Indian Perceptions Research Articles

Few differences in diet and health behaviors and perceptions were observed in adult urban Native American Indians by tribal association, gender, and age grouping

Diet and health behaviors and perceptions of adult urban Native American Indians in a large Midwestern city were evaluated for differences by tribal association, gender, and age grouping. The hypothesis was that human behavior is influenced by tribal association, gender, and age grouping in the subject population. The subjects included 33 men and 32 women, with 26 being Sioux; 22 Omaha; and 17 a combination of other tribes. The descriptive survey included two interviewer-administered 24-hour recalls. The majority of subjects were overweight or obese. Significant differences (P< .05) were observed in vitamin A and calcium intakes by tribal association. Men reported consuming significantly more (P< .05) kilocalories, vitamin C, and sodium. Over half the subjects consumed more than the recommended 20% to 35% kcal from fat, >or=10% kcal from saturated fat, and >or=300 mg cholesterol/d. Less than Estimated Average Requirements for vitamin A, vitamin C, and iron were consumed by 31%, 59%, and 6%, respectively; 79% consumed less than Adequate Intakes for calcium. Ninety-two percent consumed more than the Tolerable Upper Intake Level for sodium. Few differences were observed in the kilocalorie, vitamin A, vitamin C, calcium, and sodium intakes of these Native American Indians by tribal association, gender, or age grouping. Significant differences in percentages consuming alcohol were observed by gender (P< .05) and by age grouping (P< .01). A significant difference (P< .01) was observed by gender regarding the subjects' perceptions of their being alcoholics. Overall, few differences were observed in diet and health behaviors and perceptions of adult urban Native American Indians by tribal association, gender, and age grouping.

Agricultural Technology in Early Medieval India (c. A.D. 500–1300)

The article discusses the spread of agriculture to an unprecedented degree in the period from c. A.D. 500 to 1300 (early medieval times) on the basis of both epigraphic and textual materials that also speak of considerable diversity of crops, including what may be considered as cash crops. The author pays attention to the role of metal—especially iron—technology in the development of agriculture during this period. It also argues for betterment in manuring. Inseparably associated with the expansion of agriculture—as an impact of the issuance of profuse number of land grants—are better irrigation technologies. The diversity of irrigation tech-niques and hydraulic projects, local and supra local, had intimate linkages with the variability of access to precious water resources in disparate areas of the subcontinent. In this connection, the article also offers early Indian perceptions of the monsoons; it also seeks to underline the meteor-ologists’ observations of the correlation between the flood-level in the Nile catchment area (by the use of the Nilometer) and the pattern of rainfall in the subcontinent on a long chronological range.

Several differences observed in selected nutrient intakes and perceptions of health/diet of adult urban Native American Indians in Lincoln, NE by tribal association, gender, and age grouping

Nutrient intakes and health/diet perceptions of adult urban Native American Indians in Lincoln, Nebraska were evaluated for differences by tribal association, gender, and age grouping. Subjects included 33 men and 32 women, with 26 being Sioux; 22, Omaha; and 17, a combination of other tribes. Two interviewer‐administered 24‐h recalls and written questionnaires were used. A significantly larger (P&lt;0.05) percentage of men reported consuming alcohol, with a significant difference (P&lt;0.05) being observed by age grouping. Fifty‐five percent were overweight and 32%, obese. Significant differences (P&lt;0.05) were observed by tribe in saturated fat, vitamin A, and calcium intakes. Men reported consuming significantly more (P&lt;0.05) calories, vitamin C, and sodium. Over half consumed more than the recommended 20–35% kcal from fat, ≥10% kcal from saturated fat, and ≥300 mg cholesterol/d. Less than Estimated Average Requirements for vitamin A, vitamin C, and iron were consumed by 31%, 59%, and 6%, respectively, while 79% consumed &lt; Adequate Intake for calcium. Over 90% consumed &gt; Tolerable Upper Intake Level for sodium. A significantly larger (P&lt;0.01) percentage of men agreed or strongly agreed that they perceived themselves as alcoholics. Several differences were observed in nutrient intakes and health/diet perceptions of these Native American Indians by tribal association, gender, and age grouping.

