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The present study is an endeavour to understand the menstrual characteristics, knowledge and hygienic practice among the slum adolescent girls of North 24 Paraganas, West Bengal. This study was conducted among a group of 90 adolescent girls aged between 16-18 years. A structured schedule was used to collect detailed information about their socio-economic status, menstrual characteristics and knowledge and hygiene practices during menstruation. Mean age at menarche of the participants was 12.52±1.20 and only mother’s educational status was found to be a significant predictor (????=-0.27, p<0.05) of age at menarche. Disorders like premenstrual syndrome (PMS) (78.89%) and dysmenorrhea (85.56%) were the major prevalent menstrual problems and PMS was found to have a strong association with dysmenorrhea (p<0.001). Significant association was also observed between some of the socio-economic variables and various menstrual characteristics. The results of this study unwrap a podium to focus on the health issues of the adolescent girls and enforce counselling services, health education, and health care services.

KEY WORDS: Menstrual characteristics and hygiene. Adolescent girls. Urban Duttabad slum area. Bidhannagar. North 24 Parganas. West Bengal.

Human morphological changes do not follow universal pattern and vary between/among individuals and other socio-cultural parameters. Study on age related changes in muscle and fat distribution are still insufficient considering particular occupational group like tea labourers. Present study explored the nature and magnitude of age changes in selected anthropometric and body composition traits in adult Oraon tea garden labourers of Alipurduar district. The anthropometric and body composition traits including 12 variables were collected from 712 healthy individuals. Study group was divided in 4 age cohorts. Sexual dimorphism was observed in the nature and magnitude of age changes in body composition traits. ANOVA showed differences between/among age groups for fat and fat free components traits. Pearson’s correlation showed positive relationship of age with fat components and negative relationship with height, weight, fat free components. Tea garden laborers showed unique nature and magnitude of age changes in muscle and fat starting immediately after young age.

KEYWORDS: Subcutaneous fat. Skeletal muscle. Visceral fat. Sexual dimorphism. Oraon labourers. Tea garden. Alipurduar district. West Bengal.

Malnutrition is a major public health and economic problem of global significance. Good nutrition with an adequate, well balanced diet combined with regular physical activity is a corner stone of good health. Prevalence rates of either obesity or underweight are increasing in all parts of the world, both in affluent western countries and in poor nations. The data for the present study was collected from 157 Khasi females from Saiden village of Megahlaya aged between 14 to 60 years through random sampling method. The result shows that the frequency of overweight / obese (30.09%) was higher among the adult females. However, the frequency of underweight (29.54%) was higher among adolescent. The frequency of 15.04% underweight was found among adults females. The frequency of underweight among lower income group, middle income group and high income group was 20.27 per cent, 25.53 per cent8.33 per cent respectively. It is observed that family income has a positive relationship with the prevalence of overweight / obese among the adult females. The study further indicates that lifestyle and physical activity are crucial in determining the nutritional status of the community.

KEYWORDS: Food habit, Underweight, Overweight. Body mass index. Khasi tribal women. Ri-Bhoi district. Saiden village. Meghalaya.

In India, displacement of human population took place in ancient and medieval periods but its intensity and spread increased during the colonial period. The allembracing nature of the colonial state power found one of its successful expressions through the enactment of the Land Acquisition Act in 1894. However, in 2013 that is after 120 years, the Government of India has enacted in the Parliament a new Land Acquisition Act named Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act 2013. The new Land Acquisition Act has specific provisions for carrying out social impact assessment before the acquisition of land by competent specialists. In our study, we have undertaken a micro-level field based anthropological study among a group of peasant families who have lost their cultivable land for the establishment of a heavy industry, in the village Gokulpur under Kharagpur-I block, in Paschim Medinipur district, West Bengal, India, during 1991-92. In this study, we have discussed about changing of social structure of the land loser families, primarily from the event of land acquisition caused by the loss of agricultural land owing by governmental land acquisition for the establishment of this industry. This paper also plays attention to the social relations of the land loser with their non- land loser neigbours.

KEYWORDS: Land acquisition Acts. Farmers. Land losers. Impact of land lost. Social structure. Kinship. Ethnographic study. Paschim Medinipur. West Bengal.

