Covariates of Multiplicity of Risk Behavior Among Injecting Drug Users in Nepal

Drug abuse, needle sharing, and high-risk sexual behaviour are often compounded to increase the risk of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) transmission. This paper analyzes covariates of multiplicity of risk behavior among injecting drug users (IDUs). Findings are based on data from 1471 IDUs following modified time-location cluster sampling across Nepal in 2010–2011. Among Nepalese IDUs, average duration of injecting drugs is 4.4 years with two-fifths initiating it before age 20. Alcohol use is common with two-fifths reporting its daily consumption. Needle sharing is quite prevalent especially among younger and alcoholic IDUs. Further, IDUs practicing needle sharing exhibit rampant multi-partner behavior. Condom use with non-commercial partners is almost 80 %, whereas with intimate partner it is 41 %. Coexistence of needle sharing and unprotected sex enhances STI prevalence (7 %), which is further pronounced among alcoholics (9 %). Working towards risk reduction for IDUs must deal with multiplicity of risk. Interventions should deal with covariates of risk, addressing youth, substance abuse and risky sexual behavior.     

Accommodating Presuppositions Is Inappropriate in Implausible Contexts

According to one view of linguistic information (Karttunen, 1974; Stalnaker, 1974), a speaker can convey contextually new information in one of two ways: (a) by asserting the content as new information; or (b) by presupposing the content as given information which would then have to be accommodated. This distinction predicts that it is conversationally more appropriate to assert implausible information rather than presuppose it (e.g., von Fintel, 2008; Heim, 1992; Stalnaker, 2002). A second view rejects the assumption that presuppositions are accommodated; instead, presuppositions are assimilated into asserted content and both are correspondingly open to challenge (e.g., Gazdar, 1979; van der Sandt, 1992). Under this view, we should not expect to find a difference in conversational appropriateness between asserting implausible information and presupposing it. To distinguish between these two views of linguistic information, we performed two self‐paced reading experiments with an on‐line stops‐making‐sense judgment. The results of the two experiments—using the presupposition triggers the and too—show that accommodation is inappropriate (makes less sense) relative to non‐presuppositional controls when the presupposed information is implausible but not when it is plausible. These results provide support for the first view of linguistic information: the contrast in implausible contexts can only be explained if there is a presupposition‐assertion distinction and accommodation is a mechanism dedicated to reasoning about presuppositions.     

Sikh militants’ terms of discourse: Religion,Khalistan/nation and violence*

ABSTRACT

It is an attempt to understand the terms of discourse of the Sikh militancy that assumed international proportions in the last quarter of the twentieth-century Indian Punjab. Numerous militant organizations emerged during the struggle that individually and collectively articulated their position on issues like religion, nation and violence that formed the bedrock of their movement that may be classified as religious nationalism à la Juergensmeyer. Their views have been culled from booklets, pamphlets, handouts, posters and press statements released from time to time.     

Assessment of the Fiji-Based Condom Social Marketing (CSM) Program

This paper discusses the results of a systematic review of the Condom Social Marketing (CSM) program which was implemented in Fiji by a non-profit organization for a period of 5?years. The CSM program was introduced during a decade when Fiji was recording an escalating number of new Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) infections. The aim of the program was to increase the awareness and utilization of safe sexual practices among the most vulnerable group??the youths??which had reported the highest incidences of sexually transmitted infections. Program assessment revealed that the CSM program had reportedly increased the acceptability, accessibility, and usage of their TRY TiME condoms in Fiji. We conducted a survey on a sample of sexually active people during January?CFebruary 2009 to examine their prevailing level of knowledge about HIV/AIDS, sexual behavior/practices, and risk perception. The results showed that, despite the high level of awareness about HIV/AIDS among survey participants, people did not consistently practice safe sexual behavior and commonly identified themselves as at low risk of acquiring HIV. This paper concludes that more extensive behavior change programs are needed in order to influence people to change their risky sexual practices and reassess their risk perceptions.     

Sikh Youth Coming of Age: Reflections on the Decision to Tie a Turban

In Sikhism, the turban is a sign of adherence to faith and fighting for justice; for Sikh men, it can also be considered essential to manhood (Chanda & Ford, 2010 ). The authors provide an introduction to Sikhism and discuss the turban's importance to Sikhs. Next, they present a self‐reflective case of one individual's experience of the decision to tie a turban and discussion of that case. Finally, the authors discuss implications for counselors.     

Use of Prosocial Word Enhances the Processing of Language: Frequency Domain Analysis of Human EEG

Journal of Psycholinguistic Research - Use of prosocial language enhances human cooperation and harmony. Previous research has shown that talking about helping, sharing and giving to others creates...     

“Socialism of the soul:” Holocaust in Saul Bellow’s The Victim

Saul Bellow wrote his second novel The Victim at the Partisan Review group’s instance. In the aftermath of the Holocaust the PR group advocated the assimilation of the American Jews into mainstream American life for their future safety and prosperity. Keeping in view Bellow’s creative potentials and belief in Marxism/Trotskyism, the PR members asked him to educate the Jews in this matter through his fiction. Bellow treated the subject of Jewish assimilation in an allegorical vein, projecting the idea of universal brotherhood based on common human grounds. Here, a Jew, Asa Leventhal, behaves like a Gentile and a Gentile, Kirby Allbee, like a Jew as victim and victimizer of each other. Their repeated encounters mitigate their racial apprehensions and bring the two closer to each other. Both discover one into the other as his inescapable self, bound by a common human connection. Finally they make peace with each other, projecting Bellow’s allegory of inexorable cosmic kinship—“socialism of the soul”—despite their differences of blood, race and religion.     

Mazhabi Sikhs of Shillong and Guwahati (India)

This paper is a sequel to Himadri Banerjee's earlier study of 2010. It tends to describe the socio-economic profile of the Mazhabi Sikhs settled at Shillong and Guwahati for the last more than a century. These safai karamcharis (sweepers) had been keeping the two cities clean but themselves lived in worst slums. An attempt is made to understand issues of their social networks and survival strategies in a milieu hostile to ‘outsiders’. It is seen what makes them stick together, maintain their ethnic and religious identity and stay connected with Punjab as well.     

Guru Nanak is not at the White House: An essay on the idea of Sikh-American redemption

This article examines the rights-based discourse deployed by Sikh advocacy organizations, the Sikh Coalition and Sikh American Legal Defense & Education Fund, in order to carve an inclusive space within the United States. We interrogate the deep violence of forgetting embedded within this politics that not only sanctions American values and their regulatory might globally, but also integrates the foundational anti-blackness of Western subjectivity into the conceptual structure of Sikhism. Reconsidering these attachments to the American political project and the white-settler state, we argue Sikh organizations fasten Sikhs to ways of life that are inimical to their own flourishing.