Disciples of a crazy saint: The Buchen of Spiti

The Buchen are specialist religious performers from Spiti, a culturally Tibetan valley in North India. They are widely known for performing an elaborate exorcism ritual that culminates in a slab of stone, marked with images of demons, being smashed on a man’s belly. In winter groups of Buchen perform their religious theatre, a localised form of Ache Lhamo, the Tibetan Opera. This book, published in conjunction with an exhibition at the Pitt Rivers Museum at the University of Oxford is the result of a research project and substantial fieldtrip funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, with project partnership from the Pitt Rivers Museum. Patrick Sutherland has been photographing in Spiti for nearly two decades and working with the Buchen for several years. The book consists of a self-reflexive essay by Patrick Sutherland illustrated with historical photographs and his own photographs, followed by four sections of photographs and captions by Patrick Sutherland. It concludes with a substantial essay, placing the Buchen into a wider cultural and historical context, by Tashi Tsering, founding Director of the Amnye Machen Institute (Tibetan Centre for Advanced Studies) in Dharamsala. This essay is also illustrated with historical photographs

カンセツ カンヨ ガタ シエキ ヒョウゲン ノ アスペクトテキナ イミ ニホンゴ ト アムド チベット ゴ ヲ タイショウシテ

使役文可分力宜接干預型，同接干預型，非干預型三秤。本文岡述了日，藏培中的同接干預型使役文的吋恣。当“冠程性劫洞”充当使役文凋沼吋，爾和悟言都表示‘友生放任’和‘遊行放任’，后鎮“ておく／～‘xi　zhak”吋則表示‘控制中的遊行放任’；当“瞬同性劫洞”充当型胃悟吋，后鎮“ておく／～‘ ?堰@zhak”オ能表示‘控制中的送行放任’。　　安多藏濡中表示‘放任’的最典型的句型是“假定型使役文”，日梧中不存在逮科句型。当“Lt程性劫洞”充当“假定型使役文”凋活吋表示‘炭生放任’，如后躾“～‘xi　zhak”表示‘控制中的送行放任’；“瞬1司性劫洞”充当潤培吋表示‘炭生放任’，如后鎮“～‘xi　zhak”表示‘控制中的遊行放任’和‘控制中的結果鑑鍍放任’

Vegetable Production Scenario in Trans-Himalayan Leh Ladakh Region, India

The high altitude trans-Himalayan Ladakh region remains cut-off for over six months in a year due to heavy snowfall. Long harsh winters reduce the cropping season to just four to five months in a year. Single-cropping is dominant and agriculture production is entirely based on irrigation. The average land holding is small and emphasis has been on minimal use of off-farm inputs. Meeting the fresh vegetable requirement of the burgeoning local population, defence forces and the incoming tourists in this remote mountainous area is a formidable challenge.Very few vegetable types were traditionally grown in Ladakh. Significant progress has been made since 1960s in promoting vegetable cultivation in the region. The vegetable production scenario and consumption choices have undergone drastic changes, compared to what was available some decades back. Agro-techniques and vegetable production calendar in Ladakh differs from lowland parts of the country. Vegetable farms are smaller with an average 0.2 acre. The area of vegetable production constitutes 5.5 per cent of the total 10,319 hectares of agricultural land in Leh district. The widely grown vegetables were potato (75.6 per cent), peas (10.7 per cent), onion (3.4 per cent), cabbage (3.3 per cent), carrot (2.0 per cent) and cauliflower (1.8 per cent). Preference for potato, onion, cabbage and carrot was largely contributed to the desired long term storage capacity for consumption during the landlocked winter months. Supply to the army and tourism industry is the major factor for rapid transformation of vegetable production in the region. Critical areas that need focused attention include technology for vegetable production in winter months, post harvest management, seed production, organic certification, area expansion, harnessing niches and building stronger linkages between growers and consumers

Finishing the euchromatic sequence of the human genome

The sequence of the human genome encodes the genetic instructions for human physiology, as well as rich information about human evolution. In 2001, the International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium reported a draft sequence of the euchromatic portion of the human genome. Since then, the international collaboration has worked to convert this draft into a genome sequence with high accuracy and nearly complete coverage. Here, we report the result of this finishing process. The current genome sequence (Build 35) contains 2.85 billion nucleotides interrupted by only 341 gaps. It covers ∼99% of the euchromatic genome and is accurate to an error rate of ∼1 event per 100,000 bases. Many of the remaining euchromatic gaps are associated with segmental duplications and will require focused work with new methods. The near-complete sequence, the first for a vertebrate, greatly improves the precision of biological analyses of the human genome including studies of gene number, birth and death. Notably, the human enome seems to encode only 20,000-25,000 protein-coding genes. The genome sequence reported here should serve as a firm foundation for biomedical research in the decades ahead

A Study of Coverage of Tibet in The New York Times (1980-1987)

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Social inequality and resource management : gender, caste and class in the rural Himalayas

The management of irrigation water and other resources, as practiced by traditional farming communities in developing countries, is often presented as a model of an equitable system – especially when compared to systems managed by states. This study demonstrates that the resource management practices in two Himalayan farming communities are, in fact, inequitable in terms of local gender, caste and class roles. This thesis examines inequalities in the social organization of irrigation systems in two villages in Spiti Valley in India’s Himachal Pradesh state. Its key finding is that the social organization of irrigation management, particularly in terms of farmers’ gender, class and caste backgrounds, is best understood as part of a broader division of labor for farming and related resources (such as for the management of fodder, dung and firewood), which are all embedded in the local socio-economic structure. This finding, which is based on participatory observation and interviews with farmers, as well as an analysis of historical and legal documents, underlines the importance of studying management of different resource sectors relationally rather than compartmentally. In particular, this study identifies key functional linkages between the social organization of farming and different resource sectors and develops theoretical approaches to the study of resource management in rural communities.Science, Faculty ofResources, Environment and Sustainability (IRES), Institute forGraduat