This thesis delves into the postcolonial genre, examining the novel, The God of Small Things, by Arundhati Roy, and how it highlights the duality in gender roles, social class, and postcolonial society through the narrative style and language.

Through his Bollywood film, Dedh Ishqiya, Abhishek Chaubey addresses matters of comfort and discomfort through the use of typically heteronormative conventions in film. The Bollywood film Dedh Ishqiya, tells the story of a wealthy widow’s search for a new poet husband in the setting of an Urdu poetry gathering (mushaira). She is accompanied and supported by her female friend and handmaiden, Munniya. Their two supposed lovers, Khalujaan and Baban, are thieves, out to steal the love and wealth of these women. However, unbeknownst to these men, the women are lovers themselves and they too are out to steal the love and wealth of a suitor so that they may run away together. Director and co-writer, Abhishek Chaubey, uses conventions drawn from the Sufi, Urdu, and bhakti poetic and literary aesthetic worlds. He builds up an aura of comfort through the use of these conventions. But, he focuses on the complex, but platonic female (sakhi) -bond. Chaubey uses the sakhi bond, as well as other conventions, to draw the viewer into a seemingly heteronormative and conventional (therefore, comfortable) film. But this viewer is then brutally let down when the film subverts those conventional tropes in favor of a non-heteronormative romance. Chaubey does this by referencing Ismat Chughtai’s short story, Lihaaf, and Ridley Scott’s film, Thelma and Louise in his film. Both story and film take the female-bond and complicate it in a way that forces the viewer to examine their own conceptions of comfort, especially those related to sexuality and romance. This thesis focuses on the process of building up comfort through a heteronormative-use of conventions, and then the breaking down of that comfort by referencing Lihaaf and Thelma and Louise. / text

Organisations are constantly dealing with challenges to stay on competitive and doing well, that induces organisations to consistently reassess their plans, formations, course of actions, procedure, and development to remain cost-effective and retain effective workforce. To keep employees highly motivated, content, and effective is however a focal and major issue in the domain of employee job satisfaction because of enormous human involvement. Consequently human resource managers are keen to find the strategies to keep their workforce fully motivated and dedicated to their jobs. In this study dissimilar from prior studies researcher has applied work attributes (Herzberg, 1968; Adams, 1963) and personality aspects (Judge etal, 2001) to examine the relationship of work attributes and personality disposition with job satisfaction. In current era of Information technology revolution organisations across the globe confronting several challenges on different counts including to keep workforce motivated and effective to gain maximum from their skills. Keeping workforce motivated to reduce tardiness, absenteeism, misuse of resources, and turnover are major issues of concern in the domain of employee job satisfaction and human resources management. Therefore, human resources management practitioners, managers, and policy makers are enthusiastically concerned to know about the factors that may help to make workforce effective, motivated and contend with work. The aim of this Doctoral thesis was to study the determinants of employee job satisfaction. The objectives were to explore the organisational work attribute factors and employee personality aspects in Public healthcare sector of Pakistan Where various reforms introduced after implementation of new health policy called Health for All(HFA) lately. This study was categorised in seven parts staring with introduction stating the setting of the study which covers background of this empirical study and supplies the transparent context information. In second phase systemic carefully carried literature review led to theoretical frame work and hypotheses development in third phase. Onwards Survey Questionnaires were administrated to General physicians working in public hospitals for data collection purpose. Descriptive statistics, multi analysis of variance, and exploratory factor analysis with the help of Statistical package for social science (SPSS) was applied to analyse the data, hypotheses testing and confirmatory factor analysis were done with the help of structural equation modelling(SEM). Outcome generated discovered that perception of procedural justice, on job training, working conditions, esprit de corps (team work) and personality aspects self esteem, and self efficacy belief, were significantly and affirmatively correlated and neuroticism personality aspect negatively correlated with employee job satisfaction. However, employee job clarity, task significance perception and personality aspect of locus of control orientation were not found to be related with job satisfaction. Implications and recommendation of research for employee job satisfaction are also discussed.

