National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, poverty and prices in rural India

The objective of this analysis is mainly to construct an intuitive measure of the performance of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) in India. The focus is on divergence between demand and supply at the district level. Some related issues addressed are: (i) whether the gap between demand and supply responds to poverty; and (ii) whether recent hikes in NREGS wages are inflationary. Our analysis confirms responsiveness of the positive gap between demand and supply to poverty. Also, apprehensions expressed about the inflationary potential of recent hikes in NREGS wages have been confirmed. More importantly, higher NREGS wages are likely to undermine self-selection of the poor in it.     

Land-holding,participation in agriculture and short-term migration in rural India

ABSTRACT

We analyse a nationally representative data set from India for the year 2013 in order to provide evidence on how short-term migration is affected by household ownership of land and participation in agricultural activities. We estimate a recursive-bivariate-probit model recognising the simultaneity between short-term migration and the decision to operate the land. The results of the likelihood ratio test imply that it would be incorrect to ignore this simultaneity. Households with less than 1?ha of land and those leasing out land are more likely to have a short-term migrant. Households leaving their land fallow, a common occurrence in South Asia, are also more likely to have a short-term migrant. Moreover, the choice of crops and livestock farming has a significant role to play in the migration decision. Current initiatives to increase coverage of irrigation and facilitate access to formal finance could improve the livelihoods of small and marginal farmers, thereby reducing the probability of distress-related short-term migration.     

In Cameroon,a female-centred organization works to conquer the poverty of rural women

This is a discussion of the work of the Rural Women Development Council for poor rural women in Cameroon. The concept of absolute poverty involves the measurement of the quantity and quality of necessities required to maintain the average well-being of an individual or group of individuals. The standards are considered to be relative to a particular time and place. Subjective poverty is a state of acceptance by the person who is poor that he or she is poor; it is independent of the perspective of onlookers. Income levels vary resulting, and as a result, poverty exists. Under those premises, the Rural Women Development Council (RWDC) is helping to alleviate poverty in rural women through microcredit schemes. Over 200 women have engaged in farming and small trades. Increased equity, enhanced opportunity, peace and security, participation and sustainable future, in addition to increased income, help to defeat poverty. Strategies for eradicating poverty include enhancing the ability of local communities to adapt to stress, overcome emergencies and improve long-term productivity. The RWDC have observed that loanees are today economically above other rural women.     

Geographies of mediation: Market development and the rural broker in Maharashtra, India

This paper explicates the role of community-level intermediaries in post-liberalized economic sectors. Focusing on nascent commercial markets for improved, smokeless cookstoves in southwestern Maharashtra, I describe how development is encountered by three analytic groups – artisans, female stove users and NGO field officers. This study highlights patterns of strategic intermediary action, or forms of brokering, used to negotiate the commercialization process for individuals involved in the fabrication, distribution and use of improved cookstoves. A close analysis of the mediating agent can strengthen theories on how individuals and communities encounter sector privatization and state retrenchment. This study reveals a diverse set of brokering activities and actors, and shows how intermediaries combine tasks associated with traditional conceptions of the political fixer and market broker by working within and between groups of market, village and state operatives to transform market supply chains. Mediating agents coordinate counter regulating activities within civil society in the absence of heavy state intervention and play a crucial role in activating and connecting community interests to latent neoliberal state resources.     

游客抽样调查中"拒答"现象的原因分析及应对措施——以崆峒山游客抽样调查为例

本文对游客抽样调查中的拒答现象和拒绝率进行了阐述和分析,探讨了拒答现象产生的原因和应对措施。指出：游客抽样调查中的拒答现象是值得重视又容易忽视的,是旅游流、旅游心理、旅游目的地类型和其他社会因素综合作用的结果,而非单纯地由游客心理决定。所以要降低拒绝率,需要从消除游客心理障碍和提高游客主动参与性入手,促使游客主动配合调查,减少拒绝现象,提高调查的成功率和准确率。     

On the targeting and cost-effectiveness of anti-poverty programmes in rural India

