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There are millions of people, particularly poor and landless, who reside on riverine islands in the rivers of Bangladesh. The riverine islands are locally called chars or char-lands, which are recurrently exposed to floods and riverbank erosion. Hazards leave inhabitants of char-lands in precarious conditions such as landless, homeless and jobless. This article presents different aspects of women’s vulnerability to natural hazards. In the gendered division of labour, women find that they are with the burden of responsibilities during and post-hazard contexts. Moreover, they have little access to and control over material resources such as land. Those who do not have access to education have limited choice to fight against hazard-induced vulnerability. In most cases, teenage girls are forced to get married and engaged in household works. These structural factors play key roles in making women more vulnerable than men. However, those women who have access to education and tangible resources show their ability to reduce vulnerability.

Keywords: Char-Land, natural hazards, displacement and vulnerability

The population growth in the country is having an adverse effect on land, soil, and forests, increasing with every passing year and causing grave and irreparable damage to the earth. The growing population, economic development, urbanization, and transportation in the country are threatening the environment. Though the relationship is complex, population size and growth tend to expand and accelerate these human impacts on natural resources such as land, soil, and forests. The present paper is an attempt to study population growth and its effect on the environment in India. The data has been compiled and analyzed from various secondary sources of data i.e. census of India, sample registration system bulletins, estimates of poverty, Indian agriculture, in brief, economic survey of India, state of forest report, selected socio-economic statistics, and compendium of environment statistics. An analysis of changes and trends has been conducted over the last fifty years. The analysis reveals that the country’s population growth and poverty are having an adverse effect on the environment, imposing an increasing burden on the country’s limited and continually degrading natural resource base. The natural resources are under increasing strain, even though the majority of people survive at the subsistence level. Population pressure on arable land contributes to land and soil degradation and deforestation in India, thus affecting the productive resource base of the economy. The importance of population and its effect on land, soil, and forests has been discussed. There is a need to protect natural resources and the environment. The paper concludes with some policy reflections, the policy aimed at overall development should certainly include efforts to control population and its adverse effect on land, soil, and forests in India.

Keywords: Population growth, land and soil degradation, deforestation, environment, India

This study investigated the farmers-herdsmen conflict in Wansagare Alabafe, a community in the Oke Ogun axis in the northern part of Oyo State, Nigeria. The study used a mixed research method to generate data. The questionnaire was the instrument used to generate quantitative data from 80 respondents amongst farmers and herders. Fifty (50) questionnaires were administered to the farmers and thirty (30) questionnaires were administered to the herdsmen in the same community. The oral interview was the instrument used to isolate participants for the study. The interview was the instrument used to generate data from the responses of both the heads of the farmers and herders. Five days were used to collect the responses of the farmers and three days were used to collect the responses of the herders.

Results showed that there is an intense conflict between the farmers and herdsmen in the community for reasons associated with the destruction of crops on farmlands and cattle rustling. Both farmers and herdsmen agreed that the conflict has a negative impact on their livelihoods and social status; and that the conflict has exacerbated ethnic suspicion and hatred between the natives (farmers) and the settlers (herdsmen). Results revealed that conflict occurs more during the dry season than during the rainy season. However, the community leaders have been successful in containing the conflict from bourgeoning into violent conflict; but there is little hope that the conflict will not snowball into violent conflict in the future if urgent actions are not taken to address the root causes. Data revealed that both farmers and herders have a high level of confidence in the adjudicatory responsibilities of the community leaders; and preferred to take their disputes to the leaders of the local community than to the police and other statutory enforcement agents since the chiefs serve as the gatekeepers of the community. However, herders are more reluctant to report cases of conflict to the police than the farmers for reasons associated with the fear that they are settlers; and that the police are usually biased against the settlers. Results showed that both farmers and herders express confidence in the adjudicatory responsibilities of the community leaders since they expeditiously and judiciously resolve issues that are brought before them.

