Academic literature on the topic 'India Social life and customs 20th century'

The Mission in Madurai 1606-1656 was a unique episode in the history of Christianity in India. During these times changing religion to Christianity meant abandoning one’s culture. Roberto de Nobili, an Italian Jesuit and founder of the mission was the fi rst European to learn Sanskrit, study the scriptures of the Vedas and convert Brahmins. He allowed them to keep their social customs, which was seen as controversial by the church hierarchy. He followed these social rules himself, living the life of an Indian ascetic and thus gaining respect among higher castes. His way of separating Hinduism from Indian culture was, and still is, contentious but it was done for practical purposes. The controversies forced him to defend his arguments on many occasions. In his writings he described Indian traditions and explained his method of missionary work. There were not many followers of de Nobili’s method, who would be able to understand the need of accommodation, undertake studies of Hinduism and be prepared to embrace an ascetic lifestyle. It was not until the 20th century that interreligious dialogue emerged as a concept and some Catholic clergymen found inspiration in Hindu spirituality. The goal of this thesis is to show just how pioneering was the accommodation method used by de Nobili and how his infl uence can still be felt on attempts at interreligious dialogue in the modern era.

IntroductionIndian Literature with its multiplicity of languages and the plurality of cultures dates back to 3000 years ago, comprising Vedas, Upanishads, Puranas and Epics like Ramayana and Mahabharata. India has a strong literary tradition in various Indian regional languages like Sanskrit, Prakrit, Pali, Hindi, Marathi, Bengali, Oriya, Tamil, Kannada, Telugu, Malayalam and so on. Indian writers share oral tradition, indigenous experiences and reflect on the history, culture and society in regional languages as well as in English. The first Indian novel in English is Bankim Chandra Chatterjee’s Rajmohan’s Wife (1864). Indian Writing in English can be viewed in three phases - Imitative, First and Second poets’ phases. The 20th century marks the matrix of indigenous novels. The novels such as Mulk Raj Anand’s Untouchable (1935), Anita Nair’s Ladies Coupé (2001), and Khuswant Singh’s Memories of Madness: Stories of 1947 (2002) depict social issues, vices and crises (discrimination, injustice, violence against women) in India. Indian writers, and their contribution to world literature, are popular in India and abroad.Researchers are keen on analysing the works of Indian writers from historical, cultural, social perspectives and on literary theories (Post-Colonialism, Postmodernity, Cultural Studies). The enormity of the cultural diversity in India is reflected in Indian novels, plays, dramas, short stories and poems. This collection of articles attempts to capture the diversity of the Indian land/culture/landscape. It focuses on the history of India, partition, women’s voices, culture and society, and science and technology in Indian narratives, documentaries and movies.Special Issue: An Overview“Whatever has happened, has happened for goodWhatever is happening, is also for goodWhatever will happen, shall also be good.”- The Bhagavad-Gita.In the Mahabharata’s Kurukshetra battlefield, Lord Krishna counsels Arjuna on how everything that happens, regardless of whether it is good or bad, happens for a reason.Indian Literature: Past, Present and Future portrays the glorious/not-so-glorious times in history, the ever-changing crisis/peace of contemporary and hope for an unpredictable future through India’s literary and visual narratives. It focuses on comparison across cultures, technological advancements and diverse perspectives or approaches through the work of art produced in/on India. It projects India’s flora, fauna, historical monuments and rich cultural heritage. It illustrates how certain beliefs and practices come into existence – origin, evolution and present structure from a historical perspective. Indian Literature: Past, Present and Future gives a moment to recall, rectify and raise to make a promising future. This collection attempts to interpret various literary and visual narratives which are relevant at present.The Epics Reinterpreted: Highlighting Feminist Issues While Sustaining Deep Motif, examines the Women characters in the Epics – Ramayana and Mahabharata. It links the present setting to the violence against women described in the Epics Carl Jung’s archetypes are highlighted in a few chosen characters (Sita, Amba, Draupati). On one note, it emphasises the need for women to rise and fight for their rights.Fictive Testimony and Genre Tension: A Study of ‘Functionality’ of Genre in Manto’s Toba Tek Singh, analyses the story as a testimony and Manto as a witness. It discusses the ‘Testimony and Fictive Testimony’ in Literature. It explains how the works are segregated into a particular genre. The authors conclude that the testimony is to be used to understand or identify with the terror.Tangible Heritage and Intangible Memory: (Coping) Precarity in the select Partition writings by Muslim Women, explores the predicament of women during the Partition of India through Mumtaz Shah Nawaz’s The Heart Divided (1990) and Attia Hosain’s Sunlight on a Broken Column (2009). It addresses ‘Feminist Geography’ to escape precarity. It depicts a woman who is cut off from her own ethnic or religious group and tries to conjure up her memories as a means of coping with loneliness and insecurity.Nation Building Media Narratives and its Anti-Ecological Roots: An Eco-Aesthetic Analysis of Khushwant Singh’s Train to Pakistan, analyses