Goalpara College is an institution of higher learning in western Assam, India. It was established in 1955 with the help and cooperation from local people. At present, it has 16 departments with a total staff strength of 110. It is affiliated to Gauhati University, Guwahati.
India carries a high burden of neglected tropical diseases (NTDs), yet the extent to which essential diagnostic services align with local disease burden across public health facilities remains unclear. We conducted a cross-sectional assessment of diagnostic availability for major NTDs in 332 public health facilities across seven states and one union territory, including sub-centers, primary health centers, community health centers, and district hospitals. Diagnostic availability for malaria, dengue, Japanese encephalitis, chikungunya, lymphatic Filariasis, Leishmaniasis, helminthic infections, and HIV was evaluated using the ICMR National Essential Diagnostics List (2019), and a Diagnostic Readiness Index (DRI) was calculated at the facility, district, and state levels. Big three diseases like tuberculosis, malaria, and HIV are not neglected anymore in terms of funding and research, but their interaction with classic NTDs highlights how these diseases, though different in classification, create a dual burden in vulnerable populations, like in India. Diagnostic readiness increased with higher levels of care but showed limited concordance with disease burden. Malaria diagnostics were widely available across all tiers (mean district DRI: 84.34%), reflecting sustained programmatic prioritization. In contrast, diagnostic availability for dengue (40.36%), lymphatic Filariasis (29.22%), helminthic infections (25.30%), Japanese encephalitis (8.13%), and Leishmaniasis (5.72%) remained low, including in districts reporting substantial disease burden. The greatest mismatch between burden and diagnostic availability was observed at sub-centers and primary health centers, whereas district hospitals showed a more favorable alignment. These findings indicate that essential diagnostic deployment for NTDs in India remains uneven and weakly responsive to epidemiological need. Strengthening burden-informed, decentralized access to point-of-care diagnostics—particularly at peripheral and primary care levels—is critical to improve early case detection, surveillance accuracy, and progress toward national NTD control and elimination targets. Neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) continue to affect millions of people in India, particularly those living in underserved and resource-limited settings. Early and accurate diagnosis is essential for timely treatment, surveillance, and control; however, the availability of essential diagnostic services across different levels of the public health system remains poorly understood. In this study, we assessed the availability of diagnostics for major NTDs across 332 public health facilities, including sub-centers, primary health centers, community health centers, and district hospitals in seven states and one union territory, using the ICMR National Essential Diagnostics List (2019) and a Diagnostic Readiness Index. We found that diagnostic readiness generally increased with higher levels of care but showed limited alignment with local disease burden. Malaria diagnostics were widely available, reflecting sustained programmatic prioritization, whereas diagnostics for dengue, lymphatic filariasis, helminthic infections, Japanese encephalitis, and leishmaniasis were markedly limited, even in areas with substantial reported burden. The largest gaps were observed at peripheral and primary care facilities, which are often the first point of contact for vulnerable populations. Our findings highlight a critical mismatch between disease burden and diagnostic deployment for NTDs in India. Strengthening decentralized, burden-informed access to point-of-care diagnostics—especially at sub-centers and primary health centers—could improve early case detection, enhance surveillance accuracy, and support more effective control and elimination efforts. This study provides policy-relevant evidence to guide health system strengthening and equitable diagnostic access for NTD-endemic regions.
Anthropogenic activities, driven by traditional practices, are devastating natural forests in tropical countries. The local government rehabilitates natural habitats through monoculture plantations, altering their structure and composition. This is affecting local biodiversity severely. A study was conducted in the Sialsuk community reserve forest and in the plantation forest site in Mizoram, India, to assess the impact of habitat change on avian diversity. The vegetation composition of the reserve forest included 23 tree species, diversity H = 2.669, and the average tree density was 0.057/m². In the plantation site, vegetation composition included seven tree species with a tree density of 0.04 trees/m², and tree diversity (H=0.708), which was very low. Avian diversity in a reserve forest site was represented by 32 bird species that belong to 8 taxonomic orders. The order Passeriformes was represented by 24 species of birds. Avian diversity in the plantation forest site was represented by one taxonomic order (Passeriformes) and three species of birds. Ten percent fewer bird species were recorded in the plantation site. A drastic loss of avian fauna was evident due to the practices of altering/changing the natural habitat. The number of feeding groups of birds in monoculture plantation forests was fewer (two) than in natural reserve forests (six). The same could also be true for other faunal groups in the region. The study suggests that to attract more bird species in non-reserve forest areas, the plantation activity should focus on multi-culture species so that it can provide a canopy stratum, multiple niches, resources for food, shelter, and nesting. That will enrich the biodiversity, including avian diversity, in the region.
