Kabul, a Forgotten Mughal Capital: Gardens, City, and Court at the Turn of the Sixteenth Century

Kabul was the seat of Mughal power during the first half of the sixteenth century, and—it is argued here—provided inspiration for the better-known Mughal metropoles of Hindustan. Sources suggest that the topography of Kabul was already well established, along with its major landmarks, decades before Babur made it the seat of his court in 1504. Among these landmarks were three remarkable royal gardens (all Timurid foundations), which performed complementary functions. The one known today as Bagh-i Babur acquired funerary connotations with the burial of Babur’s mother there in 1505, if not earlier. The Bagh-i Shahrara hosted the governor as well as distinguished guests, including widowed or divorced princesses and imperial visitors. The Chaharbagh was the seat of the court. Its functional units included residential quarters for the ruler and the harem, a courtyard of audience, administrative quarters, and service provisions. In this study, Kabul and its gardens are compared with Mughal counterparts in Hindustan, and (more briefly) with Timurid Herat and Safavid Isfahan. This comparison contributes to an understanding of the unique position occupied by gardens in the Timurid realm and in the courts of their Mughal and Safavid successors.

Quality Service Provision and Students Satisfaction at Akenten Aooiah-menka University of Skills Training and Entrepreneurial Development: Implications for University management

The aim of this study was to investigate the factors that affect quality service provision and students’ satisfaction at Akenten Appiah-Menka University of Skills Training and Entrepreneurial Development. Descriptive survey research was used for the study. Simple random sampling was used to select third and final year undergraduate students in Kumasi and Mampong campuses.The total population of the study was 1642. Parasuram’s SERQUAL instrument type of questionnaire was adopted as a research instrument for data collection. The internal consistency of the 32-items yielded a Cronbach Alpha value of 0.91. The data gathered were quantitatively analysed with the use of descriptive and inferential statistics. The results of the study showed a statistically strong and direct relationship between quality in commitment, social and financial bonds, communication, general academic conditions and administrative support and students’ satisfaction which in turn influenced institutional image and students’ loyalty. This indicates that students had high expectations in the five-dimensional variables that stood as proxy for quality service provisions by the University. It was recommended that university management should appoint competent academic and administrative staffs to positions, provide them with adequate professional development programmes to improve their commitment in teaching and learning, communication and other service provisions. More so, management should be proactive towards adequate infrastructural provision for students in order to improve their academic work in a conducive learning environment. Lastly, the study will benefit other universities in Ghana to identify cost effective ways of improving service quality provision.

9. Starting Your Court Action and Serving It on the Defendant

This chapter deals with the procedural steps, considerations, and issues that need to be addressed when commencing proceedings. These include the ‘tracks’ created by the Civil Procedure Rules (the small claims track, the fast track, and the multi-track). It details the documents needed to issue proceedings. These include parties and joinder and service provisions.

Hosting Syrian Refugees in Saida (Lebanon) Under Protracted Displacement: Unfolding Spatial and Social Exclusion

Lebanon has witnessed multiple waves of displaced peoples throughout its recent history, including the displacement of Palestinians to Lebanon after the occupation of Palestine in 1948, the internal displacement of families from occupied Southern Lebanon after the Israeli invasion of 1978, and the influx of Syrian refugees after the outbreak of the Syrian crisis in 2011. Many Syrian families had to reconstitute their lives in Lebanon because of the crisis in their country, often in tented and informal settlements or in overpopulated or even abandoned buildings. This article focuses on the process of hosting Syrian refugees in Saida in Southern Lebanon after 2011. It explores service provisions and the two dominant types of housing for Syrian refugees: collective shelters and single apartments within local neighbourhoods. The article argues that mechanisms of exclusion emerge with intensity in cities like Saida that have received and accommodated multiple waves of displacement. Such mechanisms of exclusion in Saida are politically attuned to the historical depth of the hosting experience and emerge at multiple levels, both social and spatial. This is despite Saida’s mobilization to provide aid, and its departure from housing refugees in camps, which is based on a model of containment, and its move toward housing refugees across the urban landscape, which is based on a model of disbursement.

