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ItemOpen Access
Indo-Bhutan trade relations 1774-1907
(University of North Bengal, 1991) Sen, Suparna,; Misra, B P,
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ItemOpen Access
A study of the legal framework for accountability of individuals for crimer against humanity and the role of the international law enforcement agencies.
(University of North Bengal, 2014) Ghosh, Satarupa; Chakraborty, Gangotri,
The principle that individuals are and can be held criminally accountable for violations of the laws of war dates back to many years. However, it was only after World War II and the Nuremberg and Tokyo trials, set up to judge those German and Japanese military leaders accused of serious crimes during the war, that the idea of individual criminal responsibility for serious breaches of international law gained ground. In this thesis an attempt has made to trace the evolution of individual’s responsibility for crime against humanity, the present legal framework in national and international level and the role of various law enforcement agencies to deal with the problem. Evolution of the Problem: History is witness to the fact that wherever an individual or groups of individuals have become powerful, they have flagrantly tortured the weak and the defenseless. Even where power is legitimated and turned into a legally valid authority, abuse of power and torture of the weak and the defenseless has continued. In this back drop considerable legal mechanism has developed for the exercise of such raw power. An international crime has been broadly defined as “an act universally recognized as criminal, that is, an act that is considered a grave matter of international concern and for some valid reason cannot be left within the exclusive jurisdiction of the state that would have control over it under ordinary circumstances”. Crimes against humanity now are established as jus cogens norms and are implicitly recognized as such in the preamble of the Hague Convention, which served to codify the customary law of armed conflict. Unfortunately, despite several attempts for fixing liability to the individuals who have committed crime against humanity and subjecting them to trials like Nuremberg trials and Tokyo trials the legal framework for fixing liability to individuals guilty of the act of committing crime against humanity to this day remains obscure and vague and ad hoc mechanisms are used to settle such cases. In the face of recent developments in countries like Libya, Egypt, Iraq the lack of legal framework to deal with such matters has become a cause for international concern. The main thrust of this work is to study the existing legal framework for determination of individual’s accountability for the crime against humanity and to propose changes into the existing framework. Hypothesis There is insufficient legal framework for the control and regulation and for fixing liability on the individual for committing crime against humanity and the present mechanism works through international ad hoc tribunals internationalized or mixed tribunals, the International Criminal Court as well as national courts, military tribunals and ordinary courts which allows any state to try alleged perpetrators, even in the absence of any link between the accused and the state exercising jurisdiction which leads to miscarriage of justice on one hand and multiple trials on the same cause of action on the other hand. Research Questions 1. What is the genesis for global movement for accountability? 2. What are the shortcomings of the present legal framework for accountability of international crime? 3. What is the role of the International Law Enforcement Agencies to provide proper justice to the victims? 4. What are the shortcomings of the institutional mechanisms to prevent the growth and spread of the international crime? 5. What is the concept of global movement towards accountability and what is the scope of its growth? Methodology Having selected the above topic for this research, the work will perforce be based on theoretical doctrinal research. The methodology followed is traditional non-empirical research. Chapter Summary Chapter I: “ACCOUNTIBILITY OF INDIVIDUALS FOR CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY: THEORETICAL AND CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK”. The jurisprudential rooting of the present research work is discussed under this chapter. This chapter also explains the concepts used in this research and international legal theories. Chapter-II: HISTORICAL EVOLUTION OF THE CONCERN FOR CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY AND FIXING OF ACCOUNTABILITY: This chapter discuss about the preliminary concepts of international crimes, such as aggression, genocide, war Crimes and crime against humanity and the historical evolution of crime against humanity, this is also an attempt to establish individual criminal liability for the crime against. Chapter-III: CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY BY INDIVIDUALS: PRE 1945 SPECTRUM: This chapter deals with the scenario of crime against humanity by individuals before 1945. Chapter-IV: CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY BY INDIVIDUALS: A POST 1945 SPECTRUM: This chapter describes the scenario of the framework of the trials of individuals for crime against humanity after World War II (1939-1945). Chapter V: “A ROADMAP OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF LAW ENFORCEMENT AGENCIES FOR DEALING WITH INDIVIDUALS ACCUSED OF CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY”. In this chapter the matter of discussion is about various international law enforcement agencies like International Criminal Court, International Court of Justice, Ad Hoc Tribunals and Hybrid Tribunals. Chapter-VI: “A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF THE INTERNATIONAL AND INDIAN LEGAL FRAMEWORK RELATING TO CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY BY INDIVIDUALS”. This chapter mainly deals with the Indian legal framework and also the various Indian incidents regarding the crime against humanity in comparison with international framework for accountability of individuals for crime against humanity. Chapter-VII: “A STUDY OF INTERNATIONAL PRINCIPLES REGARDING LIABILITY OF INDIVIDUALS FOR CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY IN SELECTED NATIONAL JURISDICTIONS”. The subject matter of this chapter is about the various national laws to combat crime against humanity and the implementation of those laws by the nation states. Chapter-VIII: “INDIVIDUAL LEADER’S LIABLE FOR CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY: A COLLAGE”. In this chapter I have discussed about various specific instances of individual leader’s liability. It is a narrative chapter. Chapter IX: SUGGESTIONS AND CONCLUDING REMARKS: In conclusion it can be summed up that the hypothesis that legal framework for the control and regulation and for fixing liability on the individual for committing crime against humanity is insufficient, has been proved and in this regard certain suggestion has been put in the thesis.
