Development in Rural Bangladesh: A Critical Ethnography

This thesis contests the scope of the Women in Development (WID) perspective in understanding women's position in rural Bangladesh. It critically investigates how women perceive work and examines the effects of paid work on their lives. It discusses local women's engagement with globalization, modernization and neo-liberal capitalism, manifested in the proliferation of garment factories, modern farming, labour migration and microcredit interventions. The central question is whether, being influenced by such external forces, participation in paid work brings benefits to all women. The thesis examines how local women's understanding of work and the good life is not uniform but varies according to age, and social status (i.e. class and caste). It also highlights that by failing to recognize women's multiple interpretations of these issues, WID policies, such as the National Women’s Policy of Bangladesh (2011), may adversely affect the lives of some poor as well as affluent women. It is common for many poor, and some affluent women in riverine char land villages to participate in paid work along with doing household chores. They do not think of such work as an expression of gender equality, but as 'cooperation' necessary for the welfare, even the basic survival of their households. This thesis argues that by encouraging poor women to take part in income earning work, the National Women’s Policy of Bangladesh (2011), guided by the WID perspective, often increases women's daily burden albeit they benefit some women. Also, earning an income does not always improve women’s status within their households and the wider community. Microcredit organizations are part of women’s engagement in income generating activities. Though they encourage poor women to become entrepreneurs, not all women possess the necessary skills to be successful. They overlook that some poor women are involved in small enterprises without credit interventions, and participate in enterprising work as part of their household responsibilities. By focusing on the profit making demands of microcredit agencies, the thesis argues for the attention to the varied effects that access to microcredit and participation in market oriented enterprising work have on women. In a similar vein, it highlights how women's experiences of labour migration, both local and overseas, are also varied and have ambiguous impacts on women’s lives. While for some women it is a source of social mobility, increased independence and improved lifestyle, for others it causes conflict, exploitation and loss of honour. The thesis questions the potential of the economic growth model of development, modeled after the Western capitalism and identifies accommodation of the variation of women’s understanding of work and the good life as one of the main challenges for further women’s development. It stresses the need to acknowledge women’s multiple realities and their own interpretations of being in the world to ensure improvements in their lives

Comparative study of 25 µg vaginal misoprostol v/s cerviprime gel for induction of labour at term

Background: This comparative study was conducted to compare the effectiveness of 25 µg of intravaginal misoprostol with intracervical cerviprime gel in terms of efficacy of drug, foeto-maternal outcome, side effects and complications of drugs.Methods: 100 primigravida at term; who were admitted for induction of labour were included in this study. They were randomly selected to receive either intravaginal misoprostol or intracervical cerviprime gel. 50 women received intravaginal 25 µg Misoprostol (Group A) every 6 hours for maximum of 5 doses and 50 women received 0.5 mg (2.5 ml) of intracervical cerviprime gel (Group B) till maximum of 3 doses. Comparison was done in terms of time taken for induction to delivery, mean time taken for onset of labour, APGAR score at 1 and 5 minutes and the neonatal outcome in either of the groups.Results: The mean time taken for onset of labour was less in the misoprostol group than in the cerviprime group (6.5 hours v/s 8 hours, P = 0.49). Similarly duration from induction to delivery was less (20.08 ± 8.24 hours v/s 23.19 ± 9.59 hours, P >0.05) for misoprostol than cerviprime gel. Need for Oxytocin augmentation was less (16%) in misoprostol group as compared to cerviprime group (46%), P = 0.001. Cesarean section rate was slightly higher in misoprostol group (8% v/s 6%). Maternal complications were minimal in either group & the neonatal outcome was good in both the groups. The induction cost was much less in the misoprostol group.  Conclusions: Compared to cerviprime gel; misoprostol is safe, efficacious, cheap, well tolerated drug by mother and fetus. It was found to be a better inducing agent, has short induction to delivery interval thus short duration of labour with similar maternal and fetal safety profile

Ultrafast Laser Direct Writing of Conductive Patterns on Modified Polyimide Film for Flexible Electronic Applications