Implications of Indian Foresters’ Perspectives of Joint Forest Management

A study was conducted in Kullu district in the province of Himachal Pradesh in Indian Western Himalaya, to investigate the perceptions of Indian for- esters about aspects of forest management relevant for effective Joint Forest Management (JFM). A lack of uniform understanding was found amongst forestry staff about almost all the studied issues pertaining to JFM. A need is identified to emphasise social aspects in the training of the foresters (including in-service training), along with the existing silvi-technical aspects. For JFM success, measures need to be devised to reduce the political interference in JFM, reduce hierarchical rigidity, and increase interaction between field staff and the administrative hierar- chy. Strategies should be devised to make JFM participants as well as forestry staff equally responsible to honour their commitments with respect to JFM.

Explorers in Eden: Pueblo Indians and the Promised Land (review)

?o6Southwestern Historical QuarterlyJuly ofhis buUdings. This newbook celebrates twenty-two ofthose restorations, all ofwhich are in Texas. It is a handsome coffee-table book profusely illustrated with archival images and beautiful newcolorphotographs by the author's husband, W. Eugene George. Scholars will find the documentation sections inferior to footnotes, however. Readers familiar with the 1972 book may experience déjà vu perusing the present volume. It is laid out in much die same manner, opening with background information on Giles and San Antonio. Those seeking a new biography will be disappointed to find paragraphs from the earlier book repeated nearly verbatim. The author adds some new detail, notably regarding the architect's family and work in Mexico, but clearly this book is more about restoration projects than about significantly advancing information on Giles. Nevertheless, George's scholarship remains the essential source on the architect. Next come individual discussions of the featured buildings and restorations. While uneven, these essays can be fascinatingand will be ofspecial interest to preservationists , urban planners, restoration architects, and developers. For instance, the discussion ofthe Sullivan Stable and Coach House (San Antonio, 1896) covers decades of dashed reuse plans, looming demolition threats, compromises, and ultimately a painstaking dismanding and reassembly at a new location. George identifies and salutes those responsible, including property owners, philanthropists, civic organizations, and public agencies. History and architecture buffs will find these tales heartening: while much of our historic built environment still deserves rescue, this book demonstrates thatgreatstrides have been made in the technology and viability of historic preservation in recent decades. In the firstappendix George seeks to correctsome misinformation surrounding GUes'swork. One instance concerns dieaudiorship ofthe Presidio CountyCourthouse in Marfa (1886), which is often attributed to Giles. The author rejects this because county records document the design work going to a contractor. While true, this reviewer argued in an article in the October 2004 Southwestern Hutorical (Quarterly for the likelihood diat Giles designed tins courthouse all the same. George's stance is understandable, but it means that the splendid restoration ofdie Presidio courthouse is not treated within her book. The second appendix is a valuable, updated checklist of Giles buildings in Texas and Mexico. As of this count, they total 159. TheArchitecturalLegacy ofAlfred Giles: Selected Restorations is a worthy and attractive addition to any coUection of preservation or Texas architecture books (even those that already contain George's now-scarce earlier volume, despite some redundancies) . Royal Oak, MichiganChris Meister Explorers in Eden:Pueblo Indians and thePromisedLand. Byjerold S. Auerbach. (Albuquerque : University ofNew Mexico Press, 2006. Pp. 216. Illustrations, sources, notes, index. ISBN 082633945X. $34.95, cloth.) The literature on non-Indians' perceptions of Indians is vast and varied. Whether focusing on European or American explorers, trappers, diplomats, 2007Book Reviews107 artists, reformers, spiritual leaders, or anthropologists, the conclusions of this genre are similar: non-Indians viewed and interpreted Indian cultures through their own culturally specific lenses. Rather than seeing indigenous peoples as they might perceive themselves, these interlopers constructed tropes of Indians as foils ofthemselves. Whether as "savage other," "noble primitive," or "ecological shaman," non-Indians projected their own anxieties and desires onto peoples that they never really tried to understand. Jerold Auerbach, a professor of history at Wellesley College, has offered an important contribution to this sizeable historiography. He focuses his work on the Pueblo Indians specifically, arguing thatAmericans conceived ofthe Southwest and its indigenous inhabitants in uniquely Biblical terms. Situating these perceptions within westward expansion, industrialization, and modernity, Auerbach claims that resdess non-Indians saw the Pueblos as a people in Eden, living a communal life in stark contrast to the anomie of fin de siècle America. Previous scholars have illustrated how the Southwest became an important symbol ofpre-modern liberation and egalitarianism, but few have so deftly interwoven religious rhetoric, scientific rationalism, nation building, and gender in such an engaging manner. Auerbach divides the book into two sections that reflect his emphasis on gender as a lens of historical analysis. Part One investigates the Southwest as a "testing ground" ofmasculinity. Frank Hamilton Cushing and his ethnographic study ofthe Zuni and Fred Harvey's construction and commodification ofland and people may be well known to most readers, but Matilda...