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ItemOpen Access
Reality of the concept of motion : East-West dialogue
(University of North Bengal, 2013) Chattopadhyay, Sudipta; Chakrabarti, Bhaswati B.
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ItemOpen Access
Polydentate ligands and transition metal complexes : photophysics and catalysis
(University of North Bengal, 2013) Pariyar, Anand,; Bandyopadhyay, P; Biswas, A. N.,
A brief overview of polydentate ligands and their metal complexes, with special emphasis on their photophysical and catalytic behaviour, has been made. In this background, the objective, scope, and application of the present investigation have been described in Chapter I. A series of novel polydentate macrocyclic corrole ligands has been synthesized and described in chapter II. The photophysical properties of the newly synthesized family of substituted nitrophenyl free base A2B-corroles have been studied. The metal ion sensing abilities of the free base ligands are explored. The A2B corroles emerge as efficient polydentate fluorophore system for selective Hg(II) ion detection in solution. Among all the corroles, the free base 10-(tridecyloxyphenyl)- 5,15-bis(nitrophenyl)corrole substituted with a long chain has been found to exhibit the highest Hg(II) sensing ability. High guest count (up to three mercuric ions per corrole) with a high association constant is observed. The experimental evidences show that the emission intensity quenches with the addition of Hg(II) ion, initially via metal coordination and subsequently through exciplex formation. This is the first report of exciplex formation of corroles with mercury ions. The results obtained will help to improve the design of sensors for the direct determination of Hg(II) ions present in ultra low concentration. The synthesis and characterization of new iron complex of 5,10,15 tris- (difluorophenyl)corrole have been described in chapter III. The catalytic properties of newly synthesized 5,10,15-tris(difluorophenyl)iron(IV)chloride complex [(tdfc)FeIVCl] with benign tert-butylhydroperoxide as the terminal oxidant has been evaluated. The [(tdfc)FeIVCl] /t-BuOOH system has been found to efficiently catalyze the oxidation of alkanes, alkenes, alkylbenzene and alcohols at room temperature. The homolytic cleavage of the O-O bond of tert-butylhydroperoxide by the catalyst is observed and the oxygenates have been shown to be derived from organoperoxides. The results clearly indicates that the main role of the iron(IV) corrole complex is the activation of alkyl hydroperoxide rather than oxygen atom transfer (OAT). Selective hydroxylation of unactivated C-H bonds of alkanes has also been realized using catalyst [(tdfc)FeIVCl] with m-chloroperbenzoic acid as the terminal oxidant. Chapter IV describes iron-corrole complex 5,10,15-tris(pentafluorophenyl) iron(IV) chloride [(tpfc)FeIVCl] catalyzed epoxidation of olefins in ionic liquid [BMIM]PF6 medium at room temperature with different terminal oxidants. For the first time, metallocorrole catalyzed epoxidation of a series of conjugated and nonconjugated olefins has been undertaken in ionic liquid ([BMIM]PF6) medium at room temperature using different terminal oxidants such as t-BuOOH, PhIO and aqueous NaOCl. The product selectivity achieved in ionic liquid medium shows remarkable improvement over those obtained in molecular solvents. The highest product yield is achieved by a biphasic system involving ionic liquid with aqueous NaOCl as the terminal oxidant. The biphasic system provides easy recovery and recycling of the catalysts without any modification of structure. The studies of homoleptic copper dipyrromethene complex has been discussed in Chapter V. The bidentate dipyrromethene complex of Cu(II) has been synthesized. The X-ray crystal structure of [Cu(II)(dpm)2] has been determined. The neutral bis(5- (4-nitrophenyl)dipyrromethene)Cu(II) complex [Cu(II)(dpm)2] is found to undergo ligand centred oxidation process to give [Cu(II)(dpm)2 •+], which has been substantiated by combined experimental and theoretical investigation. The metal bound ligand centred oxidation at high potential is of irreversible nature. The DFT calculation reveals increase in spin density over ligand moiety in the one electron oxidized [Cu(II)(dpm)2] complex, suggesting radical character of the ligand. Complex [Cu(II)(dpm)2] is found to catalyze C-H activation of alkanes and alkenes with tertbutylhydroperoxide at room temperature. The oxidation under ambient condition with benign terminal