Keywords: Ethnic conflict, resource depletion, food security, poverty, state failure

The traditional hunting practices and the charismatic cultural norms regulating the hunting society of the Zou deepen their structural social bondage among cultural kin. These governing customs depicted their traditional pride being attached to forest ecological niches in their locales. In recent years, the  introduction of traditional guns along with the espousal of new faith brought tremendous changes from enriching their hunting cultural heritage to amending the existing customary practices. Though the dependency on hunting and marginalised income limits their alternative preferences but to hunt to support the dependent family households, the Zou hunters on the other hand also concede the importance of wildlife conservation.

Keywords: Hunting, social bondage, changes, wildlife conservation, tribal, Zou

Rising air pollution and environmental degradation cause health problems and increase public health expenditure. This paper examines the short and long-run dynamic relationship between economic growth, air pollution and public health expenditure in 18 states of India over the period 2007 to 2018 applying the panel autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) estimation method. The panel ARDL estimates show that the GSDP and air pollution have a significant positive long-run effect on public health expenditure in the states of India. The impact of carbon emissions on health expenditure is higher than the response to that of GSDP. The much-desired economic growth comes at the cost of environmental degradation that increases risking pollution-induced health diseases including mortality, ultimately rising the healthcare expenditure.

Keywords: Economic growth, air pollution, public health expenditure, causal effect, ARDL estimation

JEL classification: B23, C23, Q13, Q52, Q53

The present paper is an attempt to understand the conceptual meaning of Orphanage and Specialized adoption agency. Orphanage and Specialized adoption agency are two distinct places working with different objectives. Orphanages, now under a new law Juvenile Justice Act are called Children’s Home. The Children’s Homes are places where they can provide care and protection to a child who needs them. These could be taking care of orphans. Even if a child has lost his/her parents but may have extended family that is unable / unwilling to provide the needed care and protection to the child may get shelter in the Child’s home. As long as the child has a family of some sort although the family is unable to care, the child is not free for adoption. In the context of Arunachal Pradesh this paper deals with various issues and underscore the emerging realities of a tribal-state and their cooperation with the initiatives by the Central and State government for giving a secure life to orphan children’s.

Keywords: Specialized adoption agency, Child Welfare Committee, Adoption, Prospective parents.

The term ‘folk culture’ includes unity, tradition and mainly includes folklore that is a collective combination of myths, legends, tales, proverbs, riddles, ballads, folk song, folk dance, folk music, folk carvings etc. As language is the vehicle of culture thus folk culture gets carried out generation-wise, orally, since time immemorial.

Digital anthropology is the study of the relationship between the human era and digital technology, extending up to various areas where humans and technology intersect. In the contemporary period, audiovisual records are a very significant electronic media. Being an oral tradition, it is often unknown or little known not only to the others but even the younger generations of the concerned communities are also lacking its knowledge. In the contemporary period, often the oral and little traditions are getting overshadowed by great and written traditions. So, their cultural originality should be permanently preserved in the form of digital documentaries. Meanwhile, the folk culture and folklore of the Karbis are facing a serious challenge and on the gradual way of obliteration. The aid of digital anthropology may help to collect the qualitative data from the community, which can be preserved in the form of a movie or documentary. The folk songs, ballads of the Karbis’ can be recorded, can be preserved and can be learned. Similarly, folk stories, myths and also contemporary stories with encouraging messages could be made into a movie, through which this rich national cultural treasure can be known to everyone. Further, it may highlight allied social issues, social problems, their possible ways of solution to establish the culture of peace. Thus, to preserve the cultural tradition- documentation of folk culture and folklore in the form of the motion picture may play a vital role to rewrite the history of the Karbis and in reconstructing their cultural ideology.

Keywords: Folk, digital, culture, Karbi, documentation.

Biosphere Reserves (BRs) nurture many rare and endangered species of flora and fauna. In India, the Biosphere Reserves are also home to many traditional communities who are living in core, buffer and transition zones of biosphere reserves. The forest ecosystems of the biosphere reserve not only meet a variety of their needs but also provide them food security. The biosphere reserves also sustain such activities as agriculture and pastoralism. By promoting eco-tourism in biosphere reserves, the pressures on biotic resources of the reserves can be reduced to a great certain extent. Eco-tourism means management of tourism and conservation of nature in a way as to maintain a fine balance between the requirements of tourism and ecology on one hand and the needs of the local communities for jobs, income-generating employment and better status for women on the other hand. However, the participation of local communities in eco-tourism is necessary to achieve the goal of conservation coupled with sustainable development.