Travelling across cultures: reflections on a visit to Beijing

Structured as a series of personal reflections on the relations between two Asian countries, this article moves between personal anecdotes during a visit to Beijing and musings on historical exchanges between India and China in the 20th century. Beginning with Tagore’s visit in 1924, the author includes Dr Kotnis’s heroic efforts at working with the wounded during the Sino‐Japanese War in 1938, Dr Bhabha’s invitation to S.S. Chern in the 1940s and moves on to a visit by a leftist folksinger, Hemanga Biswas in the 1950s. The present‐day expansion of tourism in a globalised Beijing provokes thoughts that contrast to the present with the past and also reflects on Indian perceptions of communism and the Cultural Revolution. A visit to a Biomembrane laboratory becomes the occasion for surveying the development of modern science in China. Finally, the article raises questions about the nature of cross‐cultural interactions that operate beyond linguistic and ideological barriers.

Perception of the risks and benefits of Bt eggplant by Indian farmers

Several researchers—most notably Lennart Sjoberg and his colleagues—have proposed that the moral aspects of risk provide a better explanation of risk perception than the psychometric paradigm or Cultural Theory, neither of which accounts for moral concerns. This study is possibly the first to assess empirically the perception of the risks and benefits of a transgenic food crop—transgenic Bt (Bacillus thuringiensis) eggplant—by farmers in a developing country such as India. It also aims to assess if the moral aspects of risk figure in Indian farmers' perception of Bt eggplant and if economic benefits outweigh perceived risks. To answer the research questions, a scenario was used to elicit perceptions of Bt eggplant among 100 eggplant farmers in the state of Maharashtra in India. The findings indicate that economic benefits, safety concerns, and accountability are most salient to Indian farmers' perception of the risks and benefits of Bt eggplant. Significantly, none of the farmers mentioned moral concerns as an issue. The findings also make clear that economic benefits outweigh perceived risks. This study concludes that economic benefits are more salient than moral concerns to Indian farmers' perception Bt eggplant. It also proposes that an alternative theoretical model incorporating economic benefits, safety concerns, and accountability as key variables should be developed and tested for end users in the developing world. 1. The author conducted this study when he was a doctoral student in the Department of Communication at Cornell University.

Asymmetrical Indian and Chinese threat perceptions

India tends to be deeply apprehensive of threats from China, while China appears comparatively unconcerned about threats from India, and finds it difficult to understand why India might perceive China as a threat. Two explanations of this asymmetry are (1) a deliberate and systematic understatement of Chinese concerns about India, resulting from the mobilization function of China's public media, and (2) the greater effectiveness of China's application of power over the past 50 years.

