Nepal’s Survival Strategies During the Shah Era

Unity Journal ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
pp. 175-189
Author(s):  
Phanindra Subba
Keyword(s):  
Survival Strategies ◽  
Small States ◽  
International Affairs ◽  
Small State ◽  
Colonial Era ◽  
Physical Size ◽  
The Past ◽  
The North ◽  
Long Term Impact

Nepal is one of the few countries in the world which was never colonized during the hey-day of colonial era. She is bounded on the north by China and on the three other sides by India. Compared to these Colossi, Nepal is significantly weaker in terms of demography, economics, military strength and physical size. Nepal is, thus, a typical small state. There are several strategies that small states can employ to compensate for their weaknesses, ensure security, and secure a measure of influence over other actors. Small state literature exposes that such states can choose from strategies such as entering into alliance with a great power, hedging, neutrality, balancing, and band– wakening. Currently, this paper explores a trajectory of survival strategies that Nepal adopted during the Shah era on the basis of the analysis of crucial events that occurred during this period from perspectives of small state theories. The paper is based on the study of relevant books, documents and articles on small states amidst international affairs in global spheres. The joint rise of India and China is transforming the strategic landscape of Nepal’s neighborhood and will have a profound and long-term impact on Nepal. Nepal in the past has demonstrated a stubborn ability to survive by adapting to changing geopolitical situations. Although the present-day world is far more complex, lessons from the past are worth reconsidering because there are instances of similarities to the present. Furthermore, some aspects of strategy are constant.

The Role of UBI in Mitigating the Effects of Psychosocial Stressors: A Review and Proposal

2021 ◽  
pp. 003329412110051
Author(s):  
Rashmi Gupta ◽  
Jemima Jacob ◽  
Gaurav Bansal
Keyword(s):  
Role Stress ◽  
Psychosocial Stressors ◽  
Basic Income ◽  
Economic Stability ◽  
The Past ◽  
Individual Outcomes ◽  
Long Term Impact ◽  
The Impact

Psychosocial stressors and social disadvantages contribute to inequalities in opportunities and outcomes. In the current paper, we use an epidemiological perspective and highlight the role stress plays on individuals by reviewing the outcomes of major stressors such as poverty and unemployment. We further analyzed the psychological and physical cost of these stressors and their long-term impact. We examined the role of universal basic income and closely looked at income experiments that were implemented in the past, in terms of their effectiveness in enhancing the community as well as individual outcomes and propose the UBI as a tool for alleviating the impact of these stressors. At a time when a major pandemic (e.g., COVID-19) threatens economic stability and health globally, we believe the UBI is relevant now, more than ever.

scholarly journals Response Characteristics of Chinese Pine (Pinus tabulaeformis Carr.) Radial Growth to Climate and Drought Variability Reconstruction in Western Liaoning, Northeast China

Forests ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (9) ◽  
pp. 752
Author(s):  
Liu ◽  
Bao ◽  
Bao
Keyword(s):  
Northeast China ◽  
Radial Growth ◽  
Pinus Tabulaeformis ◽  
Western Liaoning ◽  
Chinese Pine ◽  
The Past ◽  
The North ◽  
Pinus Tabulaeformis Carr ◽  
The North Pacific

Chinese pine (Pinus tabulaeformis Carr.) plays an important role in maintaining ecosystem health and stability in western Liaoning Province and the southern Horqin sand land, Northeast China, with benefits including sand fixation and soil erosion. In the context of climate change, developing a better understanding of the relationship between climate factors and growth rates of this species will be extremely valuable in guiding management activities and meeting regional conservation objectives. Here, the results based on two groups of tree-ring samples show that the radial growth of Chinese pine is controlled primarily by water conditions. The longer chronology had the highest correlation coefficient with the January–September mean self-calibrating Palmer Drought Severity Index (scPDSI); therefore, drought variability was reconstructed for the period 1859–2014. Statistical analysis showed that our model explained 41.9% of the variance in radial growth during the 1951–2014 calibration period. Extreme dry and wet events, defined as the criteria of one standard deviation less or greater than the mean value, accounted for 19.9% and 18.6% of the 156-year climate record, respectively. During the past century, the regional hydroclimate experienced significant long-term fluctuations. The dry periods occurred from the early-1900s–1930s and 1980s–2000s, and the wet periods occurred from the 1940s–1970s. The drought reconstruction was consistent with the decreasing trend of the East Asian summer monsoon since the late 1970s. The reconstructed temporal patterns in hydroclimate in western Liaoning were closely related to the large-scale climate drivers in the North Pacific and the tropical equatorial Pacific. The teleconnections were confirmed by spatial correlations between the reconstructed sequence and sea surface temperature (SST) in the North Pacific, as well as the correlations with the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) and El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) indices. Aerosols played an important role in affecting drought variations over the past several decades. Moisture stress caused by global warming and interdecadal changes in the PDO will have long-term effects on the growth of pines in the study area in the future.

