Maori Land Issues :: essays papers

Maori Land Issues It^s a known fact that land issues have always been a major topic within Maori and Pakeha race relations in New Zealand. The disputes go back to the 1800 when the Treaty of Waitangi was signed in 1840. According to the second article of the Treaty, land could only be sold to the Crown if the owners wished to sell them. Disputes over the government^s attempts to buy more land at very cheap prices that were below the value of the land was one of the many reasons that led to the New Zealand Wars in the 185os and 1860s. As a result of the wars, under the New Zealand Settlement Act in 1863, 800,000 hectares of Maori land was confiscated by the government as a punishment for those tribes who opposed the government. Bitterness over the land the Maori people lost and sorrow over the people who lost their lives made an ugly scar in the history of race relations in Aotearoa. With the Native Lands Act in 1862 individual purchase of Maori land was allowed. Although the confiscations caused bitterness and resentment among those affected tribes, the work of The Native Land Court led to far more land being lost, and this affected all tribes. The Native Land Court was set up in 1865 with the intention of getting rid of the communal ownerships of Maori land which was called individualisation so it could be sold more easily. The Court had the intended effect: land sales continues at an increasing rate. By 1911 only 10% of New Zealand^s 66 million acres remained in Maori hands. In 1900 James Carroll, the first Maori Minister of Native Affairs, passed a notable piece of legislation: a Maori Land Administration Act which set up a Council which was based on Carroll^s ^taihoa^ (wait and see) delaying policies. In the Council, Maori owners were in majority, to administer the lease of Maori land. The Council leased but sold very little land and this caused settler discontent and in 1905, the Council were replaced by a European dominated Boards. By the end of the Liberal^s time in office in 1912, a further 3 million acres of Maori land had been sold. Also Sir Apirana Ngata worked with James Carrolls on the Maori Councils Act in 1900. After the Act failed to help Maori people, Ngata decided that the best way he could change laws and policies that affected Maori was through parliament. In 1905 he won the seat for Eastern Maori. As an MP Ngata could

Poverty in India Essay

Poverty is the deprivation of food, shelter, money and clothing that occurs when people cannot satisfy their basic needs. Poverty can be understood simply as a lack of money, or more broadly in terms of barriers to everyday life. It refers to a situation where a person is unable meet the basic necessities of life. Absolute poverty or destitution refers to the state of severe deprivation of basic human needs, which commonly includes food, water, sanitation, clothing, shelter, health care, education and information. The amount of income a person or family needs to purchase an absolute amount of the basic necessities of life. These basic necessities are identified in terms of calories of food, BTUs of energy, square feet of living space, etc. The problem with the absolute poverty level is that there really are no absolutes when in comes to consuming goods. Relative poverty views poverty as socially defined and dependent on social context, hence relative poverty is a measure of income inequality. Usually, relative poverty is measured as the percentage of population with income less than some fixed proportion of median income. There are several other different income inequality metrics, for example the Gini coefficient or the Theil Index. Relative poverty measures are used as official poverty rates in several developed countries. As such these poverty statistics measure inequality rather than material deprivation or hardship. The measurements are usually based on a person’s yearly income and frequently take no account of total wealth. Definitions United Nations: Fundamentally, poverty is a denial of choices and opportunities, a violation of human dignity. It means lack of basic capacity to participate effectively in society. It means not having enough to food and clothing a family, not having a school or clinic to go to, not having the land on which to grow one’s food or a job to earn one’s living, not having access to credit. It means insecurity, powerlessness and exclusion of individuals, households and communities. It means susceptibility to violence, and it often implies living in marginal or fragile environments, without access to clean water or sanitation. World Bank: Poverty is pronounced deprivation in well-being, and comprises many dimensions. It includes low incomes and the inability to acquire the basic goods and services necessary for survival with dignity. Poverty also encompasses low  levels of health and education, poor access to clean water and sanitation, inadequate physical security, lack of voice, and insufficient capacity and opportunity to better one’s life. Copenhagen Declaration: Absolute poverty is a condition characterized by severe deprivation of basic human needs, including food, safe drinking water, sanitation facilities, health, shelter, education and information. It depends not only on income but also on access to social services. The term ‘absolute poverty’ is sometimes synonymously referred to as ‘extreme poverty.’ World Health Organisation: Poverty is associated with the undermining of a range of key human attributes, including health. The poor are exposed to greater personal and environmental health risks, are less well nourished, have less information and are less able to access health care; they thus have a higher risk of illness and disability. Conversely, illness can reduce household savings, lower learning ability, reduce productivity, and lead to a diminished quality of life, thereby perpetuating or even increasing poverty. Poverty line is the minimum level of income deemed adequate in a given country. In practice, like the definition of poverty, the official or common understanding of the poverty line is significantly higher in developed countries than in developing countries. The common international poverty line has in the past been roughly $1 a day. In 2008, the World Bank came out with a revised figure of $1.25 at 2005 purchasing-power parity (PPP). Determining the poverty line is usually done by finding the total cost of all the essential resources that an average human adult consumes in one year. Individual factors are often used to account for various circumstances, such as whether one is a parent, elderly, a child, married, etc. The poverty threshold may be adjusted annually. Below Poverty Line is an economic benchmark and poverty threshold used by the government of India to indicate economic disadvantage and to identify individuals and households in need of government assistance and aid. It is determined using various parameters which vary from state to state and within states. The present criteria are based on a survey conducted in 2002. Going into a survey due for a decade, India’s central government is undecided on criteria to identify families below poverty line. Poverty in India The problem of poverty and unemployment is considered as the biggest  challenge to development planning in India. High poverty levels are synonymous with poor quality of life, deprivation, malnutrition, illiteracy and low human resource development. The slogan of poverty eradication has been adopted by all political parties in one form or another and there is a national agreement for the goal of poverty alleviation. The national consensus on poverty alleviation provided the necessary condition for launching various schemes and programmes aimed at achieving this objective. But the persistence of poverty during all these years suggests that the national consensus on objectives did not and could not provide sufficient conditions for poverty alleviation. The starting point for estimating the number of households below the poverty line is a nutritional requirement per person per day at some base point. There is a debate on the minimum calorie requirement, and whether it should be the same for all parts of the country. Most acceptable figures are 2,400 calories per person per day in rural areas, and 2,200 calories per person per day in urban areas. The next step is to translate the nutrient requirement into monetary terms. The expenditure level of households which are able to spend the requisite amount to obtain the desired calories serves as the cut-off point, or the poverty line. To adjust the poverty line over a period of time, price variations have to be considered and an appropriate price deflator has to be selected. The problem arises in deciding upon such a deflator. Thus, the following elements mainly affect the magnitude of the poverty ratio: (i) the nutrition norm (translated into monetary terms); (ii) price deflator used to update the poverty line; and (iii) pro rata adjustment in the number of households in different expenditure classes to determine the number of households below and above the poverty line. Different assumptions and methods are used for these three purposes, which accounts for the different estimates provided by scholars. The Planning Commission has been estimating the incidence of poverty at the national and state level using the methodology contained in the report of the Expert Group on Estimation of Proportion and Number of Poor (Lakdawala Committee) and applying it to consumption expenditure data from the large sample surveys on consumer expenditure conducted by the NSSO (National Sample Survey Organisation) at an interval of approximately five years. Estimates of Poverty (Per cent) Year All India Rural Urban All India Poverty Ratio Rural Poverty Ratio Urban Poverty Ratio Number (per cent) Number (per cent) Number (per cent) (Million) (Million) (Million) 1973-74 321 54.9 261 56.4 60 49.0 1977-78 329 51.3 264 53.1 65 45.2 1983 323 44.5 252 45.7 71 40.8 1987-88 307 38.9 232 39.1 75 38.2 1993-94 320 36.0 244 37.3 76 32.4 1999-2000 260 26.1 193 27.1 67 23.6 2004-05 239 21.8 170 21.8 68 21.7 Problems caused due to poverty Human poverty measures suggest even worse outcomes than for income poverty in India. India has never been a good performer in human development terms, despite the much better indicators in some states, particularly Kerala. Overall, both health and education indicators