I will present results based on the work done for the last six months during my PDF tenure. During this
period, I have worked on various projects related to studies of dust grain properties and the role of
magnetic fields in connection with the formation of clouds, their evolution and collapse and finally the
star-formation processes. I briefly present about the structure function analysis on the measured polarization angles towards a dark globule LDN1570 and its significance in understanding the
importance of magnetic fields in rendering the cloud stability against gravity and turbulence. Then, I
will present our recent results based on the near-infrared (NIR) polarimetric observations of a starforming
region NGC 1893. Analysis yields important clues regarding the uniform alignment of dust
grains (and hence high polarization efficiency) in accordance with our previous results based on optical
polarimetry (Eswaraiah et al. 2011). I will discuss how the magnetic field orientation inferred using J
and H-band polarization angles may give important clues regrading the impact of ionizing radiation on
the surrounding medium, and the correlation between the magnetic field structure with the starformation
activity in NGC 1893 region. I will also present the preliminary results based on the