Impact of Seasonality in the North Atlantic Jet Stream and Storm Migration on the Seasonality of Hurricane Translation Speed Changes

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-38
Author(s):  
Xi Guo ◽  
James P. Kossin ◽  
Zhe-Min Tan
Keyword(s):  
North Atlantic ◽  
Atlantic Coast ◽  
Jet Stream ◽  
Translation Speed ◽  
Multidecadal Variability ◽  
The Past ◽  
The North ◽  
Term Variation ◽  
The North Atlantic

AbstractTropical cyclone (TC) translation speed (TCTS) can affect the duration of TC-related disasters, which is critical to coastal and inland areas. The long-term variation of TCTS and their relationship to the variability of the mid-latitude jet stream and storm migration are discussed here for storms near the North Atlantic coast during 1948-2019. Our results reveal the prominent seasonality in the long-term variation of TCTS, which can be largely explained by the seasonality in the covariations of the mid-latitude jet stream and storm locations. Specifically, significant increases of TCTS occur in June and October during the past decades, which may result from the equatorward displacement of the jet stream and poleward migration of storm locations. Prominent slowdown of TCTS is found in August, which is related to the weakened jet strength and equatorward storm migration. In September, the effects of poleward displacement and weakening of the jet stream on TCTS are largely compensated by the poleward storm migration, therefore, no significant change in TCTS is observed. Meanwhile, the multidecadal variability of the Atlantic may contribute to the multidecadal variability of TCTS. Our findings emphasize the significance in taking a seasonality view in discussing the variability and trends of near-coast Atlantic TCTS under climate change.

Shadows from the past: The mothering experience of women survivors of maternal suicide

2016 ◽  
Vol 18 (5) ◽  
pp. 548-577 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ronit D Leichtentritt ◽  
Judy Leichtentritt ◽  
Michal Mahat Shamir
Keyword(s):  
Women Survivors ◽  
Social Workers ◽  
Raising Children ◽  
The Past ◽  
Theoretical Perspectives ◽  
Emotional Socialization ◽  
Long Term Impact ◽  
Maternal Suicide

Summary Raising children, while challenging in the best of times, can be more complicated for a woman who lost her own mother during her childhood/adolescent years. This study examines the long-term impact of maternal suicide as evident in the mothering experiences of 12 Israeli women. Findings The participants’ descriptions reveal a constant Sisyphean struggle to move away from their legacy only to be pulled back—a fervent wish to be different from their mothers along with the simultaneous realization that they cannot escape their past. This continuing struggle is captured through four themes: (a) being a mother long before having children, (b) the past casting a pall over the present, (c) mothering as a means of fixing what is broken, and (d) the lack of a maternal model: an irrevocable absence. Applications The results of this study are discussed from an emotional socialization perspective which points to the relevance of two theoretical perspectives: the modeling and the compensation views of emotional socialization in the participants’ mothering experiences. These views can help social workers both to understand and to attend to the distinctive difficulties of mothers who have survived the suicide of their own mothers.

Authoritarian survival strategies and elite churn: The case of North Korea

2020 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 160-176
Author(s):  
John Ishiyama ◽  
Taekbin Kim
Keyword(s):  
Panel Data ◽  
North Korea ◽  
Survival Strategies ◽  
Leadership Characteristics ◽  
Structural Factors ◽  
Data Set ◽  
The Past ◽  
The North ◽  
Authoritarian Survival ◽  
Scholarly Attention

How do autocrats interact with authoritarian elites? This is a question that has gained increasing scholarly attention over the past decade. In this article, using the case of North Korea we develop a set of theoretical expectations for “elite churn” or changes in the composition of the elite (either in terms of promotions, demotions, or new entrants) resulting from moving around elites from office to office (or “elite shuffle”) and bringing in new elites. We test a number of theoretical expectations derived from the existing literature on elite management in autocracies and then examine these expectations using a panel data set of 351 members of the North Korean elite from 1948–2017. Taking into account leadership characteristics, threats to the regime (both internal and external), external opportunities, and structural factors, we find that the explanation for elite churn in North Korea is very leader specific, and is much more pronounced under Kim Jong Un than his predecessors. This suggests that Kim Jong Un’s position was much more tenuous than his father’s and grandfather’s and likely continues to be so.

