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We normally hardly notice the mass-produced paper products that pass through our hands on a daily basis, which we then recycle. In fact it has recently been predicted that books printed on paper will be replaced by digital formats. However, paper endures and specialist craft papers are now being produced in increasing quantities, especially valued by artists and conservators, but also by tourists visiting paper-producing areas around the world. Paper is therefore flourishing even in our computer and mobile-phone focused world. One of the areas benefiting from this revival is the Himalayas. As well as serving the tourist trade these products are now exported world-wide, as they were when paper first arrived in Europe in the eleventh century. There are even organisations that run Tibetan-style paper making workshops in Amer­ica. This paper focuses on the papermaking revival in Tibet (China), Nepal, Bhutan and Sikkim (India). Using information gained from visits to producers, middle men, as well as retail and export operations, it seeks to compare the economic and social factors influencing the revival, including conservation issues. The conclusion highlights the fact that, even in the twenty first century, hand-crafted items still play an important rôle in our lives.

The 2011 the Western Cape Forum for Intellectual Disability v Government of The Republic of South Africa case flagged a lot of issues faced by persons with disabilities relating to access to education in South Africa. The case tackled certain perceptions about the ineducability of persons with profound and severe disability and the remaining charity-oriented perception by the South African Department of Basic Education. While the court made several important points in advancing universal access to education, the author argues that certain holes in the judgment hinders the existence of judicial finding truly infused with concerns of substantive equality. An example of this short-coming is the court's consideration of reasonableness when the right to basic education is an immediately realisable right. The author also argues that the South African developments in education policy for persons with disability, while positive, is insufficient to truly give effect to substantive equality – the claim to equality being made in the new constitutional dispensation. There is still an attitude that is too permissive of separating students based on abilism. The social model of thinking about requires a complete transformation of the education system that would not require a classification of learners by abilities but have a different constitution so as to accommodate all students and not unduly enable one group over another. The author considers the approaches from Canada and India to explore its responses to education for students with varying levels of ability. Canada's similar conception of equality and India's influence on South African constitutionalism and shared experience with massive equality gaps make these jurisdictions instructive.

Copyright of Zeitschrift für Internationale Beziehungen (ZIB) is the property of Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft mbH & Co. KG and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

In this paper, we present the influence of religion on the revolutionary movement that led India to political independence in the last century. The most credit for the changes has Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, who achieved political changes through satyagraha without violence. After introducing the term satyagraha, the authors outline Gandhi's life and his spiritual development, which enabled him to think and act nonviolently. The sources of his spirituality are highlighted as the Bhagavad-gita, the Bible and Leo Tolstoy's prose. He was also influenced by Jain religious practice, especially the principle of ahimsa practiced by Mohandas' mother. The paper concludes with an outline of the influence of satyagraha in India and beyond after Gandhi's death.

This paper shows and analyses the issue of the relations between Nepal and the Ch’ing Empire from the British point of view during the last months of the Manchu authority in China. Nepal, a buffer state between India and Tibet, represented for the British an important and decisive ally in South Asia. The first part of the work will be dedicated to an analysis of the political and geopolitical status of Nepal compared to Britain and China of the Ch’ing Dynasty. The second part, which further develops the first, enters into the specifics of a tribute that the Himalayan country should have offered the Emperor P’u-i. The Hsin-hai Revolution of 1911 put an end to imperial power in China and would lead to the establishment of the republic and would resolve issues and misunderstandings between the countries. The paper pays particular attention to the correspondence between the then Nepalese Prime Minister, Chandra Shum Shere, and the British Resident in Nepal, John Manners Smith. The research takes as a benchmark the wider scenario of the period immediately following the end of the Great Game and the decline of the Manchu power. The guideline and key to interpretation of the documents reflects the perspective of the geopolitical and strategic interests of the British Empire in Asia.