This article is motivated by a concern for the cost‐effectiveness of anti‐poverty outlays; much of its focus is on the targeting of Rural Public Works (RPW) and the Integrated Rural Development Programme (IRDP) over the period 1987–93. It is argued that benefits to the rural poor of larger outlays on these two major anti‐poverty programmes are likely to be limited, given their mistargeting. Large sections of the rural poor were not covered in 1987. Worse, the non‐poor were in a majority among the participants. Although the evidence is mixed, there was a worsening of the targeting of both RPW and IRDP, with RPW maintaining a slight superiority, over the period 1987–93. Yet IRDP was more cost‐effective in both years, using a somewhat limited measure of cost‐effectiveness. Large unspent balances due largely to slow disbursal of allocations and bunching of expenditure in a few months are linked to changes in cost‐effectiveness. Wastage and diversion of funds are unavoidable, in a context of corrupt bureaucracy and capture of locally elected bodies such as Panchayats by a few influential persons. Short of drastic changes in the design and implementation of RPW and IRDP, substantially larger outlays may thus accomplish little in terms of poverty alleviation.     

Educating the Workers of Sheffield in the 18th and 19th Centuries: St Luke's National School,Garden Street,Sheffield

This article describes the archaeological recording of a Sunday school which was constructed in 1873, on the site of an earlier building, to provide educational needs for the working-class families which surrounded Garden Street. A brief historical background to the provision of education both nationally and in Sheffield is provided, along with the results of the recording of the standing building, and reference to below-ground remains of the residential accommodation which surrounded it is given. The recording concluded that the original form of the school was intact, with little in the way of modifications, apart from the addition of 20th-century industrial structures and an air raid shelter. The site provides a valuable insight into educational provision in one of the poorer areas of 19th-century Sheffield.     

Black Death in the rural cemetery of Saint-Laurent-de-la-Cabrerisse Aude-Languedoc,southern France, 14th century: immunological evidence

An excavation carried out in 2007 in Saint-Laurent-de-la-Cabrerisse (Aude-Languedoc, southern France), revealed a medieval rural cemetery used during the 8th–14th centuries. One hundred and forty nine graves were identified. Amongst those, three burials radiocarbon dated to the 14th century contained the remains of several individuals. No paleotraumatological evidences of violence due to warfare or to a civil massacre were identified in the exhumed skeletons. Therefore, we hypothesized that the simultaneous inhumations could have occurred during the “Black Death” outbreak or during one of its resurgences. A rapid diagnostic test for the detection of Yersinia pestis F1 antigen was applied to the nine putative plague victims to authenticate the cause of their death. Seven of the nine individuals tested from the three graves were positive to Y. pestis F1 antigen. We additionally tested fourteen skeletons from single graves archaeologically dated to the 13th–14th centuries. Four of them were positive to Y. pestis F1 antigen, thus showing a higher mortality rate due to plague than originally expected. The Saint-Laurent-de-la-Cabrerisse plague victims are the oldest samples from which Y. pestis F1 antigen has been, hitherto, identified. Few rural French cemetery containing plague victims have previously been identified and amongst them, only one dates to the 14th century. In the present report, we provide suggestive evidence of a second rural cemetery from southern France where victims of Y. pestis infection were buried. Our findings provide new information about the management of the plagued corpses during the “Black Death” in small rural communities.     

剖析19世纪澳大利亚民族认同

澳大利亚民族的生成与发展进程表现为英国移民的观念及身份由“澳大利亚英国人”演变为“澳大利亚人”的本土化。导致这种演变的内在因素是这些移民的民族认同取向由英国渐变为澳大利亚,进而形成诸多澳洲化的特有性,主要内容包含有社会权利、“白澳”意识、母国情结、经济利益等方面。这一演变过程进行于19世纪期间。     

北宋东京城外城城壕护坡勘探简报

此次钻探不仅发现了城墙、护城壕、城壕护坡、道路等遗迹现象,而且将其展现在同一个剖面图中,从而为我们了解宋代城墙与城壕的空间距离和位置关系、壕沟的修筑方法及其特点提供了重要的考古资料。     

在中国社会科学院考古研究所成立60周年庆祝大会上的致辞

Mr. Shan Jixiang,Director of the State Administration of Cultural Heritage,delivered congratulations in the name of the Administration and his own at the Celebration of the 60th Anniversary of the founding of the Institute of Archaeology,CASS. He eagerly hopes the Institute of Archaeology to:1. play a model role on the preservation of cultural and historic heritages in the rapid development of social economy; 2. improve the multi-disciplinary cooperation with other research fields; 3. standardize and system...     

