Voicing Their Stories: A Discourse on the Relationship Between Education and the Social Position of Indian Women in the Mid-twentieth Century

Indian women in the early twentieth century stood at the threshold of changing times. A social reform movement for women’s education came into focus at this time. However, despite efforts to promote higher education by Christian missionaries, the Indian intelligentsia, social reformers, and the British colonial government, there were disparities in its spread. It was still beyond the reach of women in general. Women’s education was not pervasive but reserved mainly for those coming from educationally enlightened families, where their parents and other relatives supported the reforms, offering them access to higher education. Feminist researchers, writing about this period, hold multiple views regarding Indian reformers and their efforts in women’s education. This paper attempts to draw attention to the social status of Indian women through the self-narratives of two accomplished women educationists from North India, Swarup Kumari Bakshi and Begum Hamida Habibullah, both of whom were witness to pre- and post-independence social and political dynamics. They represent two different religious cultures; however, their social background was quite similar. This paper, an oral history, is based on their independent perspectives, personal experiences and self-narratives shared with the author during interviews conducted in 2009. A comparison between the two narratives offers insights into the contemporary social position of women. It also offers reflections on the elitist approach of the social reforms, and the different viewpoints proffered by feminist writers regarding the relationship between the social position of women and promotion of their education by social reformers. The article concludes with reflection on late twentieth century attempts to transform women’s socio-educational status-quo

Nuclear Security Architecture & Radiological Disaster Response in India Progress and Challenges

The nuclear security architecture in India is three-fold: the infrastructure security including physical security of the nuclear plant; port and border security including training and capacity building to prevent any illicit trafficking of nuclear material into the country and; the inter-institutional coordination at the Centre and State level during radiological emergencies. However, there exist structural weaknesses that need to be accounted for in all these three areas. It is imperative to develop capacities not only for safe handling, transport and disposal of nuclear material but also instituting stringent cyber-security laws, border security measures and functional Centre-State coordination in crisis situation for the safety and security of the general population. The following paper seeks to address these challenges and provide recommendations for strengthening the nuclear security and disaster response framework in India. The paper draws recommendations from the 2019 IPCS workshop on Smuggling and Radiation Detection, on the illicit trafficking of radioactive materials supported by the Office of Nuclear Smuggling Detection and Deterrence (NSDD) of the United States Department of Energy (DOE)

Combinatorial aspects of symmetries on groups

An MSc dissertation by Shivani Singh. University of Witwatersrand Faculty of Science, School of Mathematics. August 2016.These symmetries have interesting applications to enumerative combinatorics and to Ramsey theory. The aim of this thesis will be to present some important results in these fields. In particular, we shall enumerate the r-ary symmetric bracelets of length n.LG201

Nature and Functioning of Visual Merchandising in Organized Food Retailing

The Indian food retail sector is one of the biggest industries in the country with an annual turnover of around US $18 billion. It has been estimated that organized food retailing in India which is worth US$ 666 million today will increase to US $ 33,333 million by 2015. The inherent attractiveness of the segment is luring more and more investors from both India and abroad, as is clearly indicated by the opening of a number of retail stores by major corporate houses like those of Bharti, Reliance, Pantaloons (Food Bazaar), Subhiksha, ITC (Choupal fresh), etc. However, to build long-term customer loyalty, price, quality, variety, and right image are very much needed. To attain this, the aesthetic appeal of the store and the way the products are displayed at the store are very important. Thus, the visual merchandising (VM) is the need of the hour at the food retail stores. This paper has studied various components of VM at retail stores and has analyzed the impact of indoor signages on customer’s buying behaviour. A comparative analysis of VM has been done at Food Bazaar (Ambala), Subhiksha (Chandigarh) and ITC Choupal Fresh (Chandigarh). Problems faced in implementation of VM at retail stores have been highlighted and some implications have been mentioned.Agribusiness,