the post-Partition trauma in the fictional village, Mano Majra. It illustrates the cultural and spiritual bond between Mano Majrans — the inhabitants of Mano Majra — and nature (the land and river). It demonstrates how the media constructs broad myths about culture, religion, and nation. According to the authors, Mano Majrans place a high value on the environment, whilst the other boundaries are more concerned with nationalism and religion.Pain and Hopelessness among Indian Farmers: An Analysis of Deepa Bhatia’s Nero’s Guests documents the farmers’ suicides in India as a result of debt and decreased crop yield. The travels of Sainath and his encounters with the relatives of missing farmers have been chronicled in the documentary Nero’s Guests. It uses the Three Step Theory developed by David Klonsky and Alexis May and discusses suicide as a significant social issue. The authors conclude that farmers are the foundation of the Indian economy and that without them, India’s economy would collapse. It is therefore everyone’s responsibility—the people and the government—to give farmers hope so that they can overcome suicidal thoughts.The link between animals and children in various cultures is discussed in The New Sociology of Childhood: Animal Representations in Leslie Marmon Silko’s Garden in the Dunes, Amazon’s Oh My Dog, and Netflix’s Mughizh: A Cross-Cultural Analysis. It examines the chosen works from the perspectives of cross-cultural psychology and the New Sociology of Childhood. It emphasises kids as self-sufficient, engaged, and future members of society. It emphasises universal traits that apply to all people, regardless of culture. It acknowledges anthropomorphized cartoons create a bond between kids and animals.Life in Hiding: Censorship Challenges faced by Salman Rushdie and Perumal Murugan, explores the issues sparked by their writings. It draws attention to the aggression and concerns that were forced on them by the particular sect of society. It explains the writers’ experiences with the fatwa, court case, exile, and trauma.Female Body as the ‘Other’: Rituals and Biotechnical Approach using Perumal Murugan’s One Part Woman and Matrubhoomi: A Nation Without Women, questions the society that limits female bodies for procreation and objectification. It talks about how men and women are regarded differently, as well as the cultural ideals that apply to women. It explains infertility, which is attributed to women, as well as people’s ignorance and refusal to seek medical help in favour of adhering to traditional customs and engaging in numerous rituals for procreation.Life and (non) Living: Technological and Human Conglomeration in Android Kunjappan Version 5.25, explores how cyborgs and people will inevitably interact in the Malayalam film Android Kunjappan Version 5.25. It demonstrates the advantages, adaptability, and drawbacks of cyborgs in daily life. It emphasises how the cyborg absorbs cultural and religious notions. The authors argue that cyborgs are an inevitable development in the world and that until the flaws are fixed, humans must approach cyborgs with caution. The Challenges of Using Machine Translation While Translating Polysemous Words, discusses the difficulty of using machine translation to translate polysemous words from French to English (Google Translate). It serves as an example of how the machine chooses the formal or often-used meaning rather than the pragmatic meaning and applies it in every situation. It demonstrates how Machine Translation is unable to understand the pragmatic meaning of Polysemous terms because it is ignorant of the cultures of the source and target languages. It implies that Machine Translation will become extremely beneficial and user-friendly if the flaws are fixed.This collection of articles progresses through the literary and visual narratives of India that range from historical events to contemporary situations. It aims to record the stories that are silenced and untold through writing, film, and other forms of art. India’s artistic output was influenced by factors such as independence, partition, the Kashmir crisis, the Northeast Insurgency, marginalisation, religious disputes, environmental awareness, technical breakthroughs, Bollywood, and the Indian film industry. India now reflects a multitude of cultures and customs as a result of these occurrences. As we examine the Indian narratives produced to date, we can draw the conclusion that India has a vast array of tales to share with the rest of the world.Guest Editorial BoardGuest Editor-in-ChiefDr. Bhuvaneswari R, Associate Professor, School of Social Sciences and Languages, Vellore Institute of Technology, Chennai. She has pursued her master’s at the University of Madras, Chennai and doctoral research at HNB Central University, Srinagar. Her research areas of interest are ELT, Children/Young Adult Literature, Canadian writings, Indian literature, and Contemporary Fiction. She is passionate about environmental humanities. She has authored and co-authored articles in National and International Journals.Guest EditorsCynthiya Rose J S, Assistant Professor (Jr.), School of Social Sciences and Languages, Vellore Institute of Technology, Chennai. Her research interests are Children’s Literature, Indian Literature and Graphic Novels.Maria Baptist S, Assistant Professor (Jr.), School of Social Sciences and Languages, Vellore Institute of Technology, Chennai. His research interests include Crime/Detective fiction and Indian Literature.MembersDr. Sufina K, School of Science and Humanities, Sathyabama Institute of Science and Technology, Chennai, IndiaDr. Narendiran S, Department of Science and Humanities, St. Joseph’s Institute of Technology, Chennai, India