Port in a Storm, 1840–1880

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Margaret M. Mulrooney
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Agricultural Production ◽  
Cultural Changes ◽  
Industrial Activity ◽  
Colonial Era ◽  
The Past ◽  
The North ◽  
Organized Violence ◽  
White Middle Class ◽  
White Elite

This chapter outlines the dramatic changes underway in Wilmington and in North Carolina during this period. Wilmington’s white elite actively embraced progress, becoming more and more pro-business and industry even as they maintained ties to agricultural production and plantation culture. At the same time, a white middle class emerged that included newcomers from the north and Europe as well as homegrown entrepreneurs. Industrial activity was not only integral to the port city’s development as a distinctive place, but it sparked spatial, social, economic, political, and cultural changes that helped free and enslaved blacks to resist their oppression. By 1850, the city’s most progressive, forward-thinking whites were struggling to maintain their supremacy and so they looked, ironically, to the past, especially remembrances of the colonial era as well as traditional modes of organized violence. During the stormy years of sectional crisis, southern rebellion, and Reconstruction, these efforts increased dramatically, but so did black Wilmingtonians’ use of similar methods to gain freedom and citizenship.

Uplift history of the Western Ecuadorian Andes: new constraints from low-temperature thermochronology

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Audrey Margirier ◽  
Peter Reiners ◽  
Ismael Casado ◽  
Stuart Thomson ◽  
Alexandra Alvarado ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Strike Slip ◽  
South American ◽  
South American Plate ◽  
Ridge Subduction ◽  
The North ◽  
Western Cordillera ◽  
Deformational History ◽  
History Of ◽  
Long Term Impact

<p>The Cenozoic growth of the Ecuadorian Andes has been strongly influenced by the compressional reactivation of inherited crustal anisotropies, strike-slip faulting and uplift, and the erosional effects of a wet tropical climate superposed on the deforming orogen. Some authors have linked uplift in the Western Cordillera to the interaction between the South American Plate and the subduction of the oceanic Carnegie Ridge. However, recent studies have alternatively suggested that the tectonic evolution of a northward-escaping crustal sliver in western Ecuador along the Pallatanga strike-slip zone may equally well explain mountain building and topographic growth in this region. While the importance of the Pallatanga Fault has been recognized in the context of seismic hazards, its long-term impact on the development of topography and relief has not been explored in detail. To evaluate the possible roles of oceanic ridge subduction and/or strike-slip motion in prompting the growth of the Western Cordillera, we present new thermochronological data to constrain the deformational history of the Western Cordillera at different latitudes. We focus on two sites in the vicinity of the Pallatanga strike-slip fault (3°S and 1°30’S) and a location farther to the north (0°30’N). Our apatite and zircon (U-Th-Sm)/He dates range from 26.0 ± 0.4 Ma to 3.9 ± 0.1 Ma and from 23.7 ± 0.3 to 5.9 ± 0.1 Ma, respectively. The three sampled sites record a clear age-elevation relationship. The inverse modeling of apatite and zircon (U-Th-Sm)/He dates and upcoming apatite fission-track data is expected to provide new constraints on the recent uplift and exhumation history of the Western Ecuadorian Andes and thus furnish information on the paleo-geographical evolution of the northern Andes.</p>

The India–China Confrontation: A View from Seawards

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 62-76
Author(s):  
Admiral (Retd) Arun Prakash
Keyword(s):  
Political Leadership ◽  
False Belief ◽  
The South ◽  
Strategic Objectives ◽  
The Past ◽  
The North ◽  
Actual Control

Most Indians assumed that India’s humiliating military defeat at China’s hands in 1962 had jolted its political leadership out of its complacency, engendered by naïve beliefs in the commonality of China’s and India’s aims and aspirations. The current tense confrontation between Indian and Chinese forces in the remote Himalayan wastes of Ladakh, climaxing in the June 2020 sanguinary clash, therefore, came as a rude re-awakening for the Indian public. It is now obvious that over the past three decades, India’s politico-diplomatic establishment has been lulled into the false belief that parleys and summit meetings could ensure peace and tranquillity across the undefined ‘line of actual control’. They also seem oblivious of the fact that growing naval pressure from the south, coupled with existing military pressure in the north, could have ominous security implications for India. Amidst the prevailing perplexity, this essay is a modest attempt to cast some light on the rationale and motivation behind China’s actions and its long-term strategic objectives with a focus on its grandiose maritime ambitions.

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