Conductive patterns can be printed on a flexible polymer substrate using the direct laser writing (DLW) method. In order to write conductive circuits in such polymer using a laser, polyimide (PI) is a desirable material choice due to its electrical, chemical, and mechanical properties. Electrically non-conductive PI has shown great potential for flexible printed electronics as LDW enables selective carbonization in the bulk of such material leading to the formation of conductive lines. The technique is shown to be a rapid and minimal cost method for printing electrodes to nanoscale devices. However, investigations in this field show several limitations to this strategy, such as the limited conductivity of written structures and the brittleness of carbonized PI. Therefore, more research is required to overcome those limitations and reap the benefits of the LDW approach in writing flexible electronic circuits in PI. This proposed study explores potential approaches to boost the electrical conductivity of laser written bulk carbon structures in PI films. To increase the conductivity of the carbon structure, the deposition of laser energy was adjusted by adjusting critical process parameters such as pulse energy, pulse repetition rate, and laser scan hatch distance. The experimental results demonstrate that the conductivity of carbon structures in PI films is a significant determinant of laser energy deposition. The deposition of laser energy is the most important factor as energy over the threshold level damages the film while energy below the threshold level cannot produce carbon structure properly. In order to further increase the electrical conductivity of laser written structures, the potential of a composite film made of silver strands and PI was examined, followed by laser carbonization. Two different laser systems were used to find out the better setup for the carbonization process. Findings show a trend of improvement of conductivity of the carbonized pattern with a percentage of silver strands. The proposed LDW of conductive lines has potential in flexible electronic circuits and sensing applications

KNOWLEDGE AND PRACTICE OF MOTHER TOWARDS EXCLUSIVE BREASTFEEDING

For the first six months of a baby’s life, it is recommended that he or she be fed only human milk. Breastfeeding protects a baby's immune system and ensures that he or she grows and develops normally. The goal of a recent research was to examine nursing moms’ knowledge and attitudes on exclusive breastfeeding. Dhaka, Mirpur-14, Marks Medical College & Hospital, where this research was done. Descriptive cross-sectional research was used in this study. A total of 115 nursing mothers who had just given birth were included in the study. In order to disseminate the questionnaire, a random sample method was used. SPSS Version-20 was used to analyze the data, and the results were presented in the form of a graph and a table. There were 100 percent females, 67 percent of whom were Muslim, and 100 percent of them were married. 49.6 percent of the respondents were class (HSC) qualified. Family income was 25060.87 Taka, with a standard deviation of 4672.215 Taka. Only 34(29.6 percent) of the lactating mothers began nursing within an hour of birth and 85.2 percent of the respondents gave the infant liquid breast milk during the first three days following delivery, according to the findings of the present research. During the prenatal period, 50.4 percent of respondents received counseling information from their families, the highest percentage in this research. Many participants in this study strongly agreed that breast milk should be fed to a newborn, 84.3 percent agreed that it protects the baby from illness, and 68.7 percent agreed that it should be the first feed given to a baby after birth. 70.4 percent said that breast milk alone can sustain the child for six months. This research shows that women have a strong understanding of the benefits of nursing exclusively. A large sample size is needed to describe the knowledge of the mother toward exclusive breastfeeding in the gynae ward patient department of Marks Medical College and hospital, Dhaka.Keywords: Breastfeeding, Mothers’ Knowledge, Patients, Babies, Gynecology

A Study on Waste Management and Minimization in Ready Made Garments (rmg) Industry

The exigency of garment waste reducing, recycling and disposal management is motivated by the increasing cost and decreasing availability of dumping area and the diminish of natural resources. The raw materials in various combinations undergo different processes during production and are converted to finished goods. The residue left out after each process during production remains waste. The aim of this study was to identify the current solid waste reducing, recycling and disposal practices of the ready made garments industry and to determine their attitude and willingness towards recycling, their perception of the feasibility thereof, barriers to recycling and marketing strategies that would be appropriate for products made from recycled materials. Waste Management is the human control of the collection, treatment and disposal of different wastes. Some components of waste have economic value and can be recycled once correctly recovered. The most important barriers to recycling are lack of equipment and technology, lack of materials to recycle and lack of consumer awareness. The compositions of different wastes have varied over time and location, with industrial development and innovation being directly linked to waste materials