Copyright of Mitteilungen der Österreichischen Geographischen Gesellschaft is the property of Oesterreichische Geographische Gesellschaft (Austrian Geographical Society) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Given the complex web of socio-cultural factors, intersectional features of gender identity and the recent trajectories of a lack of land resources, the rise of alternative gainful employment, and a feminization of agriculture, this paper investigates whether land rights are the ultimate panacea for women’s autonomy. Land can be a source of women’s empowerment albeit the patriarchal Indian society restricts women’s right to property. Women in India are not a homogenous category. They are defined by their intersectional identities of caste, class, ethnicity, stages in their life course and subjectivities regarding demands for land. A more nuanced approach to women’s land rights is proposed in view of the agrarian crisis, restricted social validity of women’s land claims and other factors. Research has been conducted including an analysis of various feminist and intersectional debates concerning land rights in India, government reports, legal judgements, and religious text, among others.

The paper explores basic political relations between the European Union and India which are at theoretical level almost “terra nullius”. The paper starts from the present epochal situation and enters the realm of EU–India geopolitics from the perspective of Gandhian moral practice on one side, and challenges presented by the impact of Coronavirus politics on the other. Our question is – on which platform is strategic negotiating between the EU and India possible? Despite their Lisbon summit in 2000 as well as virtual summit in 2020, it is obvious that until today the EU and India could not find a common denominator. Our idea is that the missing link of a better understanding partly lays in the new perspective that may be unexpectedly found from the Balkans’ point of view. Only unprecedented cognizance today may set up the roadmap for the times to come.

Copyright of Zeitschrift für Pädagogik is the property of Julius Beltz GmbH & Co. KG Beltz Juventa and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Ethik in der Medizin is the property of Springer Nature and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Sociologus is the property of Duncker & Humblot GmbH and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Background: With the surge in the number of infected individuals during the COVID-19 pandemic, there was also a surge observed in the number of publications discussing its epidemiology, characteristics, path-o-phys-i-ol-o-gy, diagnosis, prevention and treatment. This bibliometric analysis focuses on the papers published on COVID-19 in South Asia. Methods: We searched articles in the Scopus database from December 2019 to October, 2022. After manual screening, a list of the 100 most-cited articles was obtained, which was analyzed for various factors, including the type of article, citation count, author’s affiliation, country of origin, funding bodies, etc.Results: The majority of the top 100 articles (n=79) in South Asia were published during 2020. India was affiliated with the highest number of articles (n=68), followed by Bangladesh (n=18) and Pakistan (n=12). However, 7 articles were authored by a researcher in Bangladesh. Female authors were under represented (32.38%), with no female author in lists of authors with 4 or more articles. The average number of citations for each of the top 100 most-cited articles was 180.8. Original articles constituted the major portion of the publications (82%), followed by letters (11%) and reviews (4%). Half of the publications belonged to the field of medicine (n=49), while others were contributed by science, psychology, social sciences, and biochemistry and allied sciences (n=8). Vaccine trials were under-represented. Jahangirnagar University, Bangladesh was affiliated with the maximum number of articles. Most articles were published in Science of The Total Environment (n=8) while Indian Council of Medical Research (n=4) was the top funding body.Conclusion: These findings highlight that South Asia has a great potential to conduct research addressing its challenging health problems. But lack of funds hinders conducting trials of new medications and vaccines. Thus, there is need for allocation of sufficient funds for research and clinical trials by governments and the private sector to enhance the research productivity of this region.

Florence Marryat was a prolific author, as well as being renowned for both her involvement with spiritualism and her parallel career as an actress. In 1854, she married Thomas Ross Church, an officer in the British Army, with whom she travelled through India for six years. On coming back to England, she began her successful writing career. She specialized in popular (and lucrative) sensation novels, but she also capitalized on her residence in India by penning a travel memoir: Gup. Sketches of Anglo-Indian Life and Character, eventually released as a volume in 1868. By engaging in a close reading of the text, this paper sets out to demonstrate that, in crafting her account, Marryat concocted an imaginary, “sensational” depiction of India and its people, to please and entertain her readership, while serving her own social and political agendas.

