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COVID19 Places: India

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This essay scaffolds a discussion of how COVID19 is unfolding in India. A central question this essay hopes to build towards is: If we examine the ways COVID19 is unfolding in India, does "Ind

Class Inequalities, Government Response, Citizen Initiatives

Nishtha
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Covid-19 and class inequalities :

As India Battles Covid, Class Divide is Growing https://www.deccanchronicle.com/opinion/columnists/070520/sanjay-kumar-as-india-battles-covid-class-divide-is-growing.html

 A Pandemic in an Unequal India https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/a-pandemic-in-an-unequal-india/article31221919.ece

 India cannot Fight Coronavirus without Taking into Account its Class and Caste Divisions https://scroll.in/article/956980/india-cannot-fight-coronavirus-without-taking-into-account-its-class-and-caste-divisions

The Lockdown Revealed the Extent of Poverty and Misery Faced by Migrant Workers https://thewire.in/labour/covid-19-poverty-migrant-workers

India's Response to COVID-19 Is a Humanitarian Disaster http://bostonreview.net/global-justice/debraj-ray-s-subramanian-indias-r...

Documentation of Disaster Relief Work :

PM-CARES Fund 'Not a Public Authority', Doesn't Fall Under RTI Act: PMO https://thewire.in/government/pm-cares-fund-not-a-public-authority-rti-act-pmo

 Community volunteers:  

https://www.facebook.com/thejucommune/

Seismic St. Louis

Emily Sekine
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I'm interested in better understanding the ongoing geological processes that shape St. Louis and the Mississippi Valley region. So far, I've been looking into the history of seismicity in the region, focusing on the fascinating but little known history of the New Madrid earthquakes of 1811 and 1812 -- the most devastating earthquakes to have hit the US east of the Rockies. I've also been exploring how St. Louis and surrounding areas are dealing with the possibility of another earthquake occurring in the future. According to one article I read, one of the biggest uncertainties is what would happen to the heavily engineered Mississippi River in the case of another major tremblor. The shaking could break the levees, flooding wide areas along the river and creating cascading effects. The flow of the river might also reverse completely, as occurred during the New Madrid earthquakes.

On these possibilities and the lack of scientific consensus surrounding intraplate seismicity in this zone, see this article in The Atlantic.

On current efforts to create earthquake hazard maps in St. Louis, see this overview on the US Geological Survey site.

For a deeper dive into the history of the New Madrid earthquakes, see this book by historian of science Conevery Bolton Valencius. 

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maryclare.crochiere
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" At just the moment when it seemed that infectious disease was about to be conquered, and that the critical health problems of the industrialized world now involved chronic disease and diseases of lifestyle, experts warned, we were witnessing a “return of the microbe.”"

" The aim of such techniques is not to manage known disease but to address vulnerabilities in health infrastructure by, for example, strengthening hospital surge capacity, stockpiling drugs, exercising response protocols, and vaccinating first responders. Approaches based on preparedness may not be guided by rigorous cost-benefit analysis. Rather, they are aimed at developing the capability to respond to various types of potentially catastrophic biological events."

"Security — the freedom from fear or risk — always suggests an absolute demand; security has, as Foucault wrote, no principle of limitation. There is no such thing as being “too secure.”51 Living with risk, by contrast, acknowledges a more complex calculus. It requires new forms of political and ethical reasoning that take into account questions that are often only implicit in discussions of biosecurity interventions."

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maryclare.crochiere
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The first hand interviews from first responders are compiled in a way that goes through the stories of what heppened, how health information was released and changed. The first repsonder stories are intermixed with testimonies from the EPA workers, showing differences in the science that was found and the press releases disclosing the health concerns. Many tear up upon realizing how their health will hurt their families. The doctors in the area caught onto the trends in poor health and started a monitoring program to make sure everyone got the medical screening and help they needed. The lives of all of the first responders and their families were changed drastically from their public service.

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maryclare.crochiere
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This policy addresses the issue of mental health, a prominent issue in today's medicine. It helps to evaluate treatment facilities, and defines that the burden of caring for young and middle-aged people is one of the states, where as those outside of the specified age range will be covered for mental disabilities by the national government.

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maryclare.crochiere
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Membership is contingent on each state depositing "the necessary legal instruments", and events are held in many different member states, to make educatiuon available all across the world. Those member states control the direction of the agency based on their needs and funding, so it is really self-run to a large degree. Correction to founding question: The IAEA was founded much earlier, in the 1950's to advance knowledge, safety, and peace associated with atomic and nuclear energy. The majority of the world is now involved.

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maryclare.crochiere
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"It is tempting for a medical social scientist to enumerate the cultural beliefs concerning thecause and workings of epilepsy, then compare these with beliefs in other societies. People of course reason about illness, and culture provides the logic of that rationality. I have resisted, however, focusing on the structure of reasoning. The transformation of these narratives and the modes of aesthetic response associated with stories into "beliefs" or "explanation" would be extremely misleading."

"I began this chapter with questions about the relation of "fainting" to "epilepsy" in Turkish culture provoked by Meliha Hanim' s stories about her illness. Through the course of our research it became clear that epilepsy belongs in popular discourse to the larger domain of "fainting." This should come as no surprise, not only because fainting is less stigmatizing than epilepsy in Turkish culture."

"Emine was silent. Her story was told exclusively by those around her."