Rural Development in Uttar Pradesh through central Government Schemes

Rural development has always been an important issue in all discussions pertaining to economic development, especially of developing countries, throughout the world as well as in state of Uttar Pradesh. Rural development is a strategy designed to improve the economic and social life of rural poor. Rural Development is a process, which aims at improving the wellbeing and self-realization of people living outside the urbanized areas through collective process.  The all-round development of the country is possible only through the development of rural India. Uttar Pradesh, with a population of 16.62 crores as per 2001 Census, is the most populous State of the country. UP covers 2,40,928sq.kms. in which  rural area covers 234.37 Sq.Km. and urban covers 6.56 Sq.Km. and accounts for 7.3 percent of total area of the country which makes it the fifth largest State in the country. The main objective of Indian government since its independence is overall development of country. The Ministry of Rural Development is striving to bring about rapid and sustainable development and socio-economic transformation in rural sector with an integrated approach towards improving the quality of life of rural poor and ensuring equity and effective people’s participation.  Panchayati Raj Institutions have been introduced under the 73rd Amendment Act of the Constitution of India. The state government enacted the Uttar Pradesh act1947which did away with some defects of the earlier legislation. In year 1994, following the 73rd amendment Uttar Pradesh panchayat raj act came into force.  Rural Development includes measures to strengthen the democratic structure of society through the Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRIs) and to improve the rural infrastructure, improve income of rural households and delivery systems pertaining to education, health & safety mechanisms. PRIs have launched various development schemes. Some schemes are sponsored by central government such as MNREGS, IAY, PMGSY, SGSY, RGGVY, NRHM and some scheme are sponsored by Uttar Pradesh state government like Ambedkar gram sabha vikas yojna, mahamaya garib balika aashirvad yojna, lohia aawas yojna, Uttar Pradesh Mukhya mantra Mahamaya Garib Arthik Madad Yojana etc. through these schemes Government of India seems to accomplish its dream of rural India’s development. A huge amount of funds is spent on the rural development by the government but this is not properly utilized. A huge difference is seeing between the funds sanctioned by the government and funds utilized by the Panchayats. It is a need to keep a strict watch over the utilization of funds by Gram Panchayats

Towards constructing one-bit binary adder in excitable chemical medium

Light-sensitive modification (ruthenium catalysed) of the Belousov-Zhabotinsky medium exhibits various regimes of excitability depending on the levels of illumination. For certain values of illumination the medium switches to a sub-excitable mode. An asymmetric perturbation of the medium leads to formation of a travelling localized excitation, a wave-fragment which moves along a predetermined trajectory, ideally preserving its shape and velocity. To implement collision-based computing with such wave-fragments we represent values of Boolean variables in presence/absence of a wave-fragment at specific sites of medium. When two wave-fragments collide they either annihilate, or form new wave-fragments. The trajectories of the wave-fragments after the collision represent a result of the computation, e.g. a simple logical gate. Wave-fragments in the sub-excitable medium are famously difficult to control. Therefore, we adopted a hybrid procedure in order to construct collision-based logical gates: we used channels, defined by lower levels illumination to subtly tune the shape of a propagating wave-fragment and allow the wave-fragments to collide at the junctions between channels. Using this methodology we were able to implement both in theoretical models (using the Oregonator) and in experiment two interaction-based logical gates and assemble the gates into a basic one-bit binary adder. We present the first ever experimental approach towards constructing arithmetical circuits in spatially-extended excitable chemical systems

Study of acceptance of intra caesarean IUCD as method of contraception

Background: Worldwide around 115 million women have unmet needs of family planning. Increasing rates of institutional deliveries create opportunities for providing quality postpartum family planning services thus helps to overcome the unmet needs. PPIUCD appears an ideal method for limiting and spacing births. The present study was a prospective study, undertaken to assess the efficacy, safety and outcome of Postpartum Intrauterine Contraceptive Device (PPIUCD) in cesarean case.Methods: A prospective study was done on 50 patients undergoing cesarean section for various indications after getting approval from the Ethical Committee of the institution This study was conducted at CMCH hospital Bhopal, India from August 2016 to July 2017. Women were counseled and those who fulfilled the medical eligibility were provided the PPIUCD services. IUCD was placed after delivery of placenta in case of caesarean section. These clients were followed at 6 weeks, 3 months and 6 months interval.Results: Total acceptance rate in our study was 44%. Majority belonged to age group of 21-30 years (76%) with mean age of 25.5 years, 54% were para 2, 94% of clients were literate, 86% urban and only 70% of the clients were familiar with the intracaesarean IUCD, 54.5% cases returned for follow-up while 18.2% of cases were lost to follow-up and expulsion was the main problem (27.3).Conclusions: Intracaesarean IUCD seems to be a safe long acting highly effective, easily accessible, reversible and cost effective contraceptive method for most postpartum women specially lactating women