Based on Ernst E. BOESCH's symbolic action theory (1991), the concept of relational hermeneutics (STRAUB & SHIMADA, 1999; STRAUB, 2006) and within the framework of grounded theory methodology (GLASER & STRAUSS, 1967; STRAUSS & CORBIN, 1990) this paper presents an integrative approach to the analysis of complex (inter)cultural action and meaning relations. The objective of pragma-semantic analysis is the identification, differentiation and contextualization of phenomena by analyzing performed as well as potentially possible actions and objectivations. Pragma-semantic analysis tries to reveal from which sources resp. pools of symbols individually as well as collectively available denotative and connotative aspects of actions derived. Further it can be utilized to show how these meanings come to bear in interactions that—through the analysis—have to be identified as intercultural in the first place. Using the empirical example of a German tourist's narrative of her interaction with beggars in India, the paper will outline the approach and show to what extent the pragma-semantic web also allows conclusions on action-possiblities and potential meanings with regard to specific (inter)actions, that is to determine the subjective as well as objective space of possibility. Furthermore, the implications of this approach are discussed with regard to research on intercultural communication as well as the research practice itself. URN: urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs0901373

This paper presents and analyses ideas about creation and conception among the Dongria Kond in Orissa, India. Its main aim is to understand a complex cultural system in which women are ascribed all creative power while men are expected to be active in order to facilitate and uphold creation. Using analytical concepts as redefined by Carol Delaney ( 1986, 2001) I argue that Dongria Kond do not have a concept o f "paternity", but of "maternity" since they ascribe all creative powers to women. Women are seen as the sole creators, yet their role in Dongria Kond society changes markedly with marriage. Before this event, young girls sleep in dormitories where they are visited by boys from other clans. Sexual encounters between boys and girls are controlled by the girls, who should avoid becoming pregnant. With marriage, women leave their parent's village and join the village of their husbands, where they have sexual intercourse that should result in procreation. Marriage can be seen as the culturally legitimate form for men to gain control over the creative powers resting in women and it takes two forms: either through exchange of one form of "life" against the other in marriages involving bridewealth prestations, or through violence involved in cases of bride-capture. Similar ideas about men's active role and the need to appropriate fertility associated with the female earth goddess are further identified in the buffalo sacrifices regularly performed by Dongria Kond. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At the beginning of the 1930s, Ernst Waldschmidt and his wife Rose set off on a two-year acquisition trip to Sri Lanka and India on behalf of the Berlin Museum fur Vólkerkunde. Since then, more than 400 mainly decorative art objects and textiles have expanded the Indian department of the museum. During this time, the Waldschmidts kept a detailed work diary, which is preserved together with letters and other archive material at the Asian Art Museum Berlin, as a unique source for researching the underlying ambitions and the acquisitions themselves. The aim of the article is to present these documents and to give access to some of the acquisition contexts of the Waldschmidt Collection to the public. Due to the size of the collection, the essay concentrates on the exhibited objects of the Asian Art Museum Berlin, revealing dealer contacts and acquisition strategies and trying to show the difficulties that arise while researching the provenances of larger collections. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT: The paper begins with a general discussion on hunting. It is divided into four main parts, discussing about the effect of hunting on environment and ecology in Ancient, Medieval, Colonial and Independent India. Across all the ages, hunting wild animals has been an important activity for the royals and nobles. In ancient India, only Ashoka took some initiatives at protecting the animals and environment. The portion on Medieval India mainly focusses on the Mughals and their hunting styles. In the colonial period, mastery over nature was thought of as a part of mastery over India. Both British officials and Indian princes unabatedly shot many animals, which ultimately led to the extinction of cheetah in India. In the part on Independent India, the efforts by Indira Gandhi like the ‘Wildlife Protection Act’ in 1972, Project Tiger and its effects have been given. In conclusion, the need to conserve our wildlife is briefly cited with reference to a few high-profile cases of hunting in India even after it was outlawed.

ABSTRACT: Aurangzeb has been held responsible by many historians for hastening the decline of the Mughal Empire. The paper titled ‘Aurangzeb and the Decline of the Mughals’ is aimed at examining the role of Aurangzeb in the downfall of the Empire. The passage of Aurangzeb from being a prince to becoming Emperor Alamgir has been discussed. The character of Aurangzeb has been discussed with a mention of his letters. The alternate explanation about Aurangzeb being a just, impartial ruler has also been provided. It concludes with a little bit of discussion about the other causes and the aftermath of the decline

In this paper, the authors show the application and use of automated text network analysis based on ancient corpora. The examples draw from Ancient Egyptian sources and the Indian Mahābhārata. Different text-based network generation algorithms like “Nubbi” or “Textplot” are presented in order to showcase alternative methodological approaches. Visualizations of the generated networks will help scholars to grasp complex social and semantic text structures and serve as a starting point for new research questions. All tools for applying the methods to ancient corpora are available as open source software.

