Academic literature on the topic 'Rajbonshi'

The Koch-Rajbongshis, an indigenous group tracing its origins to the Pre-Vedic era, have left a profound cultural imprint across India, Nepal, and Bangladesh. This paper delves into their historical significance, focusing on their transition from ancient references like Asurs and Kiratas to the establishment of the Koch Kingdom, which played a pivotal role in the sanskritization of their culture. The study mainly explores the vibrant folk culture of the Koch-Rajbongshis, encompassing diverse forms such as Kushan Gan/Nritya, Kartika Nritya, Goalini Nritya, Hudum Pujar Gaan/Nritya, Baas Nritya, Padmapuran Gaan, and Baashi Puran Gaan. Each of these cultural expressions reflects unique aspects of their societal fabric, religious beliefs, and historical narratives. Through an examination of these folk traditions, this paper aims to highlight the rich cultural heritage of the Koch-Rajbongshis, underscoring their distinct identity in the contemporary era.

AbstractWe examined attitudes towards forest and wildlife among Rabha, Bodo and Rajbongshi communities from three villages in the Chakrashila Wildlife Sanctuary of western Assam, India. The study was conducted through open-ended and structured interviews, focus group discussions, and participatory rural appraisal. The respondents identified availability of forest products, biodiversity conservation and the aesthetic beauty of the forest as the major justifications for the establishment of Chakrashila as a protected area. They also believed that people and wildlife could coexist peacefully, although some respondents did not have a cordial relationship with Forest Department staff. Most respondents were favourably disposed towards the golden langur Trachypithecus geei because it did not harm anybody or damage crops, and because of its shining coat and its exalted status in their religious beliefs. They were antagonistic towards the rhesus macaque Macaca mulatta because of its crop-raiding habits, although they were averse to killing it. Most respondents did not want to relocate because they lacked skills and resources and had associations with the forest, where they maintained sacred groves and observed taboos on hunting and plant resource extraction. Thus, the attitudes of the communities were governed not only by their material needs and priorities but also by their deep-rooted cultural–religious bond with the forest. These matters would benefit from being incorporated into forest management strategies in developing countries.

Abstract Abstract 5113 Background Toto is a primitive Indo-Bhutanese tribe residing in a small enclave called Totopara in the Jalpaiguri district of West Bengal, India. Toto culture and language is totally unique to the tribe, and is clearly distinguished from the neighboring Rajbongshis, Koch or the Bhutanese Sharchop tribes. Totos use to do consanguineous marriage and stay in the same locality even after marriage. Totos are becoming extinct since 1950. Total population of Totos are 1377 (smallest tribe of the world) and it is declining day by day. We noticed that their life span is very short (35-40 years). With a motive to investigate the reason behind it we started our work and got the answers of our queries. Almost 50% of them are carrier of beta Thalassemia, which is a genetic disease and are caused by the mutation of beta globin gene. The objectives of our study are, Materials & Methods After awareness program, 3-4 ml of blood sample was collected from each Toto along with their written consent. On the spot inexpensive NESTROF (Naked Eye Single Tube Red Cell Osmotic Fragility) test was done. After returning to institute we use to do CBC (Complete Blood Count) followed by HPLC (High Performance Liquid Chromatography). DNA was isolated from those samples detected as carrier or patients using the protocol standardized in our lab. Mutation was detected by ARMS (Amplification Refractory Mutation System)–PCR. Conclusion Total individual already screened in the Totopara under the age limit 10- 35 years is 688. Number of Totos and Non-Totos are 628 and 60 respectively. From NESTROFT and CBC result it was revealed that different blood parameters e.g., MCV, MCH, RBC, RDW, Hb% etc of 71% Totos do not match with the normal value and found to be significantly altered. HPLC results show that 51% Totos are carrier of HbE and 20% of them are HbE homozygous. Whereas 97% non-Totos are found to be normal. DNA analysis by ARMS-PCR confirmed the result of HPLC. The percentage of HbE carrier and HbE homozygous is very high among Totos and this is the real cause of their early death. To protect this primitive tribe we have to restrict their marriage between two carriers. For Totos thalassemia carrier detection should be mandatory before marriage. Disclosures No relevant conflicts of interest to declare.

The Matak community is one of the largest communities of Assam. They have a very rich and unique tradition of culture. They have also a very significant history about their origin and identity. The people of Matak community distributed many districts of the state like- Tinsukia, Dibrughar, Sivasagar, Lakhimpur, Jorhat, Biswanath etc. It has tremendous and significant contributions to the socio-culture of the state Assam. The main objective of the study is to explore the socio-cultural aspects of the community as well as the political issues of the community. The present political scenario of Assam politics, especially the electoral politics is largely influenced by the demand for Scheduled Tribe (ST) status by six communities, and frequent agitations launched by them to place their demands in front of the Central Government of India. The Matak community is one among these six communities. The others are Tai Ahom, Chutia, Moran, Koch Rajbongshi and Tea Tribes (Adivasi). This study will attempt to analysis various socio economic features of the Matak community and identity associated issues.

The subject taken up for discussion here is the continuous demand for autonomy and statehood in contemporary Assam. Assam is inhabited by a multiplicity of ethno linguistic groups, both tribal and non tribal, has witnessed many separatist movements regarding ethnicity and autonomy. This resulted in the formation of new states carved out from the hill areas of the earlier composite state of Assam. As a process of change in development results in serious dislocation in the society and raising these issues continuously. The expansion of ethnic identity has captured political institutions and social movements. In the present context, the Bodos, Karbis, Koch Rajbongshis and Dimasas have given impetus to separate statehood and the Bodos have continuously focused on their demands. Among these the paper will focus only on the Bodo movement for separate statehood.