This dissertation is about the role of NGOs in the lives of subaltern youth in urban India. It is an ethnography on the everyday lives of young people between the ages of 18-32 from impoverished 'red-light areas' in Kolkata who grew up participating in NGO youth programmes. This thesis investigates how NGOs partake in a process of subject making, and how young people interact with and improvise NGO subjectification to better their own lives in a world- class aspiring city. The youth featuring in this dissertation spent their childhood and adolescence either residing in NGO shelter homes or regularly attending NGO drop-in-centres in their neighborhoods. They came of age attending NGO education programmes, job skills trainings, and human rights workshops. Grounded in 13 months of fieldwork, my ethnography tells the stories of young people’s lives after their participation in NGO programmes, amidst their everyday worlds of work, consumption, and politics. My examination of the young people’s post-NGO daily lives in Kolkata makes three key contributions. First, it reveals the contradictions of NGO development. It examines the ambivalent effects of NGOs on subaltern young people’s gender and class identity, as well as their social and political subjectivity and mobility. Second, it illustrates the plural forms of agency practised by urban marginalised youth. My thesis demonstrates how young people are not just passive recipients of NGO development opportunities, but active negotiators of development as they interact with NGOs and navigate its attempts to regulate youth. Third, it illustrates how NGOs and post-NGO youth both foster and trouble class divisions in the world-class aspiring city of Kolkata. I illustrate how young people develop cultural dispositions that straddle across subaltern and middle classes and unsettle class boundaries but not inequalities. This dissertation argues for ethnographic attention to the everyday lives of post-NGO youth as an analytical lens to theorise NGOisation and global city processes in contemporary India and the greater global South.

In this thesis I investigate the syntax and semantics of tense-aspect stem participles in the Ṛgveda, focusing primarily on the data from the earlier books II–VII and IX, seeking to establish a comprehensive and coherent analysis of this category within the linguistic system of Ṛgvedic Sanskrit. In recent literature tense-aspect stem participles are usually treated as semantically equivalent to finite verbs wherever possible, but contradictorily where they differ from finite verbs their adjectival nature is emphasized. I argue that tense-aspect stem participles are a fundamentally verbal formation and can be treated as inflectional verb forms: they are adjectival verbs rather than verbal adjectives. At the same time, however, they constitute an independent sub-category of verb form which is not necessarily semantically dependent on corresponding finite stems. I examine the syntactic and semantic properties of tense-aspect stem participles both in relation to finite verbal forms and their wider syntactic context, formalizing the evidence in the framework of Lexical-Functional Grammar. Consequently I am able to categorize the syntactic and semantic deviations which many participles exhibit in comparison to finite verbal forms. I contend that many such forms cannot be treated synchronically (and sometimes diachronically) as participles, but form distinct synchronic categories. My analysis permits a considerably more refined definition of the category of tense-aspect stem participles, dependent on clear morphological, syntactic and semantic criteria, as opposed to the usual, purely morphological, definition. From a diachronic perspective I argue that the category of tense-aspect stem participles as found in the Ṛgveda more closely reflects an inherited Proto-Indo-European category of tense-aspect stem participles than is usually assumed. I also reconsider theoretical treatments of participial syntax and semantics, and develop a more precise typology of non-finite verb systems which adequately accounts for Sanskrit participles.