For Whom the Bell Tolls: Democracy and Development in South Asia

This paper suggests that there are many contrary pulls, some old, and others new, operating on socioeconomic development in the South Asian region. It argues that September 11th, 2001 has been a defining and defiling moment for the region, since the consequences of the terrorist attacks on the US will weaken democracy in the subcontinent. Consequently, the region will lose its historical advantage of not being militarised by outside poles, or interests, and this will undermine democratic mechanisms that facilitate alleviation of poverty and inequality. This paper investigates the disjunction between mainstream and grassroots perceptions of India's poverty, arguing that localised democratic government, attention to the institutional architecture of countries, and enabling participation of the poor and the discriminated offer the only way to deal with economic and social inequality.

Subhas Chandra Bose's Position vis-a-vis Germany Before World War II

Due to his radical nationalism and his ambivalent position in the question of use of force in the freedom struggle, and not least because of his connections with the Axis powers during World War II, Subhas Chandra Bose was one of the most fascinating and at the same time most controversial personalities of the Indian nationalist movement, and many myths have kept his picture still vague. Based on the files of the German Foreign Office, the article tries to clear Bose's position vis-a-vis Nazi Germany just before World War II, a period which was decisive for his perception of India's international environment but which so far has not found much attention.

Indo‐Iranian relations: Vital factors in the 1990s

The end of the Cold War and the consequent emergence of “Pan‐Americana” in the West Asian region as well as the security threat perceptions of India and Iran brought them closer. India and Iran shared some correspondence in their perception and pursuit of security. Both sought a certain degree of autonomy in the conduct of their international relations. This trait was characterised by a certain degree of tension in their interface with the post‐Cold War world, dominated by the US. These considerations of India and Iran led to the convergence of their interests. The vital factors that governed their relations during the 1990s were: energy, where both the countries are looking for a long‐term partnership; Afghanistan, ‘where both favour a peaceful settlement through the establishment of a broad‐based government with the representation of all ethnic groups in Afghanistan; and Central Asia, where both the countries are concerned for security reasons as well as for economic interaction. Both shared the view that the wider dimensions of Indo‐Iran relations were more important than the fundamental difference of views on Kashmir and emphasised on consolidating relations with each other.

COMPETITIVENESS OF FOREIGN PRODUCTS AS PERCEIVED BY CONSUMERS IN THE EMERGING INDIAN MARKET

Following the economic liberalization in recent years, consumer products from many countries are now competing with each other in the ‘big emerging market’ of India. In this paper, Indian consumers' perceptions of electronic and electrical products from the United States, Japan, South Korea, Germany, Britain, and India are compared by means of an empirical study. The consumers are found to hold distinctly different views of products from different countries in terms of quality, value, image, promotion, and availability. Based on the results, managerial implications are drawn for marketers from different countries who are trying to make themselves more competitive in the Indian market.

Academic Career Paths: Women in Senior Management in Malaysian Higher Education

Women have made great strides into higher education where they now account for half of all undergraduate and postgraduate enrolments in OECD and most ASEAN countries. Yet globally women are a minority in university senior management. The question many educators and sociologists have asked is: What is the problem? What accounts for this gender imbalance? This case study on women in higher education management in Malaysia investigates women's experiences and perceptions of cultural and structural “glass ceiling” barriers. It is argued that glass ceiling politics cannot be generalized across cultural and nation-state differences. Although universities the world over share more or less similar bureaucratic, organizational, and governance structures, local cultural adaptations shape women's opportunities in culture-specific ways. Main themes identified in this study are: (1) women's difficulties in balancing professional careers with family and domestic responsibilities; (2) cultural values that maintain double standards for men and women in public life; (3) the prevalence of male academic culture that shuts women out; (4) women's reluctance to self-promote their abilities and achievements which can make them institutionally invisible; (5) women's exclusion from the politics of appointments at the most senior levels; and (6) Chinese and Indian women's perceptions of “ethnic concrete ceilings”.

Changing Perceptions of India in the U.S. Congress

(2001). Changing Perceptions of India in the U.S. Congress. Asian Affairs: An American Review: Vol. 28, No. 1, pp. 37-60.