have lagged well below those in other countries at similar levels of development and with similar per capita income. But food poverty has been of particular concern. Recent studies have shown alarming levels of hunger, especially in certain states of India. Studies by IFPRI and ISHI quoted in Banerjee (2008) suggest that most states in India rank somewhere among the poor Sub-Saharan countries:  Punjab, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh and Assam have a „serious‟ level of hunger; Madhya Pradesh fares worst in the „extremely alarming‟ cohort of hunger. All the other states record an „alarming‟ level of hunger, which is also the general ranking for the whole country. More appallingly, the situation appears to have worsened in the recent period of rapid economic growth. National Sample Surveys shows declining per capita calorie consumption, not only among the entire population, but also among the bottom quartiles, for which consumption was already very inadequate by international standards. Other indicators of both nutrition and health are also extreme. The latest National Family Health Survey for 2005–06 shows that the proportion of underweight children below the age of five years was 45.6 per cent in rural India and 32.7 per cent in urban India, indicating hardly any change from the previous survey undertaken eight years previously. More than one-third of the rural population was also underweight. Anaemia often a good indicator of nutritional deprivation was also widespread: 79.2 per cent of children aged 12–23 months and 56.2 per cent of ever-married women between 15 and 59 years were found to be anaemic. Conclusion Poverty Alleviation Programmes The poverty alleviation programme have been broadly classified into self-employment programmes, wage employment programmes, food safety programme and social security programmes. The focus is on the central government schemes only. It is not possible to map the special programmes of all the states. It must be noted here that some of the progressive states have added additional components or given further subsidy to enhance the benefits of the central schemes. For example, in the highly subsidized public distribution system of Andhra Pradesh, the BPL card holders were provided rice at Rs. 2 per kg. Self-employment programmes: This programme was started in 1970s in rural areas of the country in the name of Integrated Rural Development Programme (IRDP) to increase the source of income of small farmers and landless labourers. The beneficiaries were given subsidized credit, training, and infrastructure, so that they could find new sources of  earning. In this scheme, agricultural labourers and small farmers received new skills to involve in vocations other than cultivating land. They included fishery, animal husbandry, and forestry. In the 1980s, this scheme was extended to schedule castes and tribes, women and rural artisans. Wage employment programmes: The main purpose of the wage employment programmes is to provide a livelihood during the lean agricultural season as well as during drought and floods. Under these programmes, villagers worked to improve the village infrastructure such as deepening the village ponds, constructing village schools and improving the rural roads. Thus the programmes not only provided employment to the villagers but also improved village infrastructure and created village public assets. A positive fall out of this programme is that it created higher demand for village labour, thereby pushing up the wage of the labourer in the villages. Food security programmes: Meeting the very basic need of access to food is a major challenge to the government in the post-economic reform era. Those who are below poverty line are faced with the problem of meeting this very basic need. Starvation and hunger have been reported in different parts of the country, even in economically advanced states like Maharashtra. There is malnutrition in all age groups, especially among children. Problem of low birth weight due to under nutrition of mother during pregnancy and underweight of children are rampant in the country. The purchasing power of certain section of the society is so low that they cannot access food at the market price. They need the safety net of food subsidy. In this context, public distribution system or PDS assumes importance. Social security programmes: Social security programmes are meant for those who are at the bottom of the BPL facing destitution and desertion. The central government has launched the National Social Assistance Programme or NSAP in August 1995. Under NSAP, there are three schemes. The first one is the National Old Age Pension Scheme or NOAPS. A pension amount of Rs. 75 per month is given to those who are above the age of 65 years and are destitute without any regular source of income or support from any family members or relatives. Though it is a very useful scheme for the elderly destitute, the coverage of the programme was not satisfactory. In the year 1999-2000, 8.71 million eligible elderly were identified, but the scheme could reach out to only 5 million beneficiaries. It was found that the benefits really reached the  poor and the leakage rate was found to be low.