This exploratory study examines the modernisation of the education system in Bhutan. It focuses on three key dimensions of the modernisation process. The first dimension concerns the debates and discussions surrounding the question of modernisation. As is to be expected, there are strongly held views that modernisation is a ‘good’ thing for Bhutan; however, conversely, there exist equipotent views that traditional culture may erode in the quest for modernisation. The study seeks to tease out these contestations through the examination of available text, including oral texts such as radio discussions, written policy documents, newspaper articles, and conversations. The second key dimension of this study examines the translation of decisions from the aforementioned debate – it is significant that modernisation policies have already been shaped though the debate is ongoing – into the delivery of education. Thus, the study focuses both on curriculum policy as well as pedagogic strategies. Finally, the third key dimension focuses on the role of the teacher as a mediator. Here, the inquiry focuses on how teachers manage the tensions. The primary purpose of this research is to contribute to our understanding of changes in Bhutan’s education policy and curriculum (1990-2010), which charge the education sector with supporting the continuity of tradition and mediating the tension between tradition and modernisation. There is a growing body of literature that examines Bhutanese discourses on tradition, culture, and modernisation of Bhutan’s education sector (see Phuntsho, 2000; Roder, 2012; Ueda, 2003; Wangyal, 2001; Whitecross, 2002). However, despite the comprehensive education reforms currently underway which position teachers at the centre of a number of initiatives (VanBalkom & Sherman, 2010), a gap exists in available studies that bring the voices of teachers to the fore. Given that teachers occupy a central role in the education system and that the implementation of curriculum innovations succeed ‘only when the teachers concerned are committed to them and especially, when they understand as well as accept, their underlying principles,’ (Kelly, 2009:15) this study is an exploration of interplay between policy and practice and considers teachers as the focal point. This research was conducted in 2010 and 2011 in the Thimphu and Paro dzongkhags. It included semi-structured interviews with 9 prominent policy makers and politicians, 11 education leaders, and 51 middle secondary school teachers, 7 of which were observed. More specifically, this study tells the stories of individuals who were involved in the modernisation of the national system of education from its inception in the 1960s and uncovers the experiences of a younger generation of educators. Overall, the findings of this study reveal that in Bhutan, traditional and modern epistemologies are strong currents that converge and intermingle. However, at particular points of intersection, they flow in two competing directions. Education stakeholders are thus positioned at a critical juncture where different knowledge ‘flows’ (Appadurai, 1996) converge and diverge, generating fracture lines and, at times, hindering the possibility of balance. The participants in this study revealed a range of complex and contradictory voices as many attempted to reconcile the evident tensions.