Indian and British personnel specialists' understanding of the dynamics of their function: an empirical study

This paper highlights the need for cross-national HRM comparisons from a cognitive perspective. It examines the perceptions of top Indian and British personnel specialists regarding their function. The influence of national culture, national institutions and dynamic business environment on HRM is evaluated. An interview based “ visual cards sorting” technique is used to tap the comparative thinking of respondents. The research was conducted in 48 manufacturing (24 Indian and 24 British) firms. The sample firms were closely matched on a number of control variables. A number of differences and similarities were found in the thinking of Indian and British managers regarding their HRM functions. The impact of certain dimensions of national culture, different national institutions and some aspects of competitive business environment on Indian and British HRM practices and policies helps to highlight the context specific nature of HRM function. The findings of the study have both research and practical implications. The analysis opens avenues for future research.

Orange juice or great western: Indian and Australian mutual perceptions in the 1940s and 1950s*

Orange juice or great western: Indian and Australian mutual perceptions in the 1940s and 1950s*

India and South Asian security

The South Asian region has witnessed a high level of insecurity ever since the region became independent from colonial rule. This condition has persisted even after the end of the cold war. Our paper looks at the Indian threat perceptions, the Indian responses to such threat perceptions, and, the effects of the Indian response. The three principal sources of Indian threat perceptions have been Pakistan, China, and domestic insurgent groups. This paper con tends that the principle problem in Indo‐Pakistan relations has been the problem of security dilemma, a condition where the increase in the security of a country, arouses fear in the hearts of its adversaries, thereby leading to a reduction in its security.

South Asia after the nuclear tests: Prospects for arms control?*

The Indian and Pakistani nuclear tests of May 1998 have threatened the norms of nonproliferation while at the same time raising the possibility of an accidental nuclear war in South Asia. Ideally, this situation could be improved by India and Pakistan renouncing their nuclear option and opting for a Nuclear Weapon Free Zone in South Asia. The existing realities in the region, however, militate against these ideals. Both the Indian and Pakistani governments have declared their intentions of developing and maintaining a minimum nuclear deterrent capability. Public opinion in these two states supports such a stand. Therefore, a need exists for adopting a flexible approach to the problem of nuclear proliferation in South Asia. Instead of insisting on Indian and Pakistani membership of the Non‐Proliferation Treaty (NPT), attention should be focused on securing their agreement to the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) and the Fissile Material Cut‐Off Treaty (FMCT). These international attempts need to be supplemented by regional arms control moves aimed at taking into account both Indian and Pakistani threat perceptions. By implication this means going beyond the South Asian scene and including the Sino‐Indian equation as part of the discussion. Sino‐Indian and Indian—Pakistani nuclear relations, however, could best be managed and arms control regimes developed if, in each bilateral relationship, the stronger power acknowledges the fears and concerns of the weaker partner. At the same time, such ‘major power benevolence’ would need to be reciprocated by realism on the part of the smaller state in the relevant bilateral equation. To assist this process, the international community, and especially the United States, needs to develop a more realistic understanding of the psychological and emotional context in which nuclear weapons have entered the South Asian region. Effectively it means avoiding the temptation of linking sanctions to a change in the nuclear policies of India and Pakistan.

The Evolution of the Perception of India: Akbar and Abu'l Fazl

The Evolution of the Perception of India: Akbar and Abu'l Fazl

The future of ballistic missile defense and its derivatives

This article is a response to some aspects of the proposed US. deployment of theater missile defense (TMD) and national missile defense (NMD) that affect Indian and South Asian security perceptions. The background and rationale for Indian missile programs are assessed. Indian acceptance of a hypothetical US. offer to provide TMD coverage to India and Pakistan in return for abandonment of their ballistic missile programs would be subject to Indian conditions. Unless the tilt in US. policy toward Pakistan, which is a legacy of the cold war era, is corrected and Pakistan is prevented from exploiting its Islamic fundamentalist links and injecting terrorism and insurgency into the Indian state of Kashmir, the United States offer cannot even be aired to India, let alone formally presented for eliciting an Indian response.