在中国社会科学院考古研究所成立60周年庆祝大会上的讲话

At the Celebration of the 60th Anniversary of the Founding of the Institute of Archaeology,CASS,Mr. Wang Weiguang,the Executive Vice President of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences,made zealous speech. After briefly reviewed the achievements of the Institute of Archaeology in the past 60 years,he emphasized the function of archaeology in the researches on prehistory and ancient history of China,the preservation of historic and cultural heritages and the stimulation of the patriotic feeling,and the important...     

On the Horn-shaped Head-Dresses of the 13th, 14th,and 15th Centuries

Abstract

The excavation of the only Cistercian abbey firmly established on the Isle of Man produced clear evidence of its church plan, its various modifications and its modest architectural pretensions. The burials contained some grave goods and displayed early methods of burial. An unexpected feature was a chapel attached to the east end of the north transept north chapel.     

对国家标准《旅游资源分类、调查与评价》的若干修订意见

国家标准《旅游资源分类、调查与评价》（GB／T18972—2003）自2003年5月推出以来,各级旅游部门都以此为依据开展工作,但各地在应用过程中,也发现该标准存在诸多问题。本文对其中旅游资源分类存在的概念模糊、前后重复、类型缺项、细分不够等问题逐一进行分析,提出了具体修订意见,并对旅游资源评价的研究方向提出了初步构想。     

关于“十七条协议”“附件”之研究——为西藏和平解放60厨年而作

作者认为国内外对“十七条协议”之“附件”的描述与实际情况不符。“十七条协议”共有两个“附件”,附件一和附件二首次向社会公开的时间分别是1991年和1995年。西藏和平解放期间达赖喇嘛居住地问题（去留问题）与人民解放军能否进军西藏密切相关,也是“附件”产生的直接原因。制定“附件”的目的是为了达成和平进军西藏的“十七条协议”。“附件二”的内容比起“协议”的第四条更能体现中央政府对达赖的最大诚意、宽容和忍耐。“附件”的制定有效促进了“十七条协议”的签订。     

Archaeology of consumption in Ottoman urban centres: the case study of Iznik ware from the Belgrade Fortress in the 16th and 17th centuries

SUMMARY: This article advocates a holistic approach to consumption studies in the urban centres of the Middle Danube region during the Ottoman period (16th–17th centuries) using the example of Iznik ware from the Belgrade Fortress. Combined results of archaeological and scientific research provide insight into regional consumption patterns, which is important for the understanding of cultural variability across the Ottoman Empire. This work emphasizes the importance of contextualized studies of archaeological ceramics in the development of post-medieval archaeology.     

南京国民政府盐税整理与改革述论

南京国民政府对盐税进行了一系列的整理和改革,在维护中央权威、增加税收等方面取得了显著成效.但由于南京国民政府过度追求增加盐税收入,对社会民生及国家的现代化进程造成了深刻的负面影响.本文试从历史背景、主要措施、实际效果及对社会民生的影响等几个方面对南京国民政府的盐税整理和改革及其利弊得失进行论述.     

Ideologies of consumption: colonialism and the commodification of goods in 18th-century Virginian and Lowland Scottish rural households

During the 18th century consumers in the transatlantic British cultural world began to adopt new ideologies which informed their consumption behaviours. The acquisition of manufactured objects which were highly commodified played an essential part in this new consumer culture. By classifying household goods according to their commodification upon acquisition, the ideologies of consumption which shaped the decisions of historic individuals can be better understood. This paper proposes a method of classifying ceramics in such a way and demonstrates, using five households in the Scottish Lowlands and Virginia as case studies, the utility of commodification analysis in the investigation of British consumer reactions to the unique circumstances of the colonial period.