The Politics of Common Sense? Pointers for Pakistan’s Political Economy

There has been little academic research on Pakistan’s political economy for some decades now. Analysis of transition, structural transformations and their resulting impact on the formation of social classes have been missing. Zaidi1 correctly notes that “Akhtar’s is amongst the very few, and most recent contribution that provides a substantive understanding of Pakistan’s political economy”. Some of the key questions, not answered completely or avoided all together in Akhtar’s book, especially those that relate to the subject of religious class/or Islamization and the notion of secularism and secularist elite, have been raised by Akbar S Zaidi in his brilliant review of Akhtar’s book. The present review focuses on more substantive theoretical and empirical issues raised by Akhtar’s class analysis of Pakistan’s political economy. Framed

Anticoccidial and Immunomodulatory Effects of Some Plants in Chicken

Avian coccidiosis has generally been controlled by using anticoccidial drugs as feed additives. Emergence of resistant Eimeria strains, however,has been reported due to frequent use of anticoccidial drugs. Alternatives to anticoccidial drugs have, therefore, been focus of the researchers to control this disease. Use of botanicals has been reported as a promising alternative in this regard. Therfore this experiment was, conducted using chickens to evaluate the anticoccidial and immunomodulatory activity of aqueous methanolic extracts (100, 200 and 300 mg/kg b.wt.) of three plants Beta vulgaris (roots),Pinus radiata (bark) and Carica papaya (seeds) using standard procedures. Though, not at par with reference drug (Baycox), all the plant materials demonstrated good anticoccidial activity based on selected criteria, i.e., chick survival percentage, , fecal and oocyst scores, oocysts per gram of feces, feed conversion ratio, lesion scores. Likewise, all the plant materials exhibited immunomodulatory activity against avian coccidia in chickens based on the given criteria, i.e., cell mediated (Phytohemagglutinin-P, Concanavalin-A, Dinitrochlorobenzene and Carbon clearance assay) and humoral immunity (hemagglutination test). Graded dose response was recorded among all plant materials. Results of organ weight, blood and serum profile of infected chicks revealed no adverse effects of aqueous methanolic extracts of plant materials on the experimental chickens. On the whole, Carica papaya (seeds) ranked first followed by Pinus radiata (bark) and Beta vulgaris (roots) regarding their anticoccidial and immunomodulatory effects. Studies on larger scale using aqueous methanolic extracts following standard pharmacological procedures of the investigated plants are suggested.