The purpose of this study is to examine the nature of emerging health symptoms among people of Manipur who are directly exposed to violence and those who are unexposed to violence and are residing in Delhi for the last two year. The mental health assessments were conducted among peoples aged 15-92 who were randomly chosen from various parts of Manipur. A sampling of 688 peoples including students was drawn from different section of the society. The Cornell Medical Index Questionnaire was used to identify symptoms of mental health and other somatic health and emotional problems. From the qualitative research it is found that people of Manipur are facing problem of tension, restless, fear of uncertainty and death. It was found that women are having psychological problems with regards to unrest in the state. The present study come out with the findings that people are facing psychosomatic problems and there are possibilities that people of Manipur having post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) due to prolonged expose to conflicts and tension arising between the state and insurgent groups.

KEYWORDS: Violence. Insurgency. Women. Mental health. Cornell Medical Index (CMI). Manipur. India.

A cross-sectional study was conducted among adult male aged 15-60 years who were engaged in auto rickshaw driving (n=202) and compared with control sample (n=268) after matching age, sex and socio-economic background. The mean systolic blood pressures were 134.01 and 121.09 mmHg while the mean diastolic pressures were 91.88 and 79.52 mmHg among auto rickshaw drivers and controls respectively, MAP shows there is a significant difference between auto rickshaw drivers and control group. Different anthropometric indicators like BMI, WHR, WHtR showing a statistical significant different is present between auto rickshaw drivers and control group (p<0.001).There is a significant (p<0.05 and p<0.01) positive correlation found between blood pressures and all the anthropometric indicators. The results suggest that obesity or over weight is associated with increasing blood pressure and auto rickshaw drivers are showing more number of high blood pressure compared to control group.

KEYWORDS: Blood pressure. Anthropometric indicators. WHR. WHtR. Body Mass Index. Auto rickshaw drivers. Sonarpur. South 24 Parganas. West Bengal.

Ever since the introduction of ‘green revolution’ to traditional Indian agriculture, there had been a tremendous increase in the output of agricultural produce. This increase in output had helped Indian economy to attain self-sufficiency in terms of food grains to feed its growing population. On one hand Indian agriculture is exhibiting continuous ‘growth’ in terms of agricultural output, while the government and non-governmental reports suggests an increasing distress among farmers, especially among the small and medium scale farmers. The available literature on Indian agriculture points to unsuccessful implementation of land reforms, which were intended to bring in structural changes in traditional Indian agriculture. However, Indian farmers could achieve significant increase in production due to the efficient utilization of available resources using diverse resource sharing mechanisms; one such mechanism is tenancy (formal/informal). The current paper emphasises the need for in-depth and micro-level studies reflecting the dynamic nature of agricultural resources

sharing.

KEYWORD: Agriculture. Farmers. Agricultural land. Indian agrarian system. Tenancy. Resource sharing.

All human populations show variations among themselves. In India, many distinct populations with clear variations are present in a limited physical boundary with large number of populations showing differences in their morphological, physical, cultural and genetic traits provide good opportunity for biological anthropologists to study variation in demographic parameters. The present study aims to study the population structure, fertility, mortality trends and co-efficient inbreeding of the Koya Dora population. The mean age and last conception age are seems to be very young and early age (12.48±0.06 & 25.92±0.37) and menopause age 45.18±0.44 years. Fertility performance measured mean number of total conceptions (2.94), live births (2.79) and living children (2.26) per couple is moderate. The coefficient value of 0.0273 for autosomal genes and 0.0243 for sex linked genes and the Index of Total Selection (I) is 1.8469.

KEYWORDS: Anthropological demography. Fertility. Mortality. Koya Dora. Tribe. West Godavari. Andhra Pradesh.

The Santals of Bangladesh are a group of autochthonous people of the land who had long been living in a very widely dispersed area of the Barind region in the northern part of the country, having been influenced by Christianity as part of their religiosity and culture change. Their linguistic transformation is very much visible when they are mostly found to be bilinguals, speaking Bengali language outside their own communities and simultaneously, using their own dialect most frequently while communicating with people within their own ethnic group. Like many indigenous languages in other parts of Bangladesh, the Santali language itself does not have any strong alphabet and scripture of its own, and for that reason, the speakers have great difficulties in using it in higher education. Being influenced by the Church, some of them, for that reason, are now in favour of Romanizing their script and thus, are desiring to take it to the international standard. But the great majority of the Santals are now reluctant to accept this view and instead, they are in favour of borrowing the Bengali scripture to convert the alphabet in order to facilitate their formal education within the country. The Santals are now suffering from an acute identity crisis. This paper discusses the main controversial issues in this regard.

KEYWORDS: Santals. Barind region. Bangladesh. Santal ethnicity and languages. Linguistic transformation. Collocation.