Gender inequality refers to the inequality between men and women in any aspect. Educational Inequality is the unequal distribution of educational attainment including educational opportunities and achievement within a particular region. The educational attainment between men and women always varies in our society. The literacy gap between male and female is not only found in Dhubri district alone but in the state of Assam as well. The educational achievement and work participation of women is less than men in the Dhubri district of Assam. The educational achievement and work participation gap between male and female are very high in the district of Dhubri as compared to the other districts of the state. This is mainly because of various factors such as socio-cultural background of the communities; limited access to high quality education, School environment, lack of awareness etc. The study area is populated by various communities such as Muslims, Bengalis, Rabhas, Garos, Bodos, Rajbongshis etc of which Muslims are the dominant and girls are given less preference in the Muslim society in terms of education for which there is a vast gap in the educational attainment between male and female in Dhubri district. The present study will help in reducing the inequalities, be it in education, work participation, economic upliftment etc. The objective of the study is to understand the factors of inequality between men and women in terms of educational achievement and work participation of the region and also to suggest measures to address the issue

Averrhoa carambola (Star fruit) is a drought resistant edible fruit belongs to family Oxalidaceae. It is native of Malaysia and further cultivation is extended to China, Southeast Asia, India and Northern South America. Star fruit has juicy texture and used in salads, beverages and traditionally it has been used for ayurvedic medicines in India, Brazil and China (Abduh et al. 2023). In early January 2023, we observed the symptoms of raised, more or less circular, orange to dark brown, velvet textured, scattered algal leaf spots (1-4 mm) on the upper surface of A. carambola leaves at College farm, Agricultural College, Aswaraopet (17.252039 latitude, 81.109573 longitude) (Supplementary Fig 1). The disease was observed in 2 hectare model orchard with incidence of 45% causing leaf defoliation and thereby reducing the yield and quality of fruits. Transverse section cutting of algal spots revealed the algal thalli at subcuticular region and causing necrosis of epidermal cells. Sporangiophores (n=20) raised from algal leaf spot were cylindrical, 4 to 5 celled, 200-450 µm long x 8-20 µm wide, and forming a head cell with suffultory cells and sporangia on the top. Sporangia (n=20) were spherical to elliptical, rusty brown and 17.5-29 µm long × 18-23.6 µm wide and the total number of sporangia produced by each sporangiophores varies from 1 to 6. Setae (n=20) were filamentous with three to six celled, 17.5-50 µm long × 2.5-7.5 µm wide (Supplementary Figure 2). In our collection, mature gametangia were not observed. Morphological characters were studied on 20 diseased leaf samples collected from randomly selected five plants. To isolate pathogen, fresh algal thalli (n=5) were scraped from host tissue, surface sterilized (70% alcohol (30 s), 1% sodium hypochlorite (30 s) and sterile distilled water (3 × 60 s), inoculated to trebouxia liquid media and incubated at 25 ± 2 °C with a 12 hours photoperiod for 72 hours (Vasconcelos et al. 2018). The resultant five algal filaments were subjected to PCR amplification. The primer pair PNS1/NS41 was used in a PCR to amplify a fragment of 18S rRNA (Davis and Kaur 2019). The 18S rRNA gene sequences of the algae were compared using the Basic Local Alignment Search Tool (BLAST; http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/Blast/Blast.cgi) showed that our partial sequence had 99.5% similarity to C. virescens (KM020142.1). Hence, it was classified as C. virescens and sequences was deposited in NCBI-GenBank with accession numbers (OR053653, OR243777, OR429406, OR429407 and OR243779). For proving pathogenicity, algal filaments obtained from trebouxia liquid media were inoculated to 6 months old healthy A. carambola plant. Pathogenicity test was negative and typical symptoms could not be produced even up to 150 days of inoculation. In previous studies also, due to difficulty with production of zoospores in synthetic media, Koch's postulates of C. virescens as a plant pathogen has not been demonstrated experimentally (Sunpapao et al. 2017; Sanahuja et al. 2018; Kumar et al. 2019). In the second experiment, zoosporangia spore suspension were prepared from small pieces of algal leaf spot tissue processed in a sterile pestle and mortar and filtered through sterile cheesecloth (Sunpapao et al. 2017). A total of five isolates of zoosporangia spore suspension (1 x 102 to 1 x 104/ml of water) was sprayed on healthy, surface sterilized leaves of A. carambola plants (n=5) until runoff with a handheld airpump sprayer and incubated in green house (T: 25 oC, H: 80%). During the experiment leaves were remain attached to plant (5 days old) and plants were 6 months old grown in plastic pots under controlled conditions. Two plants were inoculated with each isolate and three non inoculated control plants were included. Non inoculated controls were sprayed with sterile distilled water. The pathogenicity experiment was repeated. The initial symptoms were produced 60 days after inoculation and complete algal thalli was observed on 90 days after inoculation, control plants were without any symptoms upto 150 days. Reisolated algal thalli from symptomatic plants were morphologically similar to original algal thalli and molecularly identified as C. virescens (accession number OR067193 and OR243810). Red rust caused by C. virescens is a major algal disease in the world and causing severe leaf defoliation in various horticultural crops viz., Mangifera indica (Vasconcelos et al. 2018), Manilkara zapota (Sunpapao et al. 2017), Psidium guajava (Rajbongshi et al. 2022), Ziziphus mauritiana (Shareefa et al. 2022) and Anacardium occidentale (Dooh et al. 2022). The available literature suggest that, this is the first report of algal leaf spot on A. carambola caused by C. virescens in India. This report extends the range of known pathogens associated with A. carambola plant and serves as a basis for development and implementing disease management strategies.