Technocratic dreams and troublesome beneficiaries : the Sardar Sarovar (Narmada) Project in Gujarat

En fersk doktoravhandling i samfunnsgeografi kaster nytt lys over den kontroversielle damutbyggingen på Narmada-elva i India. Sardar Sarovar-prosjektet var i verdens søkelys gjennom hele 1990-tallet pga massiv tvangsflytting og antatt negative miljøkonsekvenser. Sardar Sarovar er et prestisjeprosjekt: en 146 meter høy demning og 66000 kilometer med kanaler som skal sikre vann til delstatens bønder. Guro Aandahl belyser i sitt doktorgradsprosjekt hvordan endrede ideer om hva ”utvikling” er påvirket prosjektets skjebne. Videre undersøker hun hvilke problemer dette store, teknokratiske prosjektet møter når det skal gjennomføres. Hun konkluderer med at byråkratene og ingeniørene i statsapparatet har langt mindre makt over bønder og lokalbefolkning enn det som vanligvis antas i debatten om store dammer og sentralstyrt kanalvanning. Et viktig budskap fra Aandahl er at deler av den utviklingskritiske forskningen er for rask til å avvise staten som en nødvendig utviklingsaktør, og har ukritisk og naiv tillit til lokalsamfunns egen evne til å ivareta også de fattiges rettigheter og behov. Debatten om Narmada-prosjektene har vært preget av en gjennomgående teori om at store, teknokratiske prosjekter først og fremst drives fram av aktører med en egeninteresse i prosjektenes gjennomføring: byråkrater, rike bønder, og politikere som vil mele sin egen kake med offentlige midler. Avhandlingen viser hvordan slike utviklingsprosjekter også i stor grad er drevet av en idealisme som springer ut av rådende ideer om hva som skaper utvikling og framskritt for befolkning og nasjon. Disse ideene hentes blant annet fra arbeidene til akademikere og tenkere, som dermed er utviklingsaktører i større grad enn de kanskje selv innser

Library websites popularity: does Facebook really matter?

The purpose of this paper is to determine whether the utilization of social media (Facebook) is an important factor in increasing the visibility of the library site usage in Malaysian public universities. Nine top ranked Malaysian public universities involved in this research and number of Facebook followers for each library website is listed. Alexa software was used as the approach to study the issue of visibility. Alexa is able to determine web site usage, by showing the percentage of visitors of library related subdomain(s) as listed in the top subdomains for each University website (domain) over a month. It is found that Universiti Utara Malaysia library website scored the highest percentage of visitors based on the library related subdomain(s) as listed in the top subdomains for the University website in Alexa. To check such irregularities in access, this paper use EvalAccess 2.0 and it is found that Universiti Sains Malaysia’s library website scored higher irregularities. In term of number of Facebook followers, Univesity of Malaya library has the highest score. It is showed that the utilization of social media (Facebook) is not yet an important factor in increasing the visibility of the library websites. However, expectedly, top ranked universities’ library web sites, are more visible and popular. This research is limited to the situation in Malaysia where public universities are more noticeable and seldom face financial constraints rather than private universities. It is highly important for those universities’ library web sites that are not highly visible to initiate the necessary measures in improving the development of their web sites as the usage of the website is an indicator of online quality

Parental Awareness on Teenage Smoking Behavior in Yogyakarta and Bali

Smoking or being healthy is not a suitable offers to young teenagers (ages 13-15 years), because they have not able to take responsibility for the negative impacts of their choices on smoking behaviors. In addition, they have not been well informed about cigarettes and their dangers. The data indicate that there was a high rate of smoking behavior for adolescents aged 13-15 years (55.71%), including trial smoking behavior. However, only 39% of parents are aware of their children smoking behavior. This study aims were determining the awareness of parents and its form on the smoking behavior of their teenage children after treatment. The design of this study was a pre-posttest experiment with control group design. Around 301 parents of 8th grade boy student from 7 junior high schools were considered respondents. The latter came from 2 locations namely Yogyakarta and Tabanan Bali. For determining the respondents, cluster random sampling was used. The respondents were grouped into 3 groups (X1 treatment group, X2 treatment group and control group). The treatment is to provide information about cigarettes and its danger. It was given once by health workers. The measured variable is the respondent awareness and its form that was obtained from the students using selfreported questionnaire. Data were analyzed using Kruskal Wallis and Chi-square test with 0.05 level of significant. The results showed that there was a significant increase the parental awareness after treatment (p value 0.0001). This can happen because the intervention strengthened the predisposing factor to realize the respondents’ caring behavior as well as the concept of behavioral determinant of LW Green. In the X2 treatment group (non-smoker respondents) showed a higher increase of parental awareness than X1 treatment group (smoker respondents) and control group. This happens because they get support from health workers and get healthy conditions as resulted from their behavior. They will continue to remain as nonsmokers and encourage their teenage children to look up to them in order to get a similar reward, as the law of effect theory by E.L Thorndike made it clear. The form of awareness that many parents chose is the message upholding the primary prevention. The conclusion of the research stresses on continuously fetching more knowledge about cigarettes and its dangers, as one of the best mechanisms that can increase the parental awareness against teenage smoking behavior