Consent and speaker background of Jeremy Aimol including education, languages spoken, and places lived. Recorded in Balisor, Silchar, Assam, India.

Consent and speaker background of Linda Saihriem including education, languages spoken, and places lived. Recorded in Old Bagbahar.

The transgender community in India, commonly known as hijras, consists of people who were born as males but address themselves as females. They have been considered as the third gender in India for millennia and have had specific religious and sociocultural values and roles, but are forced to live in shadows in this day and age. Isolation of this community is also reflected in the way transgender characters are represented in Indian entertainment media. The study analyses two transgender themed films semiotically and the audience reception of those representations by 20 members of the transgender community. Semiotics is a helpful tool to understand the ways signs communicate ideas to viewers. This study applies syntagmatic and paradigmatic analyses to understand how images are used to represent and relay information to the audience. Reception theory along with double colonization has been incorporated in this study to analyse the ways in which the transgender community interprets the representations in entertainment media.

Neeraj and Rajdeep discuss their customs and traditions, debating whether some of them should be preserved or discarded. The recording was made at Umar Homestay in Rakchham village.

Balbir and Hardev discuss whether pesticides should be used in agriculture. Balbir suggested the topic, since both participants are involved in agricultural work. The recording was made at Balbir's home in Rakchham village.

Manish and Radju discuss their use of smartphones, The recording was made at Umar Homestay.

Santan and Savitri discuss what they were doing in the village and their plans for the week. The recording was made in Rakchham village, nearby the main temple.

Raj and Sahdev discuss whether the Chhitkul-Rakchham language should be taught at school. They are members of the current leadership of Rakchham village ('Panchayat'), elected in 2015. The recording was made after a a long meeting with members of the Panchayat at the Panchayat building ('Panchayat Bhawan') in Rakchham village.

Nand and Sunder discuss the overall economic situation in India and compare the current situation with that of 5-10 years earlier (2000s). The recording was made in Vinod Kumar Negi's garden in Rakchham village.

Nand and Sunder discuss the history of Rakchham village. The recording was made in Vinod Kumar's garden in Rakchham village.

Bijender and Tikam discuss the practice of transhumance, which is when animal flocks are moved to higher pastures at the start of a new season. They are asked whether this practice is still necessary, in light of climate change. The recording was made at Tikam's house (and shop) in Rakchham village.

Poster exploring the approach to understand information behavior of communities speaking endangered languages.

The rasa theory of Indian aesthetics is concerned with the nature of the genesis of emotions and their corresponding experiences, as well as the condition of being in and experiencing the aesthetic world. According to the Indian aesthetic theory, rasa ("juice" or "essence," something that is savored, that is tasted) is an embodied aesthetic experienced through an artistic performance. In this thesis, I have investigated how the aesthetics of rasa philosophy account for creative presence and its experiences in Karnatik vocal performances. Beyond the facets of grammar, Karnatik rāga performance signifies a deeper ontological meaning as a way to experience rasa, idiomatically termed as rāga-rasa by South Indian rāga practitioners. A vocal performance of a rāga ideally depends on a singer's embodied experience of rāga and rāga-bhāva (emotive expression of rāga), as much as it does on his/her theoretical knowledge and skillset of a rāga's svaras (scale degrees), gamakas (ornamentation), lakṣhaṇās (emblematic phrases), and so on. Reflecting on my own experience of being a Karnatik student and performer for the last two decades, participant observation, interviews, and analysis of Indian aesthetic theory of rasa, I propose a way of understanding that to sing rāga is to embody bhāva opening the …

In 1991, India adopted neoliberalism, a system of political economic practices that promotes private property and free trade, as its political and economic system to promote development in their country. India's neoliberal reform has created issues surrounding human development, resource accumulation, and power struggles. Eleven years later, in 2002, Bt cotton was introduced to the Indian agricultural sector. This research examines how the genetically modified organism Bt cotton is being used to commodify nature in the context of agriculture under neoliberalism. The research focuses on the dispossession of the rural farmers through the commodification of agriculture using Bt cotton. Dispossession of the rural farmers happen through the implications that arise from the commodification of nature. Through Marxist theory of primitive accumulation, this research analyzes accumulation by dispossession and how it neglects the working class and its struggle in rural India. Through this examination, the research will argue alternatives to the dispossession of the working class and the commodification of nature through Bt cotton. Dispossession, in this research, is examined both through working class, but also through the dispossession of biodiversity. Through the loss of biodiversity, the rural farmers are becoming dispossessed from a more sustainable environment. Along with these goals, …