The article devoted to the problem of Muslim immigration in France in the 20th century. The focus is on the causes of Muslim immigration, its cycles, specificity and consequences for modern French society. Based on a comparison of various statistical data, it stated that Muslim immigration is an integral part of three large waves of immigration flows that took place from the end of the 19th to the end of the 20th centuries. The article notes the correlation of the number of Muslim immigrants in France with the global numbers of immigrant arrivals to the country. However, if in the first two waves their number depended on the economic needs of the French economy (Muslims came to earn money), then during the third wave other factors came into play — the creation of stable communities, family reunification, going on stage second and third generations of immigrants, social problems of their arrangement and adaptation to French legal norms and customs. The article notes the specificity of the geographical concentration of the Muslim population, which takes place either near large industrial centers and cities (which makes it easier to find work and social protection), or in places of proximity to their native countries (southern France). Special attention paid to the problem of the evolution of state policy in the admission and integration of immigrants, when various methods tired from assimilation, the adoption of quotas to the policy of flexible regulation of immigration and expulsion of illegal immigrants from the country. The article analyzes the position of the Muslim community in France, the role of Muslim associations in its life, the impact on the socio-cultural life of the French. It can stated that Islam has become the second religion in France, which determines its position — a stable presence in socio-economic life (employment, the spread of the social protection system to immigrants), political (the right to vote, the possibility of creating associations, manifestations), religious (the possibility of worship), cultural (the formation of a specific immigrant subculture).

Colour represents various moods of life. It is powerful means to communicate human feelings. Wide varied colours diversify each moment of our life. The sense of colour is as extended as the sense of LIFE. The folklore of a culture includes the stories, songs, and poems that people pass along from generation to generation. The word folklore meant “the Lore of the People.” It included all rituals, customs, traditions, and beliefs of unknown origin that expressed the concerns of the life ordinary people. Poetic imagery is a technique that is used to express feeling. In the visual, literary, and performing arts ‘Expressionism’ is a movement or tendency that strives to express subjective feelings and emotions rather than to depict reality or nature objectively. Sarojini Naidu was among the pioneer women poet, who was fascinated by the amazing diversity of Indian life, culture and tradition. Naidu. (1879 – 1949), was an Indian independence activist and poet. She was the second Indian woman to become the President of the Indian National Congress and was honored as ‘The Nightingale of India’ (Bharatiya Kokila). Being one of the most famous heroines of the 20th century, her birthday is celebrated as “National Women's Day”. Naidu voiced the dreams and aspirations of the making of the nation. She wrote mainly on the rural i.e. the folk aspects of Indian culture and women's experiences.

