Low workforce participation of educated female and the role of work organizations in post-war Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka as a developing economy that achieved gender equity in education and a higher literacy rate (both adult and youth) in the South Asian region still records a low labor force participation and high unemployment rate of females when compared to their male counterparts. With the suggestion of existing literature on the non-conventional models of careers those adopted by young and female populations at the working age, this paper discusses the role of work organizations in absorbing more females (and even minority groups) into the workforce. It mainly focuses on the need of designing appropriate human resource strategies and reforming the existing organizational structures in order for contributing to the national development in the post-war Sri Lanka economy.

Marriage, dowry, and women's status in rural Punjab, Pakistan

Dowry is a common custom observed in South Asian countries. It has been a target of an opposition movement because it is assumed to be a root cause of women's mistreatment, for example, in the form of sex-selective abortion, girls' malnutrition, female infanticide, and domestic homicide called "dowry murder." Despite its alleged evil consequences and the legal ban or restrictions on it, the custom has been extended, and recently, the dowry amount seems to be increasing. However, there is little empirical evidence of dowry's effects. This study empirically investigates the effects of dowry on women's status in rural Pakistan. We conducted a unique survey in rural Punjab, Pakistan, to explore the marriage practices there and to answer the research question. Results show that a higher dowry amount enhances women’s status in the marital household. This implies that an outright ban on dowries does not necessarily improve women's welfare at this time.

High-precision 40Ar/39Ar geochronology and the advent of North America’s Late Cretaceous terrestrial fauna

A densely sampled, diverse new fauna from the uppermost Cedar Mountain Formation, Utah, indicates that the basic pattern of faunal composition for the Late Cretaceous of North America was already established by the Albian-Cenomanian boundary. Multiple, concordant 40Ar/39Ar determinations from a volcanic ash associated with the fauna have an average age of 98.39 ± 0.07 million years. The fauna of the Cedar Mountain Formation records the first global appearance of hadrosaurid dinosaurs, advanced lizard (e.g., Helodermatidae), and mammal (e.g., Marsupialia) groups, and the first North American appearance of other taxa such as tyrannosaurids, pachycephalosaurs, and snakes. Although the origin of many groups is unclear, combined biostratigraphic and phylogenetic evidence suggests an Old World, specifically Asian, origin for some of the taxa, an hypothesis that is consistent with existing evidence from tectonics and marine invertebrates. Large-bodied herbivores are mainly represented by low-level browsers, ornithopod dinosaurs, whose radiations have been hypothesized to be related to the initial diversification of angiosperm plants. Diversity at the largest body sizes (>106 g) is low, in contrast to both preceding and succeeding faunas; sauropods, which underwent demise in the Northern hemisphere coincident with the radiation of angiosperms, apparently went temporarily unreplaced by other megaherbivores. Morphologic and taxonomic diversity among small, omnivorous mammals, multituberculates, is also low. A later apparent increase in diversity occurred during the Campanian, coincident with the appearance of major fruit types among angiosperms, suggesting the possibility of adaptive response to new resources.

Representational Subversions and the Limits of Postcoloniality: Shahzia Sikander's Strategic Contemporaneity

Transnational artist Shahzia Sikander challenges the limitations of Edward Said's postcolonial emphasis on secular humanism by deploying the heterogeneous traditions of South Asian miniature painting while strategically drawing on tradition to critique contemporaneity. Through a palimpsest process of composition, Sikander reincorporates the unknown and silenced histories implicit in the tradition of miniature painting to create social imaginaries with motifs that draw on the diverse traditions of South Asian religions and aesthetics to create a subversive politics of remembering wherein alternative images of cosmopolitanism emerge. Through a sustained analysis, this dissertation demonstrates how these alternative traditions interrogate and critique the limitations of postcolonial theory. Particularly important to this critique are some recent approaches of Third World feminists that highlight the limitations of secular humanism implicit in much of postcolonial critique. Sikander's compositions mirror these approaches as her motifs of the feminine become an intervention into the spiritual emptiness and ethical confusions of contemporaneity. In effect, Sikander's work is an intervention, a warning, and a plea for the re-invention of positive alternatives as her images embody and facilitate a critical and daring consciousness that is necessary to both our social and spiritual well-being.

[ Collection of Mohammedan prayers] : manuscript, undated

Collection of prayers and various devotional writings in prose and poetry.

Sat:veṇī [niñḍhī] : manuscript, 1890?

Foreign wove paper; watermark: made in Belgium for Nuzzurally Heptoolabhoy, Bombay.

Vāek:vaḏo : manuscript, 1890?

Foreign wove paper, probably German; watermark: Keferstein & Sohn, 1871.

Satveṇī:vaḍī : manuscript, 1884

Foreign paper, good quality.

[ Nikāḥ] : manuscript, ca. 1894

Marriage ritual in Arabic, the Story of the fast of Satī Mā also known as the fast of Maulā ʻAlī, a Prayer to be recited during ceremony for the forgiveness of sin on the Great Day (the Day of Judgement), the short kalimah or testimony of faith and the long kalimah.

Bhaet : manuscript, 1890?

Narratives to be recited at the commemorative assembly (majlis) held on the 30th and 40th days after the martyrdom of Imām Ḥusain.

[ Farmāns] : manuscript, 1910?

According to a note on p. 1, contains farmāns made by Imām Sulṭān Muḥammad Shāh [Aga Khan III] at Zanzibar, Bagamoyo and Dar es Salaam. The manuscript records those farmāns made between 19 Jeṭh [Jyeshtha] to 23 Bhadr [Bhadrapad] s. 1956 (approx. May-September 1899).

Narratives to be recited at the commemorative assembly (majlis) held on the 10th and 20th days after the martyrdom anniversary of Imām Ḥusain : manuscript, 1890?

Title provided by cataloger.

Rasālo:emām:jāfar:sādhak:jo : manuscript, 1890?

A popular treatise in 18 parts.

Namāz : manuscript, 1858-1865

Ritual Prayer in Arabic with instructions on number of prostration cycles (rakaʻahs) to be performed during each of the five prayer times.

Nasabh:nāme:hazarat:nabhī:mahamadh:mûstafā : manuscript, 1900?

Second and third chapters of the anonymous Hindustani work entitled "Nasabh:nāme:hazarat:nabhī:mahamadh:mûstafā" and various accounts.