups have stronger cation–π interaction energy than the atoms with effective positive charge. The aromatic chains of purines (A and G) are exhibiting more cation–π interactions than pyrimidines (C and T). The Arg-G pair has the strongest interaction energy of −4.3&nbsp;kcal/mol among all the possible pairs of amino acids and bases. The interaction energy is always positive for T and we observed few favorable interactions with C. Further, we found that the cation–π interactions due to 5-member rings of A and G are stronger than that with the atoms in 6-member rings. The distribution of base atoms around the charged atoms shows that the N7 in the 5-member ring of G is making significant number of close contacts with NZ of Arg, which is important to establish dominant cation–π interactions.

Polymer

Influence of cation–π interactions in protein–DNA complexes

Cation-π interactions play an important role in the stability of protein structures. In this work, we have analyzed the influence of cation-π interactions in DNA binding proteins. We observed cation-π interactions in 45 out of 62 DNA binding proteins and there is no significant correlation between the number of amino acid residues and number of cation-π interactions. These interactions are mainly formed by long-range contacts, and the role of short and medium-range contacts is minimal. The preference of Arg is higher than Lys to form cation-π interactions. The pair-wise cation-π interaction energy between aromatic and positively charged residues shows that Arg-Tyr energy is the strongest among the possible six pairs. The structural analysis of cation-π interaction forming residues shows that Lys, Trp, and Tyr prefer to be in the binding site of protein-DNA complexes. Further, the accessible surface areas of cation-π interaction forming cationic residues are significantly less than that of other residues. The preference of cation-π interaction forming residues in different secondary structures shows that Lys prefers to be in strand and Phe prefers to be in turn regions. The results obtained in the present study will be useful in understanding the contribution of cation-π interactions to the stability and specificity of protein-DNA complexes. © 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

International Journal of Biological Macromolecules

Structural analysis of cation-π interactions in DNA binding proteins

Elucidating the factors responsible for exhibiting extreme thermal stability of thermophilic proteins is very important for an understanding of the mechanism of protein stability, as well as to design stable proteins. In this work, we have analyzed the influence of cation-π interactions to enhance the stability from mesophilic to thermophilic proteins. The favorable residue pairs forming such a system of interactions have been brought out. We found that the Tyr has a greater number of such interactions with Lys in thermophilic proteins. Specifically, the same Lys would experience a greater number of cation-π interactions with several Tyr residues in thermophiles. On the other hand, the influence of Phe in making cation-π interactions is higher in mesophiles than in thermophiles. Further, a network of cation-π interactions are maintained by Lys in thermophiles, whereas Arg plays a major role in mesophilic proteins. Moreover, atoms that have a substantial positive charge in both Lys and Arg make a more significant contribution for cation-π interactions, than do cationic group atoms.