The present paper endeavours to examine how far eco-tourism plays an important role in the sustainability of host communities in biosphere reserve based on the study conducted in Sundarban Biosphere Reserve (SBR), Khangchendzonga Biosphere Reserve (KBR), Achanakmar Amarkantak Biosphere Reserve (AABR) and Great Nicobar Biosphere Reserve (GNBR). 

It also tries to find out suitable strategies for sustainable development keeping in view the cultural integrity of the region, fragility of the ecosystem, preservation of biological diversity and maintenance of life support system for providing maximum satisfaction to people and tourists.

Keywords: Sustainable tourism, Sustainable development, Biological diversity.

The article is a study of microlithic tools reported from prehistoric sites of the Kharla river valley under Sambalpur district, Kuchinda subdivision, western Odisha. The Kharla river basin developed within Precambrian and Proterozoic rocks have preserved prehistoric sites– mainly microlithic in thin (<10 m) colluvio-alluvial deposits of late Quaternary age. Flake tools/middle palaeolithic artifacts have been discovered in ferricretized cobbly pebbly gravel of the early late Pleistocene age. Geomorphic and palaeo-pedological features indicate a humid climate during the early Pleistocene and early Holocene. The climate was distinctly dry during the later late Pleistocene. Easy availability of raw materials like quartzite, chert, chalcedony etc. and availability of water in plunge pools of waterfalls, even in the dry period, have attracted prehistoric hunter-gatherers almost throughout the Late Quaternary.

Keywords: Microlithic, fluvial geomorphology, quaternary, ferricrete, calcrete, colluvioalluvial fills, micro-assemblage

Attention was first drawn to a relationship between suicide and religious affiliation in the classical sociological work on suicide by Durkheim. This idea, since Durkheim, has been subjected to rigorous empirical examination and theoretical scrutiny. Such observations of various scholars primarily focused on the association of religion and suicide which are largely employed in the context of greater religious groups such as Christian and its denominations, Jews, Islam, etc, and are largely cross-national studies. We do not come across single literature that has attempted to understand the association of suicide and tribal belief and practices or more precisely ‘tribal religion’ that are living, more or less, in a specific geographical location.

Based on primary and secondary sources of data, the study found that the Idu Mishmi religion fails to create a network structure that could have provided its members with integrative and regulative benefits and contain members in collective lives. Various factors have some way or otherwise, disrupted the mechanism of religion as a regulative and integrative force in the Idu Mishmi society. At the same time, alterations in the religious sphere have also added a confounding societal situation thereby breaking down the collective will of the members of the society. At this stage, we may equate the role of the Idu Mishmi religion with Durkheim’s notion that religion as an agent of social control and social integration restrain one from self-destruction and the discussions provided evidence that it fails to operate and hold on its members in attaining collective lives and fails to regulate social life. This may be the reason that in times of extreme personal crisis people are more likely to act suicide.

Keywords: Suicide, religion, Idu Mishmi, tribe.

This article examines the impact and influence of two major religions of India on the tribe called ‘Vasava Bhils’ of the South Gujarat in the Western part of India. Change in the life of the human being is constant and sure. However, the sudden (abrupt) change brings cultural shocks as well as shatters the belief system. However, the gradual and steady change is always desirable and it can be sustained till posterity. According to the ‘greater traditions,’ the Vasava Bhils religion is so-called “primitive” religion. Christianity and Islam have very little or negligible influence over the life of Vasava Bhils but the predominant Hindu religion has considered them as “lesser Hindus”. The new word has been coined like “Hindu Bhils’’ in order to assimilate into the greater fold of the national mainstream. Some of the elite and educated have concealed their tribal identity and accepted the lifestyle of the majority. The money, media (social media) might (political power) have literally forced them to incline towards the major religion of the nation. They are branded as a culturally backward class.

Keywords: Vasava Bhils- primitive- Hindu religion- influence- migration- Sanskritisation- greater traditions