oxidant clearly indicates the involvement of the ligand based oxidation of [Cu(II)(dpm)2] in catalyzing C-H activation at room temperature. Chapter VI presents the ligand co-opertative effect in metal complex catalyzed oxidation elaborating the role of redox-neutral or redox-innocent cyclam ligand (1,4,8,11-tetraazacyclotetradecane) in C-H bond activation. The chapter describes efficient and selective hydroxylation of cycloalkanes (R-H→R-OH) catalyzed by high spin non-heme iron(III) cyclam complex [FeIII(cyclam)(OTf)2]OTf with hydrogen peroxide under mild condition. Remarkable increase in conversion and selectivity has been achieved by the addition of acid suggesting acid promoted O-O bond heterolysis. The efficient functional model of monoxygenase group of enzyme based on a highspin iron(III) complex of cyclam [FeIII(cyclam)(OTf)2]OTf provides the first example wherein a non-heme iron complex catalyzes alkane hydroxylation with 100% selectivity. The intercalation of cis-[Fe(III)(cyclam)Cl2]Cl (cyclam = 1,4,8,11- tetraazacyclo- tetradecane) complex on smectite montmorillonite K-10 is described in chapter VII. The intercalated solid is fully characterized using powder EDXRF, XRD, TGA, IR and UV-Visible analysis. Complex cis-[Fe(III)(cyclam)Cl2]Cl intercalated into Montmorillonite K-10 emerges as an efficient catalyst for selective hydroxylation (R-H→R-OH) of alkanes using environmentally benign H2O2 at room temperature. Cyclohexane and adamantane are selectively oxidized to their corresponding alcohols with remarkably high turnover number (198 and 265 respectively). Relative reaction without the clay matrix proves that a cooperative effect between the constituents of the intercalated catalyst is responsible for the enhanced selectivity.
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ItemOpen Access
Cytogenetic Divergence in the Indian Pygmy Field Mice Mus terricolor, Blyth of The Dooars and Terai regions of West Bengal
(University of North Bengal, 2013) Rudra, Mahua; Bahadur, Min
The Indian pygmy field mouse Mus terricolor, a chromosomal complex, is the indigenous Mus species of India with chromosome complement, 2n=40. It consists of three distinct karyotypic forms which are designated as Mus terricolor chromosome types I, II and III due to presence of variable number of heterochromatic short arms in homozygous condition. However, all the three chromosomal types invariably possess a large submetacentric X and large acrocentric Y chromosomes. In the light of karyotype divergence with respect to constitutive heterochromatin, only a limited work has been done in this species based on molecular techniques. Therefore, due to lack of substantial data the position of the Indian pygmy field mice is still in controversy in the phylogenetic relationship of the genus Mus. In the present study, a multidimensional investigation based on chromosomal, allozyme and mitochondrial DNA analyses have been carried out on ten populations of M. terricolor from Terai and the Dooars regions of West Bengal, India. The M. terricolor specimens were collected from Alipurduar (APD), Rahimabad (RBD), Kumargram (KGM), Cooch Behar (CBH), Maynaguri (MNG), Malbazar (MLB) and Nagrakata (NGK) in the Dooars and Naxalbari (NXL), Bidhan Nagar (BDN) and Garidhura (GDH) in Terai. The populations were designated with three letter abbreviation based on the place of collection shown in parentheses. A total of 1600 specimens were collected from ten populations and were chromosomally analysed to confirm the karyotype. Chromosomes in the karyotype have been grouped into A,B,C and D. Out of 1600 specimens, 12 were Mus booduga and rest of the specimens were found to be M. terricolor type I. Cytogenetic Study Heterochromatin and C-banding Cytogenetic analyses using C and NOR-banding techniques showed intra and interpopulation variation of C-positive heterochromatin and Ag-NORs. Centromere of autosomes, short arm and distal telomere of X-chromosomes and the entire Y were found to be C-banded. Variations have been recorded in the size of the C-band positive centromeric heterochromatin ranging from very large to minute and even absent in some cases. Very large blocks of centromeric C-bands were found in few D group chromosomes either in homozygous or in heterozygous condition in all populations. Individuals of BDN, GDH, MLB, NGK and MNG had large blocks of centromeric heterochromatin in most of the autosomes, while NXL, RBD, APD, KGM and CBH populations have prominent large blocks of C-bands in few autosomes only. A few autosomes