Parkinson’s disease (PD) is driven by early α-synuclein (α-syn) misfolding and aggregation that precede neuronal loss and clinical motor manifestations. Despite growing mechanistic understanding, current treatments fail to modify disease progression. This review focuses on translational insights linking α-syn pathology to dysregulated stress-response and protein quality-control pathways, intending to identify potential targets for disease-modifying intervention. Emerging evidence indicates that α-syn accumulation reflects the convergence of oxidative stress, mitochondrial dysfunction, neuroinflammation, and impaired proteostasis. Translational studies increasingly implicate failure of the autophagy-lysosomal pathway, chaperone-mediated autophagy, and the ubiquitin-proteasome pathway as key limitations to α-syn clearance. Regulatory nodes, including HSP70, Beclin-1, Nrf2, the sigma-1 receptor, GSK-3β, and dopamine transporter-mediated dopamine handling, have been shown to modulate neuronal stress tolerance and vulnerability. Importantly, several of these pathways are pharmacologically tractable, with preclinical and early translational evidence supporting their modulation to reduce α-syn burden and dopaminergic degeneration. By integrating molecular pathology with the regulatory networks controlling cellular resilience and proteostasis, this review highlights promising therapeutic nodes with translational potential. Targeting these convergent pathways offers a rational strategy to overcome pathogenic complexity and develop early, mechanism-driven interventions. Such insights may accelerate the discovery and translation of disease-modifying therapies for PD and related α-synucleinopathies.
In this work, we investigate fully nonlinear, arbitrary amplitude ion-acoustic (IA) solitary waves in a magnetized, collisionless plasma composed of inertial warm fluid ions and non-Maxwellian electrons obeying a kappa-deformed Kaniadakis distribution. To study these arbitrary amplitude IA solitary waves, the governing plasma model equations are reduced to a single energy-integral using the Sagdeev pseudo-potential method. The conditions required for the existence of IA solitary waves are examined numerically. Moreover, the regions of existence of IA solitary waves are identified in terms of key plasma parameters, including propagation obliquity, magnetic field strength, Mach number, ion temperature, and the electron deformation parameter. The influence of these parameters on the Sagdeev potential and the soliton profiles is also analyzed. This study is particularly relevant to ongoing investigations of generalized entropy frameworks in plasma physics.
Since weakly conducting and highly viscous fluid flows are very common in petroleum and polymer chemical engineering processes, in this article, the significance of the Darcy number on the breakdown of a double-diffusive convection is investigated inside a long horizontal porous channel with the effects of viscous dissipation. It is assumed that the bottom wall of the channel is adiabatic, and the top wall is isothermal. The Brinkman-extended Darcy model is used in the momentum equation of the governing flow through the porous layer. In the stability analysis, arbitrarily oriented oblique roll disturbances are encountered. It is shown that the most significant instability is in the longitudinal rolls (when P=0 or δ=π/2), with the axis parallel to the main flow direction. The obtained eigenvalue problems for both the rolls have been solved by the bvp4c technique in MATLAB. The impacts of the viscous dissipation parameter (ξ) and the Darcy number (Da) on the instability mechanism are examined in addition to the controlling parameter, the solutal Rayleigh number R. Furthermore, the contribution of the Brinkman model is also discussed on the onset of convection for several values of the viscous dissipation parameter and the flow conditions close to the limiting situation of a clear fluid. It is observed that the Darcy number has a stabilizing effect, whereas the viscous dissipation destabilizes the flow.
