Suchergebnisse

Birsa Munda, Adivasi leader (Indigenous people) led a rebellion at the end of the 19th century against the dikus (outsiders) popularly known as Birsa Ulgulan (tumult, rebellion). The movement targeted British officials, zamindars, and missionaries. One of the immediate effects of the movement emerged in the form of protectionary legislation (Chota Nagpur Tenancy Act) and later played an influential role in the making of Jharkhand. In the contemporary social and political landscape, the presence of Birsa Munda in the form of the built environment such as statue is indelible and offers an exciting opportunity to understand the new aesthetic turn. In particular, the author investigates two statues in Jharkhand. These statues that function as "sites of memory" play a significant role in political mobilisation and vote-bank politics. It also offers a possibility to understand the relationship between the state, elites and subalterns. The paper builds upon ethnographic materials collected during the fieldwork and devices a conceptual tool of "material-memory" to offer the specific role of Birsa's memory as medium of doing memory politics.

This article investigates the patterns of household cooking fuel choice and its determining factors for various socio-religious groups in rural India using NSS 68th Consumption Expenditure round. The article also studies how the inter-household gaps result in many levels of Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) access for households belonging to various socio-religious groups. In this regard, the application of a logistic model for the considered socio-religious groups highlights the importance of income and the education level of different members of the households. Further, the differences in the probability of access to LPG among various socio-religious groups, with respect to upper caste Hindus, are decomposed using Fairlie decomposition method. The gap in income determines a major proportion of the gap, followed by the education level of the members. We also find that the Scheduled Tribes (STs) face the problem of availability of LPG, while other socio-religious groups, when compared to upper caste Hindus, either face affordability issues or possess a taste for traditional fuel.

Abstract. The NW Himalaya (India) has been one of the most affected terrains of the Himalaya, subject to frequent disastrous landslides owing to active tectonics and multiple
precipitation sources. This article focuses on two towns (Joshimath and
Bhatwari) of Uttarakhand in the NW Himalaya, which have been
witnessing subsidence for decades. Up until 9 January 2023, Joshimath had
witnessed widespread cracks in more than 500 houses, which has prompted
social unrest in the region. The hillslopes surrounding both towns
comprise highly jointed gneisses with schistose interlayer rock mass. Both towns have subsidences and holes in the road, broken retaining walls, and displaced boulders, and the houses have
cracks in the walls and holes. Recently, such slope instability phenomena have
increased, which is leading to social movements in the region seeking
government action such as possible evacuation and rehabilitation. The present study
used a continuum-modelling-based slope stability simulation to
determine the response of these hillslopes under various loading conditions:
gravity, rainfall, building load, domestic discharge, and seismic load.
Results revealed that the displacement in these hillslopes might reach up to
20–25 m, which will further aggravate the situation. The occurrence of frequent
extreme rainfall in these towns and three major earthquakes, which occurred on 1 September
1803 (Mw 7.8), 20 October 1991 (Mw 6.8), and 29 March 1999 (Mw 6.6), having a hypocentral distance less than 30 km makes such a study more
viable for decision making.