Surveys on the prevalence of various intestinal parasitic infections in different geographic regions is a prerequisite for developing appropriate control strategies. The aim of the present study was to determine the prevalence of intestinal parasitic infections in schoolchildren enrolled in various schools in Srinagar City, Kashmir, India, and to assess epidemiological factors associated with the extent of endemic disease. Stool samples were collected from 514 students enrolled in 4 middle schools. The samples were processed with the use of both simple smear and zinc sulphate concentration methods, and then microscopically examined for intestinal parasites. Of the 514 students surveyed, 46.7% had 1, or more, parasites. Prevalence of Ascaris lumbricoides was highest (28.4%), followed by Giardia lamblia (7.2%), Trichuris trichiura (4.9%), and Taenia saginata (3.7%). Conditions most frequently associated with infection included the water source, defecation site, personal hygiene, and the extent of maternal education. The study shows a relatively high prevalence of intestinal parasites and suggests an imperative for the implementation of control measures.

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Muslim identity like any other identity is discretely constituted, defined by language, religion, caste, class, sect and numerous other diverse roles. Such an understanding largely seems to have eluded the public philosophy of the post-colonial Indian state and what seems to have remained central to it is their exclusive definition in religious terms and an exclusive emphasis on their religious engagements. This paper looks at this external religious definition of the community and identifies this definition in the ‘top-down’ and ‘bottom-up’ identity construction processes and interprets other important developments which have all compounded to shape a separate Muslim identity in India. It analyses the construction of Muslim identity and attempts to understand the separateness that they have exhibited in post-colonial India. The argument follows that Muslim identity in India has been externally defined with an emphasis on religious aspects and that their separateness remains a quintessential result of this external definition.

The debate over 'Differences' and 'Disadvantage' in the Constituent Assembly which has shaped the mainstream political discourse on the abrogation of the preferential treatment policies for the religious minorities represents the de facto narrative of their restriction to the Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Scheduled Tribes (STs). This article shatters this de facto narrative to arrive at an actual one and argues that reservation in the public employment for the religious minorities was not abrogated because they were considered socially and economically less backward than SCs and STs but was abrogated in a surreptitious manner; a manner which did not take cognisance of the nationalist deliberations in the Constituent Assembly and the debate over the 'Differences' and 'Disadvantage', with no particular reflective influence of these deliberations and debates upon the form which the preferential treatment policies in India were to finally assume. The article establishes this disconnect between the deliberations of the Constituent Assembly and the form the preferential treatment policies finally assume in India.