Space and Culture, India
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Barriers to Access Health Care Services among Rural Adolescent Girls in Raina I Block, Purba Bardhaman, West Bengal
Get PDFAdolescence in girls is a crucial transition phase during which they experience biological and psychological changes along with changes in social outlook. This phase provides an opportunity to lay the foundation for their future health. But, in rural areas, adolescent girls are often deprived of better nutrition and proper health care guide, resulting in serious health issues like malnutrition, stunting, wasting, and anaemia. Moreover, their access to health care services is subjected to various constraints as infrastructural and societal barriers such as regressive norms, social stigma, gendered family structure, etc. Thus, the present study attempts to explore the perceived barriers that prevent rural adolescent girls from accessing health care services at the micro-level. A community-based cross-sectional study was carried out after randomly selecting 120 adolescent girls in the age cohort of 10-19 years in the Raina-I block of Purba Bardhaman district. The results suggested that societal barriers have a significant influence over health-related decision-making. Besides, lack of quality health care services and economic burden are some of the other significant obstacles observed here
Livelihood Diversification in Rural India
Get PDFThis study aims to ascertain the level of livelihood diversification and examines the socio-economic contexts of livelihood diversification in rural India. Employing data from India Human Development Survey (IHDS-II), 2011-12, an Inverse Herfindhal-Harschman Diversity Index (IHHDI) was calculated incorporating eleven income sources (livelihood strategies). In addition, the contribution of each strategy in households’ total income has been calculated. Furthermore, binary logistic regression was applied to predict the households’ engagement in each livelihood strategy and the likelihood of high IHHDI. Results indicate that the higher livelihood diversifications were found among the households with large size, high dependency, lower social groups, low educated, landless, marginal and small farming, and economically poor. This study also highlights the significance of diversification strategies in raising households’ income. It is suggested that broadened policy support is required to promote diversification for economic development in rural India
‘Dress Code’ Controversy: A Victim of Misogynistic Mindset or Something Else ?
Get PDFIn the middle of September 2021, a female candidate wearing ‘shorts’ (the so-called ‘half pant’), hailing from Biswanath Chariali, went to Tezpur to appear at an entrance test of Assam Agricultural University (AAU) at Girijananda Chowdhury Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences (GIPS), one of the agencies of AAU. While the gatekeeper of GIPS gave her access, the invigilator on duty at the examination hall raised eyebrows on her ‘dress code’ but allowed her to sit in the examination, coercing her to drape a curtain to cover her legs. Doing so, the invigilator not only trespassed into her personal space— her body; humiliated her by lowering her dignity. This perspective is an attempt to revisit the debate of the dress code of Indian women, which refuses to die even in 21st Century India
Russian Animalier Art in the XVIII- XIX Centuries in the Context of European Schools: The Origins and Nature of Development
Get PDFThis study delves into the process of development of Russian animal art of the 18th-19th Centuries. The primary purpose of the research was to make a review of these two historical periods, which determined the typical features of the early and mature periods of development of animal art in Russia—the time of the birth and development of the genre. According to the author, genre issues are important, and talking about it is necessary to define the image of the animalistic nature in all its specificity. In addition, it is noted that researchers do not characterise the stage of early Animalism, which first appeared in the 18th Century, sufficiently. Nevertheless, this genre has demonstrated all the love of artists for the real perception of the natural world and their sincere will to create its truthful and reliable reflection in their works. This tendency is typical for Western European Art. At the same time, it has been explicitly expressed in the works of Russian animal artists. Compared with European Animal Art of the 17th-18th Centuries, Russian ‘Kunstkammer drawing’ and how the class of ‘animal and birds’ was organised looked like a real innovation. These two factors have contributed to the creation of a full-fledged animalistic image. The author underlines that the main principle of imitation of nature was at the basis of teaching in the Russian school. It eventually led to the formation of the genre with its complex, distinctive features. These unique features was observed in the animal art of the 19th Century, mainly in the form of hippique images. Nevertheless, there was an attempt to combine two separated historical periods— the 18th and 19th Centuries, which demonstrated different images, approaches (animal naturalia of the 18th Century and horse characters of the 19th Century). The author, here, tends to talk about Russian Animalism of the 19th Century, one of the most explored ones. Doing so underlines the importance of animal art of the two periods as a historically conditioned cultural phenomenon in the relationship between genres of Fine Art and trends of the time. The historical and artistic method made it possible to identify the connection between these two eras in which Animalism was expressed significantly. Its originality is that it combined two diverse eras into one national whole.
 