This study incorporated a community based assessment with a focus on community based tourism in Kalache and Hulgol, India. Kalache and Hulgol are two agrarian based communities located in the environmentally significant region of the Western Ghats. Each of these communities has considered community based tourism as a means to reduce urban youth outmigration, to diversify economic resources, and to encourage the empowerment of women. The primary goals of this study were to understand the community issues and objectives, to determine the level of support for tourism development, to determine participant attitudes toward tourism, and to determine the obstacles to tourism development. The findings of this project address the complexity of operating in the tourism industry, the impacts of tourism, and the use of community based tourism models in support of sustainable tourism.

In India, issues of gender discrimination and female empowerment have become more prominent in the last several years. Elderly women, specifically widows, are often abandoned or not well cared for by family members and are typically marginalized within Indian society, vulnerable, and susceptible to poverty. This is an exploratory analysis with a research hypothesis asking, who are the caregivers of elderly widows? Statistics indicate that women may be taking on more of a care giving role with elderly widows which in turn may exacerbate the already existing issues of poverty and neglect for this population. The purpose of this study was to examine in more depth the factors related to living arrangements of elderly Indian widows using the NFHS-3 (2005-2006) data set. Quantitative methods of secondary data analysis and systematic literature review are employed in this research. sociological factors related to family self-reported living arrangement, age of widow, education, caste, socioeconomic level, religion, and geographic region were analyzed using data from the respondents identified as older widows (N=2,176). Findings indicate 78% report living alone or in non-familial households while 22% reported living in various familial constellations. The odds of living with a relative versus not living with a relative were …

The influence of Mohandas K. Gandhi on social and environmental movements in post-colonial India has been widely acknowledged. Yet, the contributions of two European associates of Gandhi, Madeleine Slade and Catherine Mary Heilemann, better known in India as Mira Behn and Sarala Behn, have not received the due attention of the academic community. This dissertation is an examination of the philosophy and social activism of Mira Behn and Sarala Behn and their roles in the evolution of Gandhian philosophy of socioeconomic reconstruction and environmental conservation in the present Indian state of Uttarakhand. Instead of just being acolytes of Gandhi, I argue that these women developed ideas and practices that drew upon from an extensive intellectual terrain that cannot be limited to Gandhi’s work. I delineate the directions in which Gandhian thought and experiments in rural development work evolved through the lives, activism, and written contributions of these two women. Particularly, I examine their influence on social and environmental movements, such as the Chipko and the Anti-Tehri Dam movements, and their roles in promoting grassroots social development and environmental sustainability in the mountain communities of Uttarakhand. Mira Behn and Sarala Behn’s integrative philosophical worldviews present epistemological, sociopolitical, ethical, and metaphysical principles …

This report discusses the United States' relationship with India as it regards nuclear nonproliferation and cooperation. It particularly looks at agreements made between the Bush administration and India, and the Obama administrations continuation of these policies.

India, which has not signed the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and does not have International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards on all of its nuclear material, exploded a “peaceful” nuclear device in 1974, convincing the world of the need for greater restrictions on nuclear trade. The United States created the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) as a direct response to India's test, halted nuclear exports to India a few years later, and worked to convince other states to do the same. India tested nuclear weapons again in 1998. This report looks at how the relationship between the Bush Administration and the Obama Administration with India in regards to nuclear power.

This report discusses the United States' relationship with India as it relates to nuclear arsenals and nuclear nonproliferation policies. The report includes background information on India's nuclear history and nuclear weapons-specific U.S. legislation.

Annual magazine containing articles written by contributors across India on various topics, such as socio-economic, political, art, or religious issues.

This report discusses the United States' relationship with India as it relates to nuclear arsenals and nuclear nonproliferation policies. The report includes background information on India's nuclear history and nuclear weapons-specific U.S. legislation.

Transcription of a Benglam story, as told by Rengpu Rex Khullar. Very short story about Benglam acting foolishly: Sitting up in a tree, he saws a branch between himself and the trunk, and falls and breaks his back.

This report provides a reverse chronology of recent events involving India and India - U.S relations.