This paper argues for a deeper understanding of the challenges posed to undergraduate western music history by an increasingly globalised higher education system. Reflecting on the experience of delivering programmes at a music conservatory in Chennai, India, I suggest how curriculum can be adapted to explore the social history of cross-cultural musical practices. A brief case study surveys the role of western music in colonial and post-colonial south India to illustrate how we might foster critical approaches to music history at a global level.

Abstract – Nonverbal languages are an integral part of human communication since they transmit substantial information such as emotions and psychological conditions, and therefore they contribute to understanding. Culture affects nonverbal behaviours. The Indian subcontinent is highly multicultural, multi-ethnic, multi-religious and multilingual, and language diversity often makes communication difficult. In India alone, there are 22 official languages besides about 400 other languages. The populations of the southern area, who speak languages of Dravidian origins, do not have a common language to communicate with people living in the North, who speak languages of Aryan origins, and even people living in the same village often speak different dialects. English, which has the status of an L2 in the country, is spoken appropriately only by those who can afford to go to English-medium schools. The majority of people can be placed in a continuum going from highly creolised forms of English to a number of ‘trade pidgins’. Yet, in spite of the inability to communicate in a common language, Indians make use of nonverbal languages, such as hand and head gestures, facial expressions, eye movements, as well as less evident messages such as dress and their colours, posture and the space between speakers. Nonverbal behaviours that Indians display in daily communication are related to those found in traditional performing and aesthetic arts. The purpose of this paper is to suggest how the knowledge of nonverbal languages is useful for an appropriate intercultural competence for interaction with migrants coming from the Indian subcontinent.

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Copyright of Zeitschrift für Aussen- und Sicherheitspolitik is the property of Springer Nature and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The spiritual figures of Ruth Prawer Jhabvala’s Heat and Dust appear to be very shallow and mendicants. They are poor Sadhus who move from place to place like vendors selling their gods. Though, they pretend to live in a world of spirituality but in reality their feelings and emotions are earthy. Even those who come from Europe as young men and initiated, do not live a sex-free life. At this backdrop, the present paper tries to explore the world of pseudo spiritual figures in Ruth Prawer Jhabvala's Heat and Dust.

Female body has always been considered to be the symbol of grace, modesty, simplicity and submissiveness. This stereotype is strengthened in oral literature. Proverbs constitute one of the most important components of oral literature. Beauty is universally considered the main criterion of women. However, every society has its own notion of beauty regarding women. There are certain stereotypical expectations of female body in every society. But the standards of beauty differ from people to people, society to society. If a woman does not fulfill these norms of the society that she belongs to, she is not regarded as a perfect woman. Women, who are outside the prevailing norms of beauty, are considered to be abnormal, witch, evil-like, disobedient, cruel etc. Therefore, notions regarding female body are socially con-structed. Such, and many other related norms of feminine beauty and the female body are found in women related Assamese proverbs. The present paper tries to analyze the construction of ideas regarding womanhood with special reference to female body and feminine beauty through Assamese proverbs. It is an ethnographic study of the Nagaon district of middle Assam in India.

The article criticizes the book "Die versunkenen Schätze der 'Bom Jesus'," written by Dieter Noli and Wolfgang Knabe about the 2008 archaeological excavation of the wreck of the Portuguese trade ship Bom Jesus off the coast of Namibia. The author discusses the portrayals of 16th-century international trade in the book, offers additional information and corrections pertaining to the trade relations between Portugal, Germany, and India in that time, and examines the economic history of the international trade in spices and precious metals.

Urban India is witnessing a rapid revolution in its commercial retail spaces. These transforming commercial landscapes constitute a rich arena for qualitative research using, among others, observational methods. In this paper, we present observations about the changing urban retail scene of India. We provide emergent themes that we have already found in observations so far, and also reflect on the challenges of carrying out such observations in the Indian context. URN: urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs0501131

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