Introduction to the Custom of Sati

Sati or suttee is the ancient Indian and Nepalese practice of burning a widow on her husbands funeral pyre or burying her alive in his grave. This practice is associated with Hindu traditions.  The name is taken from the goddess Sati, wife of Shiva, who burned herself to protest her fathers ill-treatment of her husband.  The term sati can also apply to the widow who commits the act. The word sati comes from the feminine present participle of the Sanskrit word  asti, meaning she is true/pure.  While it has been most common in India and Nepal, examples have occurred in other traditions from as far afield as Russia, Vietnam, and Fiji. Pronunciation: suh-TEE or SUHT-ee Alternate Spellings: suttee Seen as a Proper Finale to a Marriage According to custom, Hindu sati was supposed to be voluntary, and often it was seen as the proper finale to a marriage. It was considered to be the signature act of a dutiful wife, who would want to follow her husband into the afterlife. However, many accounts exist of women who were forced to go through with the rite. They may have been drugged, thrown into the fire, or tied up before being placed on the pyre or into the grave. In addition, the strong societal pressure was exerted on women to accept sati, particularly if they had no surviving children to support them. A widow had no social standing in traditional society and was considered a drag on resources. It was almost unheard-of for a woman to remarry after her husbands death, so even very young widows were expected to kill themselves. History of Sati Sati first appears in the historical record during the reign of the Gupta Empire, c. 320 to 550 CE.  Thus, it may be a relatively recent innovation in the extremely long history of Hinduism. During the Gupta period, incidents of sati began to be recorded with inscribed memorial stones, first in Nepal in 464 CE, and then in Madhya Pradesh from 510 CE. The practice spread to Rajasthan, where it has happened most frequently over the centuries. Initially, sati seems to have been limited to royal and noble families from the Kshatriya caste (warriors and princes). Gradually, however, it percolated down into the lower castes. Some areas such as Kashmir became particularly known for the prevalence of sati among people of all classes and stations in life. It seems to have really taken off between the 1200s and 1600s CE. As the Indian Ocean trade routes brought Hinduism to Southeast Asia, the practice of sati also moved into new lands during the 1200s to 1400s. An Italian missionary and traveler recorded that widows in the Champa kingdom of what is now Vietnam practiced sati in the early 1300s. Other medieval travelers found the custom in Cambodia, Burma, the Philippines, and parts of what is now Indonesia, particularly on the islands of Bali, Java, and Sumatra. In Sri Lanka, interestingly, sati was practiced only by queens; ordinary women were not expected to join their husbands in death. The Banning of Sati Under the rule of the Muslim Mughal emperors, sati was banned more than once. Akbar the Great first outlawed the practice around the year 1500; Aurangzeb tried to end it again in 1663, after a trip to Kashmir where he witnessed it. During the European  colonial period, Britain, France, and the Portuguese all tried to stamp out the practice of sati. Portugal outlawed it in Goa as early as 1515. The British East India Company imposed a ban on sati in the city of Calcutta only in 1798. To prevent unrest, at that time the BEIC did not allow Christian missionaries to work within its territories in India.  However, the issue of sati became a rallying point for British Christians, who pushed legislation through the House of Commons in 1813 to allow missionary work in India specifically to end practices like sati.   By 1850, British colonial attitudes against sati had hardened. Officials like Sir Charles Napier threatened to hang for murder any Hindu priest who advocated or presided over a widow-burning. British officials put intense pressure on the rulers of the princely states to outlaw sati, as well. In 1861, Queen Victoria issued a proclamation banning sati throughout her domain in India. Nepal officially banned it in 1920. Prevention of Sati Act Today, Indias  Prevention of Sati Act  (1987) makes it illegal to coerce or encourage anyone to commit sati. Forcing someone to commit sati can be punished by death. Nonetheless, a small number of widows still choose to join their husbands in death; at least four instances have been recorded between the year 2000 and 2015. Examples In 1987, a Rajput man was arrested after the sati death of his daughter-in-law, Roop Kunwar, who was just 18 years old.

Concept Of Value Creation The Npv Of A Dswh For East...

has been made to generalize the NPV of a DSWH for east coastal region of India. Traditionally NPV has been location specific but in this study, effort has been made to generalize NPV for east coastal region of India. A dedicated risk model for Monte Carlo simulation of a DSWH has been developed using Microsoft excel 2013 and validated using @Risk7,a commercial software for risk modeling and simulation. 2. Concept of value Creation: 2.1 Various schools of thought of value: Value creation is a very crucial concept in business. Entrepreneurs are continuously putting a lot of effort to create sustainable value. Business is all about creating sustainable value. Different subjects: marketing management, operation management, finance and economics aim at creating value in their respective domain. These subjects look at value from their own school of thought but more or less when it is to be quantified for decision making, we talk about net present value. Few ways to define value are as below [22-24] Strategy: (1) Operation: (2) Economics: (3) Finance: (4) Using logic and from the first principle following formula has been formulated exclusively for a DSWH in general NPV : (5) This Eq. No. 5 can be used for a simple domestic water heater. For simplicity and without sacrificing much accuracy, salvage value (s) can be taken as zero. In case NPV is greater than zero, project can be accepted and if it is negative it has to be