India has been swept by pandemics of plague, influenza, smallpox, cholera and other diseases. The scale and impact of these events was often cataclysmic and writers offered a glimpse into the everyday life of ordinary people who lost their lives and livelihoods and suffered the angst and trauma of mental, physical and emotional loss. This paper focuses on the devastation caused by pandemics especially in the Ganges deltaic plains of India. Through selected texts of 20th century Hindi writers – Munshi Premchand, Phanishwar Nath Renu, Suryakant Tripathi Nirala, Bhagwan Das, Harishankar Parsai, Pandey Bechan Sharma – this paper aims to bring forth the suffering and struggles against violence, social injustices and public health crises in India during waves of epidemics and pandemics when millions died as they tried to combat the rampant diseases.

The aim of the article is to analyze the British Forest Policy in Colonial India and its impacts comprehensively. Indian States' minimal intrusion into Forests and its inhabitants was breached by the British to the utmost exploitation of Forest Resources as well as its people. The time period of the study includes 19th and 20th century colonial India with special focus on Central India. The Study Design and Methodology used includes reading and analyzing various Primary and Secondary Sources including books, research papers, seminars, National Archives Reports, GIS mapping etc. By all the analysis, one can formulate the Results as such that the British because of their own considerations like Timber procurement and increasing land revenue, started controlling forest resources by prohibiting or banning traditional forest practices by the local people like hunting, shifting cultivation or grazing of cattle by bringing out legislations like The Indian Forest Acts. All these changes led to tempering with Forests like growing Sal, Teak and Deodar instead of local trees, clearing forests for cultivation or developing hunting as a Sport added to the Environmental, Economic and Social woes for Indians although they reaped humongous benefits for the British. The locals tried to protest in various ways but they were either crushed or placated with minimal reforms and if still not succumbed then were branded as Criminal Tribes under draconian Act of Criminal Tribes Act. Thus the colonial State tried to maintain its hegemony by using all means.

The Urdu novelist and short story writer Intizar Hussayn, in his story “Ihsan Manzil,” describes the anxiety produced in a northern Indian Muslim community when a magazine arrives addressed to the daughter of a respectable household. Set in the early part of the 20th century, the story depicts how the Muslim woman's name on the envelope, exposed as it was to the whole world, became a metaphor for modernity, the public, and the outside penetrating Muslim moral boundaries and domestic ethos. Similar to Hussayn's incisive depiction of changes within Indian Muslim households, Gail Minault gives us a sense of how religious reform, expanding opportunities for education for both genders, and colonial modernization in the first half of the 20th century undermined and challenged traditional aspects of middle-class Muslim life in northern India.

Based on the sources of the Russian State Archive of Modern History, the article describes the establishment and operation of customs in the socio-economic life of the second half of the 20th century, which influence the everyday life, attitude and worldview of the production (industrial) part of Russian societas. The question is raised about the consolidation of new features in consciousness, individualistic tendencies as the basis of the worldview. Attention is focused on the fact that the dissonance in the levels of social differentiation, material wealth and social status formed the basis of the mental separation of the production elite, representatives of management and the working class. The author draws attention to the fact that the phenomena of nepotism, clannishness, favours and thuggery that penetrate into everyday life and the labour sphere of life were especially negatively perceived by the workers. The negative reactions of the workers were reinforced by the realities of life – the deficit, the housing issue as a problem of social arrangement, the outdated wage system. It is noted that the public niches in which customs and traditions were firmly rooted, were to a greater extent connected with topical and acute social processes, including the institutions of power, property and trade. The researcher comes to the conclusion that by the 1980s, due to the passage of the stages of further ideological, social and economic differentiation, the separation of the individual from the working collective, the isolation of the elite and a certain isolation of its ordinary members in the production environment, bourgeois aspirations and ideals of hoarding were growing stronger.

