Only a few years before the first meeting of the elected Constituent Assembly, the political scene in Nepal had been radically different. The most momentous event was that which occurred on 1 February 2005, triggering extensive changes across the Himalayan kingdom.

On that cold February morning, the day started with the usual rituals at the Narayanhiti Royal Palace, the centre of power in Nepal at that time. The palace staff were busy doing their chores. Over 1,800 of the best trained soldiers of the Royal Nepal Army, who were protecting the Palace and its regal residents, were preparing for their day after the reveille. Other staff were tending cows, and thorough bred horses of Arabian, English and Nepalese strains, in the animal shelters. One of the prized horses was a personal gift from Queen Elizabeth of Great Britain.

At ten, King Gyanendra entered a studio in the palace precincts. The palace staff kowtowed to His Majesty as he passed. A select group of journalists and photographers were eagerly waiting for him. Flash lights blazed and there was a rush towards His Majesty.

The King nodded a stern acknowledgement as he entered the room, appearing all set to make a live nationwide telecast. As King Gyanendra took his seat, the triangular national flag hung limply on his right side, and the square-shaped royal standard jutted obtrusively on his left. Both were crimson in colour, signifying military power—the strength of the Nepalese monarchy. Behind his chair was the coat of arms, the official seal of His Majesty's Government of Nepal.

Unaware of hostile undercurrents, the Commission started preparing for the elections, scheduled for June 2007. The Bahadur Bhavan faced innumerable hurdles, owing to the post-conflict situation. More importantly, handling the former rebels—who threatened to walk out of the election process whenever they did not get what they wanted— was extremely difficult. For example, during the allocation of party symbols to be used during the elections, the Maoists threatened to walk out if they were not given the hammer and sickle symbol. The Commission could not oblige because the other communist parties objected, saying the hammer and sickle was the symbol of all communist parties. But after a series of negotiations, the Commission found a solution: granting the hammer and sickle to the Maoists—while placating the other parties by placing the common symbol inside a small circle. Despite this creative outcome the EC was criticised for pleasing the Maoists.

In addition to these post-conflict challenges, the Commission faced obstacles, owing to Nepal's geographical diversity and poor infrastructure. In more than half the country, there were no roads and the Commission had to rely on air travel. That too was not easy. In one incident, the helicopter containing training materials could not fly to the mountainous Solukhumbu district for a week, due to bad weather—meaning preparations for the training had to be redone. The biggest difficulty was created by the frequent shortage of petrol, diesel and kerosene. As a result, the Commission had to reschedule crucial trainings and other election preparations in many districts.

Need for Product Development

Food processing industry plays a vital role in the economic growth of the country. It helps in increasing the production and income of farmers, reducing the post-harvest losses, generating employment, and creating market for agricultural products. Food processing is defined as a process of modifying or adding value to the agricultural products by various methods. The main objective of product development is to develop food products with different characteristics, which gives additional benefits to the consumers. Products that are developed with innovative processing technologies improve the shelf life, quality, palatability, and nutritional composition of food.

In India, food processing industry has emerged as a key component in the manufacturing sector. Previously, food processing was majorly confined to the food preservation, packaging, and transportation. Emerging processing technologies have made it easier to produce ready-to-eat (RTE) and ready-to-cook (RTC) food. Current government policies as well as economic growth of the country have contributed to the growth of processing industries, development of various food products, and expansion of the market. The demand for processed and convenience food is increasing constantly because of the rise in income levels, urbanisation, steadily growing middle class and younger generation, changing lifestyle and food habits of the people, rising export opportunities, and proximity to key destinations. Among the food processing industries, grain processing industry is the key component of the food sector, which shares about 40 per cent of the market.

Abstract: In his article “Comparative Cultural Studies and Cultural Anthropology” Rik Pinxten postulates that the fields of anthropology and comparative cultural studies represent an advantageous approach to knowledge about social and cultural processes. Further, Pinxten argues that cultural anthropologists have been growing less exclusionary about the methods and the objectives of comparison and suggests that this development resulted in new epistemologies of scholarship about the “other” towards an emic-etic approach to linguistic and cultural phenomena. Pinxten postulates that cultural anthropology complements (comparative) cultural studies in a way similar to the latter's complement to the study of literature. Thus, comparative cultural studies adds a critical approach by contextualizing literature, as well as other productions of culture.

Introduction

Cultural anthropology has a long history in comparative studies. Since anthropologists are dealing with cultures from a vast variety of origins and since they do labour-intensive fieldwork most of the time, ethnography has yielded a disparate set of data about humans and their cultures (on cultural studies and ethnography, see, e.g., Marcus). The risk for discipline, however, can result in idiosyncratic knowledge: particular data about an endless variety of behaviours, thoughts, customs, and rituals. In terms of description, this occasioned a treasure of data on humankind and in terms of science this is problematic. Science strives for universal knowledge, for invariance, and generalized propositions. In order to produce this type of knowledge in cultural anthropology the task is to do so with the comparative approach.

It has been argued that nineteenth-century Tamil literary history witnessed the displacement of the pre-nineteenth-century notions of ‘literary canon’ which are supposed to have constituted largely of religious and didactic literature with the printing of classical Tamil literary works. Under colonial modernity the displacement of the pre-nineteenth-century notions of Tamil literary canon was supposed to have been accompanied by a new mode of appraising time and a secularisation of Tamil society. Revolving largely around the selective individual narratives of pre-modern literary and hagiographical works and also of middle-class men in colonial Tamil Nadu, this view rarely takes into consideration for enquiry the literary works that were in circulation in Jain Mutts of the early modern period, missionary documents and the early colonial records like Mackenzie's collections, Board's collections of the College of Fort St George and the quantitative history of book production in British India. An enquiry into the latter sources will offer the possibility of an alternative understanding of Tamil literary history of the nineteenth century. There is another baggage that weighs heavy in historical writings on the nineteenth-century Tamil society that requires interrogation. It is about ‘Tamil renaissance’ and ‘rediscovery’ of classical Tamil literature under colonialism.

