Behavioral and social factors influencing open waste burning in Dhulikhel Municipality, Nepal: A qualitative study

Open Waste Burning (OWB) is a solid waste management problem in developing countries, resulting into serious environmental and health concerns. Although an increasing number of literature focuses on estimating emissions, signifying the state of the problem, and assessing the environmental and health risks; the factors affecting open waste burning, specifically the underlying behavioral factors remain less studied. In this paper, we take a qualitative approach to study social and behavioral factors affecting open waste burning in Dhulikhel, a suburban municipality in Nepal. An in-depth semi-structured interview of seven people directly engaged in OWB practices was taken, and the obtained data was analyzed inductively to construct themes. Waste accumulation, adjustment to recent provision of waste collection service, and its convenience and accessibility are key factors that explain the close connection of waste management practices to OWB. Lack of scientific and complete awareness, lesser knowledge of environmental risks, seeing OWB as an “infrequent exception”, and a negative perception of one’s community were found to increase OWB incidence. Other factors identified include increasing plastic waste, distinct nature of agriculture waste, and influence of infrastructural barriers. Context-specific qualitative exploration undertaken in this study confirms some pre-identified factors and identifies three distinct social and behavioral factors, establishing a baseline for future assessments

Students’ Perception of Quality Education: A Review

This article presents review of scholarly works on students’ perception of their learning environment. Particularly, the literature published between 1990 and 2019 February that examine university level students’ perception of the factors that they consider the benchmark of quality education or the causes of poor academics were reviewed. In total 63 articles were analyzed in terms of four criteria, namely, 1) the methods used to examine students’ perception of quality education, 2) the elements that were perceived to impact positively on quality education, 3) the perceived causes of poor academics, and 4) the students’ perception of quality education in relation to their demographic characteristics. The findings related to the methods used to study the issue, students’ perception on different aspects of quality education, the causes of poor quality education, and the role of demographic variables on students’ perception are derived. We believe that the conclusions from these findings may help not only the researchers interested in perceived quality of education to plan for further research but also the institutions of higher education to execute their activities to improve their students’ satisfaction levels

The State of Child Health and Human Rights in Nepal

Time is running out for the children of Nepal, say the authors. These children will face an uncertain future unless their health and human rights are urgently addressed

Commodification of Personal Letters: The Cultural Politics of Print Industry in Nineteenth Century England

DOI: 10.3126/bodhi.v2i1.2869Bodhi Vol.2(1) 2008 p.176-187</jats:p

Modernity and English mixing: A study of Nepali television commercials

In this paper, I investigate the issue of English mixing in Nepali television commercials. More specifically, based on qualitative data taken from a total of four hours of Nepali TV commercials broadcasted on the major Nepali television stations - Avenues Television and Kantipur Television from 7am to 9am and 7pm to 9pm since 1 July to 1 October 2009, I examine the motivations for English mixing in Nepali TV commercials. For the analysis, primarily I categorize them into two major types, Nepali-only (NO) and English mixed (EM). NO includes commercials aired in Nepali only and EM includes advertisements aired in Nepali in juxtaposition with English. After it, I study the differences between EM and NO as the dichotomous treatment of NO and EM is critical in examining the purpose of English-mixing. The findings suggest that English-mixing in Nepalese TV commercials is a carefully constructed exemplar of the marketing of modernity. DOI: 10.3126/bodhi.v3i1.2812 Bodhi Vol.3(1) 2009 p.53-60</jats:p

Hypocricy for Survival: Redefining Terrorism in Shalimar the Clown

This paper does close textual reading intertwined with contextual analysis of Salman Rushdie's Shalimar the Clown published in 2005. In doing so, the paper argues that this fiction is Rushdie's another effort to survive from the Fatwa reaffirmed over hi

Using Collage for Creative Writing

This paper demonstrates use of collage in creative writing with reference to George Bernard Shaw's play Pygmalion

Colonial Paranoia and Cultural Narcissism as a Writing Trope

In this paper I argue that one of the dominant modes within going back to root – dialectics of colonial paranoia and cultural narcissism – deployed in many novels like R. K. Narayan's The English Teacher, Mulk Raj Anand’s Untouchables, among others is an appropriate trope for Nepali writers, both to present social reality and to help marginalized groups reconstruct their identity