The era of digital revolution and introduction of artificial intelligence in political, economic, military and social spheres have created conditions for emergence of a new form of informational and communicative interaction in society, the so called metaverse. The theory of parallel virtual worlds, described by science fiction writers in the 20th century, has been put into practice by major technological giants in the 21st century. From 2019 to 2022, global technology corporations have begun to develop industry-specific metaverses aimed at further digitalising economic, political, military and social spheres of life. Military rivalries and the rapid arms race, which have spawned new global conflicts, have contributed to emergence of the military metaverses and new types of weapons rooting from the use of artificial intelligence and advanced VR-technologies. This article presents an analysis of military metaverses, new types of weapons made with the use of artificial intelligence technologies.

Oral memory is one amongst the most valuable sources of human knowledge, even more so nowadays when the COVID-19 pandemic has taken so many of our elders out. The personal narratives of our towns’ dwellers during the past century let us know not only their way of life, customs, and traditions, but also the morphology of the city, its layout and urban evolution, its architecture –both for family homes and monuments–, and most significant of all, the way of using said spaces. The researchers behind this paper, in partnership with Grup Salpassa and the Council of El Campello, have chosen a methodology based on the oral history to expand the knowledge of the mid-20th century village by means of a series of interviews with some octogenarian locals –shaped as thematic “micro-histories”, published on social media, and orthophotos, which are subject to urban analysis with the location of streets, public buildings, facilities, and commercial areas. All this is accompanied by moving and previously unpublished images of everyday life and festivities, which set up a stronger emotional bond and stronger terrain roots for current societies.

Cookbooks were ubiquitous texts found in almost every Australian home. They played an influential role that extended far beyond their original intended use in the kitchen. They codified culinary and domestic practices thereby also codifying wider cultural practices and were linked to transformations occurring in society at large. This thesis illuminates the many ways in which cookbooks reflected and influenced developments in Australian culture and society from the early colonial period until 1939. Whilst concentrating on culinary texts, this thesis does not primarily focus on food; instead it explores the many different ways that cookbooks can be read to further understand Australian culture in the nineteenth and early twentieth century. Through cookbooks we can chart the attitudes and responses to many of the changes that were occurring in Australian life and society. During a period of dramatic social change cookbooks were a constant and reassuring presence in the home. It was within the home that the foundations of Australian culture were laid. Cookbooks provide a unique perspective on issues such as gender, class, race, education, technology, and most importantly they hold a mirror up to Australia and show us what we thought of ourselves.

This thesis examines the professional musical stage of Montreal in the decade following the First World War. Throughout the 1920s, almost all of the city's musical theatre attractions were foreign in origin, and were staged by American, French, and British roadshow companies, arriving mainly from New York City. Analysis of Montreal's musical theatre entertainment and satellite relationship with Broadway highlights the growing cultural influence of the United States upon Quebec society in the interwar period. As a northern outpost of Broadway, Montreal was directly affected by the profound transformation of the entertainment industry of the United States. After peaking in the second half of the decade, the musical stage of Montreal was gradually supplanted by the decline of the roadshow system, the advent of the sound film, the onset of the Great Depression, and the resurgence of local stock theatre companies.
The northern extension of Broadway into Montreal heightened divisions within Montreal society between a growing middle class of businessmen, managers, and other professionals who embraced modernity and cultural change, and more conservative forces who favoured the traditional Quebec based on religious and nationalist values. While the musical attractions sent northwards from Broadway were a popular divertissement for a large proportion of Montrealers from all social classes and linguistic backgrounds, they were abhorred by the province's clerical and nationalist elites and their supporters who regarded them as a threat to the survival of traditional French Canadian values and culture.

