Status of Women in the Rural Khasi Society of Meghalaya

The issue of empowerment of women has been much discussed at various levels to find out the solution to age-old problem of gender discrimination, exploitation of women and to uplift their status and position in the society. However, in most of the tribal societies even if poor, women always have an instilled special position and role they play in different spheres with great responsibility vis a vis their counterpart men. The Khasi society of Meghalaya is such a society, commonly known as matrilineal where authority, title, inheritance, residence after marriage and succession are traced through female line. So it is presumed that they do not require any special effort to make them aware and get social, economic, political or psychological understanding and knowledge to establish their rights along with men in their society as they are automatically placed on an esteemed level. They are presumed to have access to education, ownership of property, authority in their family and society; they are the heads of their families and decide what to be done or not etc. But a recent survey by us in the rural areas of Meghalaya shows that about one-third of the families are headed by the male. Also many of the families headed by females who are either widow or deserted. Also in the political sphere, hardly anybody is there who is female and even in the Dorbar; females are not allowed to take part in the meeting or decision-making. But in most of the socio-economic activities, still now dominance on female is observed even though they are assumed to be physically weak. Also, even though some families are headed by males it may be that they are just to carry out activities with the guidance of their female counterpart who has better control over assets and therefore no fear of loosing anything even if they are deserted by their husbands. Therefore, a question may arise whether in Khasi tribe the status of women is ascribed or prescribed by the society. Also it is pertinent to enquire about the direction to which the position and status of women are moving with the development of the society. This paper is thus an attempt to examine the dynamics of status and role of tribal women in Meghalaya, especially of Khasi women. It is examined through a number of social, economic, political, cultural, psychological and attitudinal indicators on the basis of the primary data on such factors collected from two villages in East Khasi Hills District of Meghalaya.Empowerment of Women, Status of Women, Role of Women

Optimal Control and Approximate controllability of fractional semilinear differential inclusion involving ψ\psi- Hilfer fractional derivatives

The current paper initially studies the optimal control of linear $\psi$-Hilfer fractional derivatives with state-dependent control constraints and optimal control for a particular type of cost functional. Then, we investigate the approximate controllability of the abstract fractional semilinear differential inclusion involving $\psi$-Hilfer fractional derivative in reflexive Banach spaces. It is known that the existence, uniqueness, optimal control, and approximate controllability of fractional differential equations or inclusions have been demonstrated for a similar type of fractional differential equations or inclusions with different fractional order derivative operators. Hence it has to research fractional differential equations with more general fractional operators which incorporate all the specific fractional derivative operators. This motivates us to consider the $\psi$-Hilfer fractional differential inclusion. We assume the compactness of the corresponding semigroup and the approximate controllability of the associated linear control system and define the control with the help of duality mapping. We observe that convexity is essential in determining the controllability property of semilinear differential inclusion. In the case of Hilbert spaces, there is no issue of convexity as the duality map becomes simply the identity map. In contrast to Hilbert spaces, if we consider reflexive Banach spaces, there is an issue of convexity due to the nonlinear nature of duality mapping. The novelty of this paper is that we overcome this convexity issue and establish our main result. Finally, we test our outcomes through an example.Comment: 39 page

Design Billing Architecture for Formwork Materials in Construction Industry

Inventory management is one of the major problems faced by various companies. Traditional ways of billing method have various disadvantages as they were done manually therefore there were lots of chances of errors in the transaction. The error in the payment and transaction leads to the breakdown of the customer's trust and Customer Behavior Relation gets affected. The pen-paper billing techniques were time-consuming and uncomfortable for the business and can lead to various kinds of error. The development of an Inventory management system reduces the manual task and increases the automation works which results in less error and increased customer satisfaction. The billing architecture of our Inventory management system helps in building customer relationship behaviour and provides a way to grow the business. The payment, transaction and transaction history can be easily visible to the customers

Ecofeminist Concerns and Subaltern Perspectives on ‘Third World’ Indigenous Women: A Study of Selected Works of Mahasweta Devi

The lives of Aboriginals, as an indigenous form of a subaltern identity, have been less documented in narratives so far. Indigenous subaltern identity forms an alter-identity in which indigenous women’s identity is even more silenced in the social order of gender hierarchy. Maria Mies and Vandana Shiva in their book Ecofeminism locate the “Third World Woman” (in India) as a stakeholder of indigenous identity. The knowledge of Third World women in nurturing biodiversity drastically differs from both the Androcentric and Eurocentric models of bio-conservation. Indigenous women and the indigenous flora are both objects of genocidal violence, identity dissolution, and cultural extinction as their contribution to conservation is not recognized. As Gayatri Spivak in her seminal book Can the Subaltern Speak? voices, “The subaltern has no history and cannot speak, the subaltern as female is even more deeply in the shadow.” Mahasweta Devi, renowned Indian author and social activist, portrays the marginalized Indigenous and their struggle for survival. The Indigenous are dispossessed and the indigenous women are even more displaced. Indigenous women characters of Devi’s selected works such as The Book of the Hunter and The Witch, belonging to the Shabar, Santal, Oraon, and Munda tribal communities, live in tune with ethnocentric ecological order. They are the forest dwellers who think of the forest as a unique bio-habitat in harmony with women, thereby preserving Mother Nature