Abstract: In his article “(Inter)mediality and the Study of Literature” Werner Wolf elaborates on the “intermedial turn” and asks whether this turn ought to be welcomed. Wolf begins with a discussion about the definitions of “medium” and “intermediality” and the impact these concepts and practices exert on scholarly, as well as student competence. He argues that despite of the fact that literary studies ought not simply turn into media or cultural studies, mediality and intermediality have become relevant issues for both teaching and the study of literature especially in the fields of comparative literature and (comparative) cultural studies. Following his postulate of the relevance of mediality and intermediality in the study of literature, Wolf explores ways of integrating the said concepts and practices into the study of literature and, in particular, their integration in the field of narratology. In this context, Wolf presents a typology of intermedial forms.

Introduction

For some time the humanities and the study of literature in particular have witnessed yet another “turn”: the intermedial turn. The integration of the key concepts of this turn — mediality and intermediality — into the study of literature raises at least three issues: 1) problems of the definition of these concepts; 2) the problem of competence with reference to non-literary media; and 3) the question as to whether the concept would overburden literary studies to the detriment of what many still view as the core matter, namely the study of written literary texts.

a. Women Suffrage Movement, 1848–1920

There is a rich history of women's rights movements, especially initiatives pressing for women's political rights in every country against long-held notions of female inferiority. In her article ‘Women Suffrage and the Left: An International Socialist-Feminist Perspective’, Ellen Dubois rightly points out, ‘It is difficult to imagine a richer subject for a comparative history of democracy than the enfranchisement of women… Whereas manhood suffrage, for instance, or the breaking of the political color bar, have occurred more erratically, with limited links between national experiences, woman suffrage has been a self-consciously transnational popular political movement.’ The results were hard-won by courageous women who risked ridicule, and even imprisonment, by confronting society's acceptance of gender inequality.

On 30 October 2006, Pokharel began working as the Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) of Nepal. At 11 o'clock he entered the Bahadur Bhavan—the home of the Election Commission, which had been built in the nineteenth century by a Rana Prime Minister. He was met by the Secretary of the Election Commission, Dolakh Bahadur Gurung, who escorted him to his office.

Gurung advised him that the first task was to get the government to finalise legal framework, including the constitution and electoral laws. But there was also the question of rebuilding the trust of the political parties and other partners, which the last election—commissioned by King Gyanendra—had destroyed. This would be difficult, given the prevailing post-conflict political environment.

Soon after the Chief took office, other commissioners were appointed—Usha Nepal, Neil Kantha Uprety, Dolakh Bahadur Gurung and Ayodhi Prasad Yadav. These appointments were unofficially shared between the main four political parties representatives of the Democratic bloc and the Maoist party.

As soon as the commissioners had been appointed, the Chief held a meeting. He briefed them, saying:

Once the election was over, the priority of the Commission was to protect the will of the people, expressed through the ballot, and to complete the count and announce the results as soon as possible.

When the polling finished, the ballot boxes were taken—under tight security—to the headquarters of the 75 districts. In addition to the formal counting legislation, the Commission developed guidelines to assist the process. In rural areas, where literacy was low, it was necessary to be flexible, in order to reduce the number of votes which might otherwise be deemed invalid on technical grounds.

The first count began in Kathmandu-1, the only constituency using electronic voting machines. Two candidates in this constituency, Prakash Man Singh of the Nepali Congress and Pradip Nepal of the Unified Marxist Leninist party, were considered to be equally strong. Singh was from dominant Newar community and the son of the veteran democracy fighter Ganesh Man Singh. Nepal was a sitting minister and a senior UML leader. He appeared to be in a good position, as the UML had won five of the seven constituencies in Kathmandu in the last election in 1999.

The competition was tough. The counting of votes for Kathmandu-1 finally ended the next morning, when Singh was declared the first candidate to win in the historic Constituent Assembly election. The UML party came second and the Maoist party third, in both the FPTP and proportional race of Kathmandu-1.

Sorghum is a traditional staple food in India. The consumption of sorghum both in urban and in rural areas has been on the decline for various reasons – easy access of other cereals like rice and wheat, tedious and time-consuming processes involved in preparation, urbanisation, and Government policies to supply fine cereals at a subsidized rate. However, sorghum is preferred by nutritionists over other cereals for its high fibre content and slow-releasing carbohydrates and minerals. Thus, it facilitates in dietary management and in preventing metabolic diseases. It is highly recommended for all age groups especially for those suffering from lifestyle diseases such as diabetics and obesity. Therefore, there is a need for diversification of processing technology that makes sorghum products both value added and convenient.

The current study is part of a series of outputs of the National Agricultural Innovation Project (NAIP) focusing on Millets Value Chain headed by the Directorate of Sorghum Research (DSR). Sorghum and millets are the future crops offering nutritional security owing to their nutritional superiority over other fine cereals such as rice and wheat. The consumer acceptance report of Hyderabad, Pune, and Delhi shows that sorghum products are quite popular in market. This book discusses the status of sorghum production and its consumption in India. It also talks about the strategies to exploit the nutritional value of sorghum, and market point of view. I thank the authors for their sincere effort to write this book.