The attitudes of selected memoir authors are surveyed with regard to their commentary on London Society ranging from the late Nineteenth century to the Nineteen Thirties. The experience of these Society participants is divided between aspects of continuity and change before and after the First World War. During this time-frame, London Society, as the community of a ruling class culture, may be seen to have undergone the transition from having been an aristocratic entity dominated by the political and social prestige of the landed classes, to that of an expanded body, more reflective of democratic evolution and innovation. The memoir testimony treated in this inquiry affords a means of reflecting not only Society's passage of experience but also more pointedly, its evaluation, shedding light on the values and vulnerability of a hitherto assured, discreet and otherwise adaptive class character at a time of accelerated change and challenge.

This dissertation explores the cultural practice of smoking and its connection to social relations from the beginning of cigarette mass production in Montreal in 1888 to the First World War. It uncovers the norms of smoking etiquette and taste, their roots in gender, class and race relations and their use in reproducing these power relationships. It argues that these prescriptions reflected and served to legitimize beliefs about inclusion, exclusion and hierarchy that were at the core of nineteenth century liberalism. Liberal ideals of self-control and rationality structured the ritual of smoking: from the purchase of tobacco; to who was to smoke; to how one was supposed to smoke; to where one smoked. These prescriptions served to normalize the exclusion of women from the definition of the liberal individual and to justify the subordination of the poor and cultural minorities. Furthermore, even while these prescriptions were at their height, an emergent group of beliefs began to recast notions of respectable smoking around new ideals of speed and ungendered universality. This challenge was not only part of the transition from bourgeois to mass consumption, it was the roots of a transformation of the liberal order in the years previous to the First World War.

Social protection should ideally create a framework of 'welfare rights' for the vulnerable individuals and households. The state, through a set of policies of promotive and protective measures, sets out to achieve this. However, gaining these welfare rights in a decentralised democratic framework could be a function of the bargaining power that each individual, household and social group may possess. Therefore the micro-level interactions involving claimant, bureaucrat and local elites constitute the key policy process. Study of the process itself can reveal why some households gain formal social protection and other fail. This study argues that the local practices and informal rules underlying these public policy processes are purposively guided by the private interests of the local elites. At the heart of this dissertation is a comparative case-study of two villages in the Indian state of Maharashtra, based on eight months ethnographic fieldwork. Bottomup evaluation of two social protection programmes, public works (promotive) and social assistance (protective) programmes shows that 60 per cent of eligible persons are excluded from welfare rights. The mechanisms of exclusion and inclusion in these programmes are studied. The study reveals that both eligibility and entitlement to 'welfare rights' are contested within the power structure of the local community. The social identity of the claimant, and the ability to build a relationship with the local leaders or labour market managers act as key routes to access welfare rights. The precedence of informal rules at the stage of implementation of social protection programmes reproduced the existing social and economic power structures. As a result, the welfare rights of individuals and households are affected by the competing forces in the non-state sectors. These non-state actors, through their network, were able to weaken the administration and fair allocation of welfare benefits. Through this analysis the thesis contributes to the understanding of the local state, and decision-making practices over welfare rights in a decentralised context.

