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This study examines the relative influence of traditional and biomedical theories of health and disease on the reasoning about childhood nutritional problems by mothers in rural South India. Mothers with different levels of schooling, traditional practitioners, and medical experts were interviewed. Their explanations of nutritional problems were verbally recorded and analysed using methods of cognitive analyses. / Nutritional concepts and their interpretations given in the mothers' explanations matched that of the traditional theory of Siddha medicine, prevalent in South India. With an increase in formal education, there was an increase in the use of concepts derived from modern biomedical theory. However, the mothers exhibited little understanding of the underlying mechanisms involved. Implications of these findings for designing nutrition and health education are discussed, in relation to knowledge reorganization to replace harmful concepts and relations with beneficial ones.

On September 27, 1947, another page was added to the long and complex history of the Christian Church. At that time in St. George's Cathedral, Madras, South India, a union was constituted giving birth to the Church of South India. [...]

There is considerable evidence that dowry payments in India have not only increased over the last five decades, but that the custom has spread into regions and communities where it was never practiced before. The aim of this thesis is to understand why these changes have occurred. A particularly influential explanation is that rising dowries in India are concomitant with population growth. According to this interpretation, a population increase leads to an excess supply of brides since men marry younger women. As a result, dowry payments must rise in order to clear the marriage market. Reductions in the equilibrium age difference will tend to equalize the excess supply of women in the marriage market. It has been reasoned that the severe social and economic pressures associated with older unmarried daughters imply that households of older potential brides are willing to outbid the families of younger brides and that this competitive interaction places upward pressure on dowries. The first substantive chapter of this thesis explicitly models the dynamics of dowry payments when population grows. It points out some difficulties in making the theory reconcile the main observations relevant in the context of demographic change. In particular, there exist conditions under which population growth can cause dowries to decrease if the model is constrained from generating an increasing number of unmarried women. An alternative explanation is provided in the subsequent chapter which takes into account the phenomenon of caste. The explanation posits a process of modernisation which increases the heterogeneity of potential wealth within each caste. The new income-earning opportunities brought about by development are predominantly filled by men and as a result grooms become a relatively heterogeneous group compared to brides. If we perceive dowry as a bid that a bride makes for a groom of a certain market value, an increase in heterogeneity of grooms will increase the spread of dowries. Men who become more eligible in the marriage market will receive higher dowries, whereas the payments will decrease for those who are less eligible; however, average dowries may remain constant. The explanation as to why dowries also increase for the relatively less desirable grooms, and in turn average dowry payments necessarily increase, relies heavily on particularities of the caste system. Although there are numerous studies of the dowry phenomenon in India, research pertaining to the custom of dowry in the rest of South Asia is relatively sparse. The aim of the final chapter is to study dowry payments in Pakistan. Since an exploration of how they have evolved through time is not possible due to limitations of the data, the analysis focuses instead on the present role of dowry payments. The investigation concludes that the dowry phenomenon in Pakistan is similar to that occurring in India.

The purpose of this study was to see how lack of toilets along with occupational heat affects health and prosperous. It is based on interviews made on women and men working in the surroundings of Chennai, India, with and without access to toilets, that all are affected by occupational heat. Questions about their perception of how their health is affected by working in heat are asked. There are also questions about how their work is affected by their toilet situation. Some of the interviewees have access to shadow and to toilets and some do not have any access to these facilities. Totally 72 people have been interviewed, 58 women and 14 men. 50 of them had access to toilets and 22 did not. All of the interviewees are affected by the heat and some of them have diseases that indicates on health problems caused by no or limited access to toilets. The workers with no access to toilets are the group that have most health problems and are also the group that go for urination and defecation least. The workers with access to toilets are the group that have least health problems and go to the toilet most. Men with no access to toilets go more often than women with no toilets and are more similar with the group with access to toilets. This report is a minor field study, funded by SIDA, and made in collaboration with Sri Ramachandra University, India.

"Infant Mortality Rate" (IMR), is an important socio-economic indicator which measures an important dimension of the well-being of any society. For the developing and less developed countries of the world, Infant Mortality Rates are much higher than those in the developed countries. This research aims to study IMR in India, a country which achieved considerable growth in industrial and agricultural sectors during the post-independence era, but which still has a relatively high level of IMR. Different formulations for measuring IMR are given and work done by different searchers in this area are reviewed in this study. Indicators of the variables affecting IMR are chosen, a time series regression model is estimated by ordinary least squares, and the results discussed. A cross-section analysis of the states in India is also attempted. The results of these analyses, concur quite well with other studies done for countries in similar stages of economic development.

The role of the political party in power in mediating the relationship between the state and labour was examined. The Indian states of Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal--each governed by a political party representing a different ideology and class coalition--were compared in terms of conditions for workers. Other factors likely to affect the position of workers in the state, such as its industrial profile, and the strength of its labour movement prior to the period under study, were also considered. / It was found that, although the nature of the party regime did significantly influence the state-labour relationship, workers were not necessarily better off under the most sympathetic and interventionist party. The nature of industry in the state was central in determining conditions for workers. Thus, the party in power influenced conditions for workers as much through policies not aimed specifically at workers, as through intervention in industrial relations.

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Built on the ruins of earlier cities, the Mughal Emperor Shahjahan founded Shahjahanabad in 1639. Cradling a fort, the city expended itself down the social/housing strata to a wall. This wall not only brought coherence to any one group but provided an interaction amongst them. These cohesive units formed neighborhoods called mohallahs, marked by religious, economic and social liaisons, their identity legitimizing the power of certain individuals and institutions. The Palace-Complex formed the pinnacle in this urban hierarchy. This thesis shows the importance of the Palace-Complex and how the British occupied it after the 1857 Sepoy Rebellion in an attempt to exercise control over the city.