Civilization and the wild In The Call of the Wild - Free Essay Example

Sample details Pages: 8 Words: 2356 Downloads: 3 Date added: 2019/08/02 Category Literature Essay Level High school Tags: Call Of The Wild Essay Did you like this example? Ed Yong once explained, all domestic dogs evolved from a group of wolves that came into contact with European hunter-gatherers (Yong). As shocking as it is, every domestic canine people own today has originated from wild wolves. Although its less clear in small dogs who could not ever fend for themselves, every dog has derived from ancestors who lived thousands of years ago. Don’t waste time! Our writers will create an original "Civilization and the wild In The Call of the Wild" essay for you Create order As dogs discover their wild side and their domestic side begins to fade, difficulties arise and they must adapt to their situation. In The Call of the Wild, London explores the many factors that explain what draws animals into nature and uses themes of deciding between civilization or the wild, fighting for survival and remembering ancestors memories. Throughout the novel, Buck is at a perpetual battle between his civil and wild sides. He leads two particularly unalike lives which do not go unchallenged throughout the novel. When he is first introduced, Buck is a house pet who enjoys a leisurely life with Judge Miller, while his transition into nature is challenging and extremely arduous. London states that deep in the forest a call was sounding (London 60). Throughout the story Buck is revealed to have an attraction to the wilderness that he has a difficult time resisting. As the days go by, he is continuously tempted to enter the wild. It is clear that Buck has a gradual transformation from a domesticated dog to a wild one (The Call, Novels). When the novel ends, Buck becomes totally absorbed into the natural world. (Moss). Bucks temptation to leave civilization and enter the wild does not seem to come to an end. Buck is forced to accept his longing to be free and accept his current place in civilization. He must accommodate to an entirely new way of life and code of conduct to survive (The Call, Novels). Learning The law of club and fang marks a massive transition in Bucks life. He is forced to realize that those with the greatest physical strength are superior to everyone else. After living an easygoing life, he is has to accept that he stands no chance against a man with a club (London 12). Once he has become aware of his low position in the hierarchy, he begins adapting, and eventually loses his ethical nature. He begins stealing food and finding ways around the rules set in place for him to follow. London illustrates that the completeness of his de-civilization was now evidenced by ability to flee from the defense of a moral consideration and so save his hide (Mann). He then becomes resilient and extremely strong. Buck eventually fights the lead dog Spitz, and he wins the highest positio n on the team, proving that he is becoming familiarized to his place in a domestic group. John Thornton is a source of some of the only experiences of a relationship between man and dog in Bucks life, binding him to civilization. Buck feels as though he owes Thornton because he intervenes when he sees Hal beating Buck for refusing to go any further on the trail (The Call, Novels). He appears as an ideal master to the Saint Bernard-Scotch Shepherd mix because of this, as he finally comes to believe in man again (Bolan). For the first time in this novel, Buck has in Thornton a master he can love (Moss). This is proven through the many occasions in which he saves his masters life, once by attacking Black Burton during a barroom brawl, and another time by pulling Thornton out of a series of dangerous rapids (Moss). It is made evident throughout their relationship that love was Bucks for the first time, because between them there is a love that he had never experienced at Judge Millers down in the sun-kissed Santa Clara Valley (London 60). Thornton is one of Bucks few experien ces of a bond with a man, therefore he remains tied to humanity. Eventually, Buck feels as though he cannot stay in civilization any longer. After being held captive for so long, Buck is content to finally feel like the the leader of the dogs in the wild. He feels satisfied being a part of a pack and to have killed man in the face of the law of club and fang (London 83). This triumph allows him to finally give into his call into the wild and not feel guilty about it. The law of club and fang is a representation of an animals submission and inferior position to man. This succession makes Buck feels as though man and the claims of man no longer bind him (London 83). Although Buck loves John Thornton and feels an authentic connection with him, he knows that its time for him to move on and live his life the way it is meant to be lived in the wilderness. Leaving civilization is a decision that Buck was ready for his entire life. The concept of fighting for survival relates to much of the physical and mental pain Buck deals with throughout the novel. Shortly after Buck is transported from his home, the group of men who hold him captive beat him with a club although he hasnt done anything to deserve it. He thinks to himself that all the pain he had endured was as nothing compared with the exquisite agony of this (London 11). It is expected that he would feel emotionally vulnerable and defeated after being forced to leave a place he had called