At the end of the nineteenth century, St. Lawrence Boulevard, popularly known as 'the Main', attained mythical status in Montreal. Due to its particular location in the social and cultural geography of Montreal, the Main, which symbolically divides the working-class Francophone east and the Anglophone bourgeois west, has developed as a mixed-use commercial artery, an eclectic border zone of a bilingual, multi-ethnic city. The heterogeneous character of the Main is reflected in its material landscape---with its old and now largely re-used garment sweat-shops and labour halls, theatres of the red-light district, cafes, and the shops and restaurants of the mid-twentieth century immigrant shopping corridor. Shaped by the diversity of the populations that came to live, work, protest, shop or be entertained in these sites, it is an example of the social and cultural diversity of the metropolis. Such heterogeneous sites have often been interpreted as liminal spaces, but this research demonstrates that the construction and experience of the Main as a border zone have rarely been gender neutral. While physical, social and cultural heterogeneity are components of this landscape, these sites also attest to the importance of gender relations in the experience of the Main as a place of work and social life and, ultimately, as a space of representation. Its border status has often been represented through discourses and images of 'marginal' womanhood, articulated in terms of social, occupational, political, sexual and/or ethnic identity. Many of its locales, moreover, have been sites where women entered urban public life in contentious and distinctive ways.
As a place that highlights the social and cultural heterogeneity of a supposedly 'divided' city, the Main is an ideal site from which to explore how ethnicity, language, class, occupation and sexual identity intersect with gender in the experience and representation of urban life. This thesis examines how a multiplicity of female gender identities have been defined and contested along the Main over the past century. It contributes to a broad literature on geographies of gender, difference and urban public cultures through an analysis of the relationships between feminist spatial metaphors and the material production of urban space. Through a series of events that move through time and sections of St. Lawrence, I examine how portions of the landscape of this boulevard have been marked by the enactment of specific sets of gender relations and forms of representation that became central to civic debates regarding gender. I argue that the construction and experience of the Main as a border zone has involved the production of specific relations of gender, alterity and space.
A variety of qualitative methods and archival sources are used to illustrate the importance of representations of gender to the production of this place and to illustrate how women have experienced and made use of material sites to express their specific occupational, cultural, religious, social or sexual identities. This thesis demonstrates the crucial role played by the border zones of urban public cultures in the construction of female identities that depart from dominant gender norms in the expression of social, cultural and sexual differences.

This Thesis examines the socio-political perceptions of Grahamstown, a small South African City, during the period 1946 to 1960. The ‘White English’ population of Grahamstown is the specific focus, as it formed the dominant social group during the period and consequently provided the majority of information for this work. During this period the majority of Grahamstowns ‘White English’ population thought of their City as holding many attractive features and experiences despite the slum-conditions and poverty that were rife in the Locations. During the British Royal Familie’s tour of the Union of South Africa in 1947, Grahamstown was one of the Cities visited. The loyalty that Grahamstown’s ‘White English’ citizens felt towards the Royal Family and the United Kingdom is explored in connection with the regard that ‘White English’ Grahamstown held for the 1820 Settlers. To highlight the Grahamstown City Council’s activities during this period five events are analysed: The Grahamstown Financial Crisis, The Grahamstown Housing Crisis, The Beer Hall Debate, The establishment of a Tuberculosis Hospital and the granting of Full University Status to Rhodes University College. It is shown, with regard to the politics of the period, that ‘White English’ Grahamstown, unequivocally supported the United Party and were vocally anti-Nationalist. The implementation of Apartheid policies within Grahamstown is explored, with specific focus placed upon the Group Areas Act. Finally the anti-republican sentiment espoused by ‘White English’ Grahamstown is reviewed.

The internet's pervasive influence has transformed global financial transactions and reshaped market dynamics. The late 20th-century IT revolution in India gave rise to online-focused IT companies, dominating various aspects of life. The subsequent 4G internet revolution accelerated internet accessibility, fostering the establishment of new technologies and companies enhancing user experiences. E-commerce flourished, with cloud-based entities, reshaping consumer preferences towards online shopping. This paradigm shift comes with challenges. As online transactions surged, data became the cornerstone sought by companies for feedback and analysis. This led to a complex scenario with vast data storage across companies, posing security risks from potential hackers. In the past decade, hacking incidents exposed customer data, risking privacy and well-being. Despite enacted legislation, success, especially in India, remains elusive. This chapter analyzes the nexus between data privacy and E-commerce, conducting an in-depth global study on laws governing data commerce.

India's revolutionary writer of the 20th century, Mulk Raj Anand, altered the way people wrote and thought about Indian fiction. Prior to him, novelists who had created fiction tended to focus on the idealized and romantic aspects of life. The problems in society were less in number. The field of fiction writing underwent a transformation thanks to the writing of Mulk Raj Anand. For the benefit of the underprivileged and untouchables, he penned the novels. Through his works, he addressed problems such as casteism, capitalism, feudalism, colonialism, and imperialism. He confronts one of the main social ills in Indian society—a stain on Indian society, culture, and legacy that has colonised 85% of the population—in Untouchable, a topic that has gone unaddressed by other authors. The Indian people's inventiveness has suffered because of this sensibility. Untouchability and casteism are stains on humanity's good name. Anand appears to be standing up for the untouchables' and oppressed peoples' rights to justice, equality, and freedom. In colonial and post-independence India, he worked to advance basic human rights and needs. Among all essential rights, he believed that respect for human dignity was the most important. The main character, Bakha, harboured grudges but suppressed them out of caste-related dread. Every untouchable person in India is symbolised by the Hindu god Bakha.