Basic Service Provisioning in Peri-urban India: A Regional Perspective from Kolkata Metropolis

In the globalising world, rapid urbanisation and expansion of cities trigger complex interactions with the surrounding rural areas and transform them into peri-urban areas. The peri-urban transitional spaces around cities experience rapid population growth and occupational diversification. However, they suffer from poor infrastructure and service provisions and the living condition has also been deteriorating over time with increasing population pressure. This article tries to explore accessibility to basic services in the transitional interfaces in comparison with the urban core and rural counterparts, taking Kolkata metropolis as a case. Using village level household information obtained from Census 2011, a composite amenity index by principal component analysis and one-way analysis of variance have been used to assess the status of services. The study finds that the condition of basic service provisions in peri-urban areas is unsatisfactory and far behind from the urban areas. It therefore resembles the hypothesis of “degenerated periphery” that the expansion of cities creates peripheries without basic civic amenities and infrastructural facilities necessary for its residents for maintaining the standard of living.

The Implementation of Good Governance Practices in Service Provisions to the Citizens in Addis Ababa City Administration: The Case of Yeka Sub-City

Addis Ababa city administration is known for its poor implementation of good governance to the public. The main objective of the study is to assess the implementation of good governance while rendering services to the ordinary citizens. The research methodology employs both quantitative and qualitative approaches using data collection instruments with the IBM SPSS statistical packagxe vs. 21. The findings indicate favourable results in meeting the needs of citizens. To that effect, a number of issues are discussed: good governance that is effective and efficient, transparent and open, accountable; participation, leadership direction and strategic vision; fairness and equity; governance that is consensus oriented, responsive in service provision; and governance that follows the rule of law. Although the implementation process has brought tangible results, it is not free from some challenges. In conclusion, both achievements and failures were observed. Thus, understanding customers’ expectations in service provisions, systematising customers’ feedback, and continuously raising the staff’s awareness are the recommendations identified for future development.

THE EU REGULATORY ACTIVITIES IN THE AREA OF DIGITAL PLATFORMS AND SERVICES PROVISION

New and innovative ways of service provisions based on digital platforms have changed the ways in which doing business, communicating and connecting providers to users in the EU Internal Market are shaped and transformed. Since the adoption of the Directive 2000/31/EC (the E-Commerce Directive) in 2000 digital services have gained market dominance, and this has become especially evident during the Covid-19 virus crisis when the importance of digital technologies in all aspects of modern life became prominent. It has clearly shown the dependency of the economy and the society on digital services highlighting both the benefits and the risks that stem from the current framework for the functioning of the services provided by the digital platforms regardless of whether they are defined as digital services or not. In the European Commission (EC) Communication “Shaping Europe’s Digital Future” the EC committed to update the horizontal rules that define the responsibilities and obligations of digital service providers, and online platforms in particular. Additionally, the European Parliament’s “Report on the Digital Services Act and fundamental rights issues posed” highlights the need for legal clarity of platforms and users, as well as respect for fundamental rights in the light of the rapid development of technology. According to the current data, the digital platforms account for over 10% of the EU's 45 million users. These platforms are subject not only to the specific obligations in controlling their own risks, but also to a new oversight structure. In 2020 the EC initiative was finalized by the “Proposal for a Regulation on a Single Market for Digital Service” which addresses the negative consequences arising from certain behaviours on platforms. Since the EU Internal market is impacted significantly by platforms that serve as intermediaries for business users to reach their customers, sometimes these companies assume control over the entire platform ecosystems, which in turn can grant them the opportunity to regulate certain relations. The controlling power comes from the practices that platform companies exercise and from using the data of the businesses and users operating on these platforms. This paper aims to analyse the current regulation on digital platforms and digital service provisions in the EU Internal Market and offer some conclusions on its possible impact on the market’s functioning especially in the times of the Covid-19 pandemic and subsequently.