Speed and Shape of Electrostatic Waves in Dust-Ion Plasma

Nonlinear dust acoustic waves are studied in a magnetized plasma. Quasineutrality is considered. The existence of a soliton solution is determined by a pseudo-potential approach. Sagdeev's potential is obtained in terms of U(= αu dx + γu dz ), the component of the dust-ion velocity in the direction of the propagation of the wave. It is shown that there exists a critical value of U, beyond which the solitary waves cease to exist

Status of Women in the Rural Khasi Society of Meghalaya

The issue of empowerment of women has been much discussed at various levels to find out the solution to age-old problem of gender discrimination, exploitation of women and to uplift their status and position in the society. However, in most of the tribal societies even if poor, women always have an instilled special position and role they play in different spheres with great responsibility vis a vis their counterpart men. The Khasi society of Meghalaya is such a society, commonly known as matrilineal where authority, title, inheritance, residence after marriage and succession are traced through female line. So it is presumed that they do not require any special effort to make them aware and get social, economic, political or psychological understanding and knowledge to establish their rights along with men in their society as they are automatically placed on an esteemed level. They are presumed to have access to education, ownership of property, authority in their family and society; they are the heads of their families and decide what to be done or not etc. But a recent survey by us in the rural areas of Meghalaya shows that about one-third of the families are headed by the male. Also many of the families headed by females who are either widow or deserted. Also in the political sphere, hardly anybody is there who is female and even in the Dorbar; females are not allowed to take part in the meeting or decision-making. But in most of the socio-economic activities, still now dominance on female is observed even though they are assumed to be physically weak. Also, even though some families are headed by males it may be that they are just to carry out activities with the guidance of their female counterpart who has better control over assets and therefore no fear of loosing anything even if they are deserted by their husbands. Therefore, a question may arise whether in Khasi tribe the status of women is ascribed or prescribed by the society. Also it is pertinent to enquire about the direction to which the position and status of women are moving with the development of the society. This paper is thus an attempt to examine the dynamics of status and role of tribal women in Meghalaya, especially of Khasi women. It is examined through a number of social, economic, political, cultural, psychological and attitudinal indicators on the basis of the primary data on such factors collected from two villages in East Khasi Hills District of Meghalaya

Evaluation of a novel PVC-based efficient potentiometric sensor containing a tripodal diglycolamide (TREN-DGA) ionophore for europium(III) estimation

Polymeric membrane-based electrodes containing a multiple diglycolamide (DGA), such as a N-pivot diglycolamide (diglycolamide-TREN (TREN-DGA) and a C-pivot diglycolamide (tripodal diglycolamide) (T-DGA) as ionophore, and polyvinyl chloride (PVC) as the base polymer were fabricated. These membranes were tested for the potentiometric determination of europium ions in acidic feed solutions. The membrane with a composition of 81.5% PVC and 18.5% TREN-DGA showed a wide dynamic range (3.2 × 10−7 to 1.0 × 10−2 M) with a slope of 17.2 ± 0.4 mV per decade for europium ion. The presence of sodium tetraphenyl borate (NaTPB) as ionic additive in the DGA-TREN containing membrane marginally improved the dynamic range in the detection of europium ion. On the other hand, the membrane with a composition of 77.3% PVC and 22.7% T-DGA does not show any systematic potential response against variation of the concentration of europium ions in the external solution containing 1 M HNO3. The physical characterization of these membranes was carried out using techniques such as thermogravimetry (TGA), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and atomic force microscopy (AFM) in order to understand the effect of the different constituents of the membrane on the potential response for europium ion. AFM measurements revealed that the morphology of the membrane remained intact even after prolonged use of the membrane. The interference effect of Ca2+, Mg2+, Cu2+, Fe3+, Bi3+, Zn2+, Cd2+ and UO2 2+ on the potential response was investigated. The response time of the proposed sensor was found to be less than five seconds. The lifetime of the sensor electrode was found to be three months under proper storing conditions. The membrane sensor was employed in the determination of Eu3+ in synthetic water samples.</p

Liquid-liquid extraction and facilitated transport of f-elements using an N-pivot tripodal ligand

Diglycolamide (DGA)-functionalized tripodal ligands offer the required nine-coordinated complex for effective binding to a trivalent lanthanide/actinide ion. A N-pivot tripodal ligand (TREN-DGA) containing three DGA pendant arms was evaluated for the extraction and supported liquid membrane transport studies using PTFE flat sheets. Solvent extraction studies indicated preferential extraction of 1:1 (M:L) species, while the metal ion extraction increased with increasing HNO3 concentration conforming to a solvated species extraction. Flat sheet-supported liquid membrane studies, carried out using 4.0 × 10−3 M TREN-DGA in 95% n-dodecane + 5% iso-decanol indicated faster mass transport for Eu3+ ion as compared to Am3+ ion. The determined transport parameters indicated slow diffusion of the M-TREN-DGA (M = Am or Eu) complex being the rate-determining step. The transport of lanthanides and actinides followed the trend: Eu3+ &gt; Am3+∼ Pu4+ &gt;&gt; UO22+ and Am can be selectively separated from a mixture of U and Pu by oxidizing the latter to its +6 oxidation state. The liquid membrane stability was not encouraging and was deteriorating the transport efficiency with time, which was attributed to carrier loss into the aqueous phases.</p