in RBD, MLB and NXL populations were found to have hardly detectable centromeric C-bands. In NXL autosome 16 was found to be C-band negative in homozygous condition. Short arm of X-chromosomes revealed intense C-banding in the individuals of RBD, KGM, NGK, CBH and APD populations, whereas, it was faintly stained in individuals of MNG, MLB, NXL and BDN. X-chromosome in one female individual of GDH showed telomeric C- band in heterozygous condition. Interestingly, a few individuals of NXL and BDN showed a discrete localization of heterochromatin on the short arms of X-chromosomes showing segmental localization. The entire Y chromosome was found to be C-banded in all populations with variation in the banding intensity. Besides variation in size of centromeric heterochromatin the results also suggest that M. terricolor has a trend of accumulation of heterochromatin in both autosomes and sex chromosomes which is a recently evolved trait in rodents and specifically in the genus Mus. Intra and inter population variation in size of Cpositive heterochromatin suggests that heterochromatin play a significant role in genetic differentiation and karyotype evolution of these populations. Nucleolar Organizing Regions (NORs) and Ag-NOR banding M. terricolor possesses large number of Ag-NOR sites distributed in different chromosomes. The NOR bands were categorized as major, minor and diffused NORs according to the size of band and characteristic of silver deposition. Major Ag-NORs were found to be present in centromeric or pericentromeric region on most of the autosomes in APD, RBD, in some individuals of NXL and MNG populations. Other populations showed major Ag-NORs on few autosomes only, while it was absent in GDH population. Excessively large and broad Ag-NOR band was found in some individual of RBD and in one individual of NGK in the autosome 9 in heterozygous condition. The minor NOR bands were found to be present only on few pairs of autosomes of APD, KGM, NXL, BDN, and GDH populations, while NGK population consistently showed minor NORs in all autosomes including one individual with excessively large NOR on autosome 9. Other populations showed minor NORs in most of their autosomes except MNG where minor NORs were not detected. Both X and Y chromosomes consistently showed minor NORs in all populations. Diffused NORs were present in most of the autosome in all population except MNG, NGK and RBD. Ag-NOR banding revealed polymorphism both at intra and inter-population level. The intra-population variation showed that the homologs of the pairs differed not only in the deposition of silver but also showed differences in position and number of Ag-NOR sites in the same individual. Though variations exist among populations in distribution of Ag-NORs, however, multichromosomal location of NORs was found to be a common feature in all population. Genetic polymorphism in Mus terricolor Genetic analyses were carried out on ten allozyme/ protein loci, i.e. Alb-1, Prealb-B, Est-5, Trf, LDH-A, LDH-B, Mdh-1, Mod-1, GOT-1 and Idh-1. A total of 30 alleles were delineated for ten loci studied, out of which 15 were found to be shared by all populations in different frequencies and the rest were fixed in one or other populations. The Terai populations showed uniformity in allele frequeny, with a high rate of fixation of specific alleles such as Trfb, Est-5b, Ldh-bf, Mdh-1a and GOT-1b. Genetic polymorphism was estimated based on percent polymorphic loci (P), heterozygosity (H) and effective number of alleles (AE). All populations were highly polymorphic in terms of P ranging from 60 to 100% with slight differences of mean effective number of alleles (AE) between Terai and the Dooars regions. Alb-1, Mdh-1, Mod-1 and Idh-1 showed higher observed heterozygosity (HO) in most of the populations. The mean HO have been found to be spread over a lowest value of 0.2950 ± 0.4020 to a highest value of 0.4917 ± 0.2732. Moreover, Terai populations showed higher mean HO compared to the Dooars populations, however, HO is less than expected in all population except APD. Genetic structure of population was also determined by estimating FST, FIT and FIS values. Mean FST for the Dooars, Terai and total population (Terai and Dooars together) were 0.1552, 0.0295 and 0.1246, respectively which indicates that at least 12% of the total variability of all populations is attributable to divergence between populations. A positive FIT value in the Dooars populations at most of the loci indicated the dominancy of homozygotes, while Terai