Dans la nature actuelle, l'ordre Chiroptera constitue l'un des groupes de mammifères placentaires les plus diversifié. La particularité des chiroptères réside dans leur capacité au vol actif et à l'écholocation, deux adaptations clés qui prédisposent ces mammifères à la migration et à la colonisation de niches écologiques exclusives. La radiation initiale, dite « explosive », des chiroptères implique un ensemble de familles primitives éocènes retrouvées sur tous les continents excepté l'Antarctique. De manière quasi synchrone, plusieurs représentants appartenant aux deux principaux groupes de chiroptères actuels (c.-à-d., Rhinolophoidea et Vespertilionoidea) sont attestés dans l'Éocène inférieur terminal – Éocène moyen basal de Tunisie (Chambi). La rareté du matériel fossile pour les chiroptères paléogènes soulève de nombreuses questions sur les modalités évolutives de la radiation et de la dispersion des premières formes modernes. Cette étude intègre des faunes inédites de chiroptères fossiles issues de plusieurs campagnes de terrain réalisées en Afrique du Nord et en Asie du Sud. Il s'agit de localités fossilifères datées de l'Éocène inférieur et moyen de Tunisie (Chambi), d'Algérie (El Kohol et Glib Zegdou), et de Chine (Shanghuang). Les différentes analyses systématiques et cladistiques réalisées sur le matériel fossile, essentiellement constitué de dents isolées, ont permis d'apporter de nombreux éclaircissements sur les modalités évolutives qui ont défini la radiation des premiers microchiroptères modernes. Ces nouvelles faunes ont révélé pas moins de sept familles modernes (Rhinolophidae, Rhinopomatidae, Hipposideridae, Necromantidae, Emballonuridae, Nycteridae, Philisidae et Vespertilionidae) ainsi qu'une forme primitive, le plus ancien chiroptère d'Afrique, provenant de l'Éocène inférieur d'Algérie (El Kohol). Une approche phylogénétique met en évidence deux axes majeures de dispersions de ces chiroptères qui ont pris place durant l'Éocène moyen : une phase Est-Ouest depuis l'Asie de l'Est jusqu'en Europe, et une phase Nord-Sud depuis l'Afrique du Nord jusqu'en Europe. L'étude de la morphologie dentaire de chacune des espèces étudiées, de leur taille estimée et de la taphonomie des sites fossilifères a permis de mieux cerner le contexte paléoécologique de ces chiroptères paléogènes. Dans des conditions paléoclimatiques tropicales ou subtropicales favorables à la prolifération d'insectes, les microchiroptères, pour la plupart insectivores, avaient à disposition une ressource abondante. Mais une telle richesse spécifique, parfois très localisée comme à Chambi, devait également entrainer une forte compétition interspécifique qui a probablement été un facteur déterminant dans les événements de radiation et de dispersion. / In nature today, the order Chiroptera is one of the most diversified placental mammalian groups. The particularity of bats is their ability to fly and to echolocate, two key adaptations which allow them to migrate over long distances and to colonize exclusive ecological niches. The initial radiation of bat, described as explosive, involves primitive Eocene families that are found in all continents except Antarctica. Almost simultaneously, several representatives of the two main modern groups of chiroptera (i.e., Rhinolophoidea and Vespertilionoidea) occur in the late Early – early Middle Eocene of Tunisia (Chambi). The scarcity of fossil material for Paleogene bats raises many questions about the early evolutionary history of modern forms. This study incorporates new bat fossil faunas from several fieldwork campaigns in North Africa and South Asia. The fossiliferous localities include those of the Early – Middle Eocene of Tunisia (Chambi), Algeria (El Kohol and Glib Zegdou), and China (Shanghuang). Different systematic and cladistic analyses, carried out on fossil material principally made up of isolated teeth, allow us to highlight the modalities of the radiation of the first modern microbats. These new faunas reveal seven modern families of bats (Rhinolophidae, Rhinopomatidae, Hipposideridae, Necromantidae, Emballonuridae, Nycteridae, Philisidae and Vespertilionidae) and also a primitive form from the Early Eocene of El Kohol that is the oldest representative of the order in Africa. A phylogenetic approach highlights two major axes of dispersion that took place during the Middle Eocene: one East-West from East Asia towards Europe, the second one North-South from North Africa to Europe. The study of dental morphology, size and taphonomy provide us with a better grasp on the paleoecological context of these modern Paleogene microbats. The tropical or subtropical paleoclimatic conditions probably favoured the proliferation of insects that constituted an abundant resource for mostly insectivorous bats. But such richness, sometimes very localized as in Chambi, would also have led to strong interspecific competition, which was probably an important factor for the events of radiation and dispersion.

This thesis is an attempt to interrogate the relationship between everyday walking and the contemporary Indian city, specifically the contemporary cultural and geographical space of Delhi--—a postcolonial city that functions simultaneously as a “global” city and a “walled city” (King, Spaces). While walking as performance art is of increasing relevance in the contemporary Indian city, the scope of this project restricts itself to examining the nature of everyday walking and its ties to everyday life, heritage and urban memory. Engaging with walking as a form of performance ethnography, this thesis considers a range of walks—heritage walks, commemorative memory walks and a form of the Situationist dérive—in the contemporary city of Delhi to ask: What can walking as an activity of performance ethnography tell us about how architecture, violence and the urban imagination dictate our lives that urban form and histories alone cannot? What is the relationship between forms of urban memory, everyday life, and heritage in an Indian city—Delhi, in this case—and how do the various kinds of walks inform this relationship? What are the various kinds of walks that emerge in response to and dialogue with site, and how do New and Old Delhi serve as models for this? This thesis is primarily about everyday walking practices in urban India, but in becoming so, it also attempts to crucially interrogate walking as ethnography as well as the practice of ethnography itself, specifically performance ethnography. It argues that some of the productive ways to engage with these practices are by re/considering walking as a practice of performance ethnography of the city, through the selective lenses of everyday life, heritage and urban memory.