Cities face the challenge of transforming existing buildings to be reused, particularly those that are underused or not used at all. Tackling this issue, the European Commission approved in 2014 a package of measures to promote a circular economy. According to this agreement, our cities can be more sustainable and resilient by transforming these underused existing buildings with proposals for their adaptive temporary reuse, favoring the citizens’ well-being and quality of life and promoting social inclusion and economic growth with respect for the environment. This paper studies the role of heritage education in adaptive urban reuse, exploring the possibilities and methodologies for the reprogramming of existing buildings for different types of activities to offer citizens and communities the opportunity to participate in the life of the city, favouring their social inclusion. In contrast to the common new-builds or refurbishment commissions, reuse offers a greater possibility of disseminating, transforming and reinventing architectural methodologies and approaches to integrate in the design process forms of citizen participation, favouring the transition towards a model of a circular economy and more sustainable consumption. The paper analyses the possibilities of urban reuse applied to five major public heritage buildings in Barcelona: the Post Office Building, the Old Customs House, the France Train Station, the Martorell Museum and the Castle of the Three Dragons. Each of them has a particular condition regarding current uses and its public owning institution and presents specific characteristics regarding building typology, heritage protection, conservation and construction materials and techniques. The buildings date either from the late 19th century or the early 20th century and are grouped along a 1 km axis on the threshold between the historic center and the port of the city. This unique location represents a great strategic potential for the regeneration and urban reactivation of the city.

Historically, Hot cities around India have always relied on urban public spaces for its sociocultural as well as economic activities. They showed a greater capacity to adopt and sustain over time. The reason seems to be lying under its tendency to evolve and accommodate temporality and sustain with its constancy. These urban public spaces were strongly bonded with religions and customs rooted in nature and inbuilt into societal norms, there by emphasizing greater ecological consciousness and protection. But in the last century, globalization brought aesthetic & grand spectacle as deciding criteria for planning and designing of the urban public spaces. The result is, energy consuming, deserted, inaccessible and underutilized public spaces over a longer period as opposed to its short-lived fame. Urbanization has given rise to the new narrative for these urban public spaces which evolved in to hybrid versions conceptualized from global practices. This pose a threat in terms of loss of civic life and decreasing social cultural flows in the city. Cities with the highest temperature seems to be getting the worst of it, essentially due to two main reasons. First are the adopted global models being not responsive to the local context, failing to stay active over longer periods of time and second due to failure to reconceptualize our traditional practices and local knowledge associated with development of cities in to ongoing practices. Previous study of historic Indian public spaces in hot cities, highlights their nature as being symbolic, functionalist, political, performative, and cultural and hence proving to be contextually sensitive. These urban public spaces were designed to be a platform extension of their everyday outdoor life. This everyday outdoor life in hot cities have taken a shape in to various manifestation of forms. And emphasized more on organic development of public spaces. Now, the current system in India that is responsible for generating our urban public spaces are regulated and mandated by state and local guidelines such as, URDPFI guidelines etc. which only mentions about open spaces to be left per area per person or in terms of percentage or buildable area. Little to no consideration has been given to how that open space should be treated. The solution can be found in adaptation and reconceptualizing of these local knowledge and traditional practices suitable to today's spatial context. But a greater consideration needs to be given to the modern-day applicability and checking its suitability. With that consideration, the paper will try to analysis selective samples of urban public spaces before the industrialization in the hot cities depending upon the generic public places i.e., Access and linkage, Purpose and activities, comfort and image, sociability, (Project for public spaces), adaptability, Thermal comfort, User responsiveness. The results then will be tested to check its adaptability in present day context with the help of case study.