populations showed excess of heterozygote at least at four loci i.e. Alb-1, Prealb-B, Mdh-1 and Idh-1. FIS, a measure of random mating, was positive for most the loci of Terai and the Dooars populations indicating slight heterozygote deficiency. Gene flow is another factor to measure genetic structure. The average gene flow among different populations of Terai, Dooars and all population (Terai and Dooars together) were estimated to be 8.2197, 1.3607 and 1.7563, respectively. The values revealed that the gene flow is operating but cannot be considered sufficient to homogenize all population. Therefore, variability exists in sufficient degree. Allele frequencies were used to estimate the Nei’s Genetic Identity (I) and Genetic Distance (D). M. terricolor MLB and NGK from Dooars and NXL and BDN of Terai showed 99% and 97.4% similarity (I), respectively. Out of 45 pair wise comparisons, 62% of total I-values were found to be ranging from 0.9 to 1.0, 24.4% were between I values 0.76 to 0.9 and 13% were between 0.61 to 0.75. The genetic distance values ranged from a minimum, D=0.0139 between MLB and NGK to the maximum D=0.5023 between RBD and APD in the Dooars populations, while a minimum D=0.0266 was found between BDN and NXL populations from Terai which was slightly higher than the minimum genetic distance value for Dooars population (D=0.0139). The RBD population showed a lower D values 0.0916 and 0.0940 with two distantly situated populations NXL and BDN, respectively while KGM relatively closer population to RBD showed genetic distance value within the same range, 0.0975 as shown by distantly situated populations. The geographic distances and genetic distances do not show any correlation. Dendrogram based on genetic distance matrices showed three major groups of cluster. The populations MLB, NGK, MNG and CBH formed group I, the populations NXL, BDN and GDH of Terai were clustered in group II and RBD and KGM were in group III. APD appeared as an outgroup. Moreover, a high level of heterozygosity indicating greater genetic polymorphism in the populations of terricolor may be due to different evolutionary factors acting separately or in combination. Study of mitochondrial DNA Control region and flanking tRNA genes of mtDNA were PCR amplified and sequenced for analysis. The total sequences were analysed in two parts i) The sequence spanning 15338-15577 (CR I) is the part of control region comprising Hypervariable Region I (HVR I) with flanking Proline tRNA gene and the intermediate region and ii) The sequence spanning 16132-00066 (CR II) of the control region which contains the part of Hypervariable Region II (HVR II) and the Phenylalanine tRNA gene. The mtDNA sequences representing from all populations of M. terricolor were compared with the mtDNA sequence of M. m. domesticus (#AY172335) as reference. Comparisons were done on the basis of transition, transversion and insertion-deletion. HVR II was found to be more polymorphic than HVR I in terms of base substitution. Transversions were more frequent in interspecific comparison than interpopulation comparison of M. terricolor. In comparisons with other populations of M. terricolor the mtDNA sequence of MLB, NGK and GDH showed a higher rate of transversion type of base substitution, which reflects that these populations are more diverged than other populations. Overall nucleotide diversity (π) ranges from 0.011 to 0.566 among terricolor populations. A comparison between M. m. domesticus and NGK, MLB and GDH populations showed comparatively higher nucleotide diversity, π = 0.494, 0.467, 0.347, respectively. The level of inter population sequence (nucleotide) divergence between Terai and Dooars populations revealed that MLB-NGK and MLB-GDH are highly diverged showing π = 0.566 and 0.428, respectively. Dendrograms were constructed based on mtDNA sequence data using UPGMA, Neighbour joining (NJ) and Maximum Parsimony (MP) methods. Out of the three phylogenetic trees, the tree obtained by UPGMA showed higher bootstrap value for maximum branches than NJ and MP dendrograms and was considered for analysis of the result. The dendrogram revealed that APD was clustered with CBH, a nearby population and the RBD with BDN, geographically distant populations with a high bootstrap value of 75%. NGK and MLB appeared as out groups. The clustering of populations based on mtDNA showed limited concordance between dendrograms and geographical distance. This discontinuity in the distribution of mtDNA may be explained in terms of ancestral polymorphism and gene flow.