Professor R.B. Singh (1955-2021), an Icon of Indian Geography: A Passage on the Path of Lineage, Legacy and Liminality
Get PDFProfessor R.B. Singh (1955-2021) had been the first Indian Geographer to have the dual distinction of holding the position of the IGU Secretary General and ICSU Scientific Committee Member. He was the first Indian and second Asian Secretary General and Treasurer of the IGU (2018-2022). Professor Singh was a distinguished geographer of 21st Century India who had made distinct academic contributions over the last five decades, illustrated with publishing 16 books, 40 anthologies, and around 260 research papers. He has covered and profusely published researches in 11 fields—Environmental Studies, Geoecology; Land resources, Land use/ Land cover; Water issues, Hydrology; Disaster, Natural Hazard; Quality of Life, Livelihood; Climatic Change, Air Pollution study; Urban Environment, Health, and wellbeing; Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs); Environmental Monitoring; Geography, Development Studies R-U; Mountain Studies, Forestry, Tourism; and RS, GIS, Recent trends appraisal. He had supervised 39 PhD and 81 MPhil dissertations. This paper presents an appraisal of his life journey on the path of Lineage, Legacy and Liminality—a type of biographical highlights in the frame of his practising geography, while also emphasising various niches, distinctions, networks, and collaborative programmes
Letter to the Editor— Assembly Elections of India, 2021: Revisiting Assam
Get PDFThis is a Letter to the Edito
Gendered Dimensions of Trade: Evidence from Arunachal Pradesh, India
Get PDFInternational trade has traditionally played an essential role in driving women-centric economic empowerment. Women’s participation as owners or managers has remained consistently low over the years. In India\u27s case, a previous study conducted by UNDP revealed that women entrepreneurs preferred engaging in informal cross-border business as it was less risky with no tax burdens and their discomfort in dealing with male customs officials (UNDP, 2016). One of the critical limitations of active business engagement is socio-economic and cultural restriction, especially at the grassroots level. The case in Arunachal Pradesh is no different, as the concept of entrepreneurship of women in this field is a relatively recent phenomenon. In Arunachal Pradesh, the market is mainly controlled by women, yet women\u27s participation in small and medium enterprises is less in number. In this context, the current paper discusses the nature of women entrepreneurs’ role in Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) and cross-border trade. It unveils the challenges faced by women entrepreneurs in Arunachal Pradesh and along with industrial and policy-related bottlenecks. The discussion is based on the primary data collected from the women-led/managed/owned MSMEs to study the gender dimensions of trade in Arunachal Pradesh. The findings of the study are that women entrepreneurship primarily gravitates around smaller-sized firms, with most women-led enterprises accounting for micro-enterprises in the formal sector. Like elsewhere in Arunachal Pradesh too, there remain socio-economic and cultural restrictions, especially at the grassroots level. Women lag in terms of awareness about import and export, technology, and dedicated bank accounts.
 
Impact of Changing Administrative Boundaries on Development of Uttar and Dakshin Dinajpur Districts, West Bengal
Get PDFGenerally, new districts are formed to facilitate administrative expediency or ease of administrative connectivity in a much better way. Often it reduces the distance between the district headquarters and remote areas resulting in easy access to the district headquarters with investing less time and strain. Apparently, it becomes helpful to interact with the beneficiaries in implementing and monitoring the government schemes and programmes in the areas near the district headquarters and remote areas, which is essential for the overall development of a region. In the present study, a meso-level specific comparative analysis has been done at inter and intra district level on the basis of some selected socio-economic indicators (based on Census of India data sources) to understand the impact of reorganisation of the administrative boundaries on the development of Uttar and Dakshin Dinajpur, West Bengal, India.
 
Language and Colour of Skin: A Frantz Fanonian Cultural Study
Get PDFThis study is an extraction from the cultural theory of Frantz Fanon, who is regarded as the father of the theory of violence. In the Frantz Fanonian cultural study, discrimination is noticed on the basis of the colour of skin and the exercise of languages and literature, and these are the proposed areas and explained in this article. In the cultural study, for the indigenous background, the black people lead an absurd life in the white cultural society and as well as in the black cultural community in the presence of their white masters. The present study attempts to find out Fanon’s ideologies on the roles of languages, literature, and colour to explain the relation between black and white people and the cultural subjectivity and objectivity. It attempts to fill the gap of the neglected areas in the Frantz Fanonian study in the Manichean society. These neglected areas are the roles of language, literature, and skin colour for the cultural discrimination in the postcolonial cultural study. It also finds out the reasons behind abolishing the black culture at the presence of the white culture and recognising the issues for the black cultural revival after its abolishment in newly liberated countries.