Changing notions of marriage and family across the globe—from kinship obligation, social reproduction, and complementary labour to an ideal of marriage based on affective bonds, emotional intimacy, and pleasure—is widely read as indicating the shift from tradition to modernity. The modern companionate marriage ideal is then linked to a larger cultural transformation: the development of the modern individual self. The emergence of modern conceptions of the self in North America and Western Europe that emphasizes personal autonomy over the authority of the patriarchal family is said to have resulted in the decline of power parents and kin had over the choice of marriage partner with marriage coming to be seen as a person’s individual choice. Moreover, because companionate marriage demands a high degree of emotional and personal commitment it is generally accepted that such marriages must be entered into voluntarily, thereby recasting marriage as a contractual agreement between two people rather than an alliance between two families. Narratives about choice in marriage are, therefore, part of a historical process that emphasizes an “inner self” as integral to modern subjectivity and gives credence to individual agency in intimate relations. My thesis explores how marriage norms, family structures, and kinship relations amongst the middle-class in Sri Lanka have been transformed by social change from the early part of the twentieth century to the present. It aims to understand the ways in which modernity is reconfiguring people’s expectations of intimate relations and shaping women’s experiences and presentations of the ‘self’. In doing so, it attempts to answer three main questions: How do changing expectations of marriage structure people’s narratives about individual agency? To what extent do kinship obligations, caste considerations, and class mobility structure people’s choices in marriage? And finally, what implications do these findings have for the feminist theorization of agency and personhood? Based on fifteen months of fieldwork amongst Sinhala Buddhist middle-class families living in the city of Colombo, I argue that the urban middle-class in Sri Lanka have collectively invested in the narrative of choice through which a choosing person is consciously created as a mark of modernity and progress. However, people’s life histories show how, rather than indicating a radical shift in the way people negotiated between individual desires and social norms, the emphasis on choice signals a shift in the narrative devices used in the presentation of the self. Moreover, I argue that rather than signalling freedom, these narratives reveal how people are often burdened with the risks and responsibility of agency and grapple with making the “right” choices. By carefully deconstructing people’s anxieties that underline their narratives about choosing the right kind of partner, I reveal how choices are, in fact, structured by social norms and the expectations of family. I argue that marriage continues to be a principal strategy for social mobility and the assertion of status in contemporary Sri Lanka. Therefore, I demonstrate how caste and class considerations form the basis on which collective manoeuvring is undertaken to influence individual choices. I then argue that the trope of individual agency is not universal to all narratives about marriage and family. By examining alternative stories about marriage that defy the accepted convention I show how narratives of agency, which are deployed in certain contexts, are downplayed or denied in others; that the ‘self’, which is presented as making individual choices and actively shaping its own destiny in one context, is presented as the object of fate and circumstance in others. I conclude that because what it means to be middle-class is always a process of negotiation between competing and contradictory notions of tradition and modernity, people’s presentation of the self reveal the perpetual striving that seems to characterise modern subjectivity.

In this dissertation, I will explore how 1990s and 2000s British, Irish and South Asian historical films represented the violent legacy of partition on the island of Ireland and in South Asia, respectively. I contend that a cross-regional and cross-national examination of the relationships between national memory, national cinema and minority will reveal that partition had a similar effect on Irish, South Asian and Northern Irish societies: the alignment of a normative national identity with a particular religious identity. This study will explore how key Irish, British and South Asian cinematic texts, despite being produced in disparate production contexts, similarly represent the brutal marginalization of gendered and religious minorities as a central legacy of partition. In my engagement with these films, I have two central areas of exploration. The first is how these films challenge state or majoritarian histories by presenting themselves as historical texts that correct the historical record. I will show how state histories (Michael Collins), majoritarian narratives (Hey!Ram), repressed gendered minority histories (Khamosh Pani, The Magdalene Sisters) and post-conflict narratives (Five Minutes of Heaven and Fiza) contest majoritarian or colonial histories. The second, and ancillary, area of exploration is how the international trauma film genre influences the films' respective representations of atrocity. I argue that trauma theory can help us understand minorities' relationship to the state and the ongoing impact of particular historical events on community and nation. To ground my comparative analysis, I draw from postcolonial theory, poststructuralism and trauma theory. In conclusion, I will contend that these films' minority figures remind us of the dangers of nationalism's limited imaginative boundaries and the role that cinema plays in helping us to think beyond its limitations.