National Labor Relations Board free essay sample

A few days ago, there was a vote on a controversial policy to permit changing workplace election rules regarding votes on union representation. The proposed rule at issue was the shortening of the amount of time between a union filing a petition to hold an election for union representation and the actual vote. While the vote was heavily favored by union and labor lobbyists, it was opposed by most business groups. Because most employers do not hear about the vote until they are notified by the NLRB, the shortening of the amount of time between the petition and the actual vote is very important. Each side has many important actions to take prior to an election. In terms of the union organizers, there is much that they need to do prior to the election. Before the vote can even happen, the union must collect authorization cards from 30 percent of the employees (saying they agree to be in a union). The union must then file a petition with the NLRB who becomes the referee in the process. Once this is done, the employer is notified to address any issues raised by the petition, such as the legitimacy of the petition signatures, which employees to include in the proposed bargaining unit, and so forth. The union must then prove there is an adequate showing of interest for the union (usually done with authorization cards). This is the most important thing the union must do before an election. If the union cannot gather enough interest from employees, then the petition is dismissed and the election will not happen. The time between the petition and vote really comes into play with the employers. In most cases, the employers do not know about the petition and vote until they hear about it from the NLRB. There is much the employer must do if they want to fight the union and therefore the less time they have to deal with the matter, the less likely they are to win the case. Before the vote, the employer may challenge the showing of interest by claiming that the signatures on the cards are not genuine, or that they have been tainted by supervisory involvement in the union’s campaign, or that the union has understated the number of employees in the unit that it seeks to represent. It would then be up to the Board to investigate these claims. The employer can also require a secret ballot election to gage the true interest of employees who may have been pressured into originally voting for the union. Finally, the employer only has the time between the petition being signed and the vote to challenge the appropriateness of the union or raise other issues. Some of these issues include the number of employees in the union, the cause for unionizing, who can be included in the union (independent contractors, etc. ), and many others. There is much that an employer needs to do before the election happens and this is why I think the union groups would want a shorter period and businesses want to keep the longer period. There is not a whole lot a business can do once the election is held to fight the problems they see with the union. If they only have a short time to investigate everything on the petition, the business might miss something that could hurt them once the election happens. Likewise, if the election happens and the business misses something, the union could gain a huge advantage when discussing wages, work conditions, and other issues at hand. It may not seem like a huge issue, but in reality this is a very important vote that businesses and unions will both want to pay close attention. NFL Labor Dispute From the middle of March until nearly the end of July, many people were wondering if there would be professional football played this fall and winter. The labor dispute was very much in the public eye and given that it is the most popular sport in America, there was no shortage of fear that the season would not happen. The list of issues between the owners and players was extremely long which made settlement that much more tedious and difficult to achieve. The number one issue in the dispute, as it is in most disputes, was money. The owners were asking for an additional $1 billion from the league’s roughly $9 billion of total revenue. The union estimated that this would cut its share of revenues by 18 percent. Before the new agreement, the owners got $1 billion to cover expenses associated with running the league and the remaining money was split roughly 60%-40% for the players. Factoring in the initial credit expense received by the owners, the players were receiving about 51%. The owners wanted to take an additional $1 billion off the top for expenses (for a total of $2 billion before splitting up the rest of the revenue). The players, suffice to say, were not on board with this at all. Another issue that needed to be resolved was whether or not to add two more games to the regular season (increasing it from 16 to 18 games). The players resisted this action heavily because of the concerns over health and longevity in the league. The owners say this change as a good thing because it would bring in an additional (estimated) $500 million to be split between both parties. However, the players wanted a reduction of mandatory off-season work and improved health coverage in post-career care. The owners also wanted a rookie wage scale to reduce the huge salaries going to top draft picks. In an open letter to fans NFL Commissioner, Roger Goodell, wrote that without a new CBA, â€Å"outrageous† sums will continue being paid to â€Å"unproven rookies. † A new deal could leave more money for former players and veterans. Two other smaller issues that needed to be resolved in order for a season to start included financial disclosure and benefits for retired players. The owners were arguing that owning a NFL team was actually losing them money and they needed more in order to keep things running smoothly. The players demanded that the owners open their books to prove they were actually heading for financial disaster. The owners, however, said the players had all the information they needed to understand that owning an NFL team was a â€Å"losing gig. † The other issue doesn’t really need much explanation. Many players who are no longer in the league suffer from many different problems, including depression and head issues, and the NFLPA simply wanted more attention to go to retired players. After 136 long days, the lockout finally ended. Football was back. In the end, I would have to say that neither side really â€Å"lost† with the new agreement. The owners now will keep 52% of the revenues, not the 47% from the previous collective bargaining agreement, but they also will have to operate with a $120 million salary cap, with an additional approximately $20 million for benefits, and have a guaranteed spend. In the end, the two sides are splitting $9 billion, tough to say there is a loser there. The season will remain at 16 games, which the players like. The rookies may have lost a bit as they will not get as much as before, but this seems fair as some first-rounder picks were getting absurd amounts of money. Finally, the veteran minimum has gone up, which is a good thing, and there will be money set aside for retired players in terms of health care to deal with matters resulting from playing in the league. The NFL is a $9. 3 billion business today. Who knows what it will be in the future, but it will not be less. It will be probably be much, much more. There had to be a way the two sides could come to an agreement. There were other small caveats to the agreement, but in terms of the important issues like money and scheduling, I would say that neither side lost. NFL is as popular as ever and it’s only going to get bigger so the fact that it took so long to figure out how to split up $9 billion is a bit ridiculous. Regardless, I am just glad the sport is back in action.