home for his entire life up to this point. Bucks locational change from one sign chain to another took place through a figure which marked the limit to the Judges system of valuation (Pease). Instead of dwelling on the low possibilities of his escape, Bucks survival instincts kick in and he realizes that he needs to survive, although everything is causing him tremendous physical pain. Not only does Buck learn to endure pain at the hands of man, but he correspondingly has to have strength through agony in the wilderness. At one point, Buck learns how to survive the night by digging a hole in the snow and curling into a ball (The Call, Novels). He then finds a method to steal food yet avoid the men who would catch and beat him with a club. These are the lengths that Buck went to as to guarantee his survival in a cruel, cold land where a dog runs all day, sleeps to run the next day, and in between might lose his life in a dog fight (The Call, Novels). It proves challenging to Buck to fight for his life to survive another day. While Bucks torment is not a pleasant instance, suffering is an important effect in Bucks development as a character. At one point, Bucks team of dogs is sold to a man who owns the Salt-Water mail from Dawson. Because of the gold rush, the mail load the team of dogs are required to pull increases at a high rate and they are pushed to their breaking point (The Call, Novels). Though Buck and the team struggle, they proceed on their route. One of Bucks teammates struggles and eventually has to be put to death because of his lack of strength and his sickness. This dog goes through suffering and ends up working himself to death, unwilling to be carried when he becomes ill (The Call, Novels). All of the other dogs must continue on the trek. Bucks perseverance throughout the suffering enforced onto him demonstrates that what doesnt kill him is benefiting him in the long run. As Buck transforms into an uninhabited animal, he discovers within himself memories that belonged to his ancestors. The memories that Buck realizes he has have been dormant for generations (The Call, Novels). There is an almost theoretical component of Bucks nature that allows him to survive in conditions he has not ever been placed in before. Because of his ancestors, Buck had potent memories of his hereditary that gave things he had not ever seen before a seeming familiarity; the instincts (which were but the memories of his ancestors become habits) which had lapsed in later days, and still later, in him, quickened and became alive again (London 41). As Buck continues having visions of mankind thousands of years previously, he desires to be a part of the world in which his descendants inhabited. His dreams of the past not only give him insight into the past, but they show him how to behave and survive as well. Bucks ancestors instincts prove to benefit him as he lives as an indepen dent dog. The basic instinct growing inside of Buck is his willingness and temptation to kill because of his ancestral memory. At first, Buck does not realize this instinct is even present in his mind. His desire to victimize others grows rapidly, as he goes from beginning with small game and, eventually, killing man (TavernierCourbin). This instinct is one of many that Buck has felt moving forward in his memory. For Buck, killing is more familiar and he craves it as he was ranging at the head of the pack, running the wild thing down, the living meat, to kill with his own teeth and wash his muzzle to the eyes in warm blood (London 33). When Spitz kills a snowshoe rabbit, its death triggers a desire to hunt and kill inside of Buck. This is the point at which Buck challenges Spitz to a fight to the death, which Buck wins largely because of knowledge of ancestral fighting techniques that became his instantly (TavernierCourbin). As the two dogs circled about, snarling, ears laid back, keenly watch ful for the advantage, the scene came to Buck with a sense of familiarity (London 34). Buck begins remembering even features of the night, and the thrill that comes with a fight. After killing Spitz, he realized that he enjoyed that kill as well. Bucks willingness to kill has become a major component in his life. Another instinct Buck craves because of Ancestral memory is leadership. Originally, Spitz is the leader of the team. He is a good leader, but eventually Buck craves his position. Because of dogs natural instinct to be a leader, it was inevitable that the clash for leadership should come (London 30). Buck wants to lead the team for his sense of pride, and because he is under the influence of his desire to kill. Buck openly threatened the others leadership (London 30). Once Buck is confident enough to fight Spitz, he challenges him and kills him. This marks the start of his succession as a dominant primordial beast who had made his kill and found it good (London 36). After killing Spitz, he is the official leader of the team of dogs for winning. Bucks want for leadership and the kill was clearly a derivative of his ancestral memory. After Buck has established his strength because of his hereditary memories, he reverts to instinctual patterns of behavior and his relationship with John T hornton becomes somewhat aged. After being in the fight, Buck cannot return to his old self, for he has yearned only too well the lessons of the wild (TavernierCourbin). He now knows that after a fight one must not back down, especially from one started by oneself, and that going easy on the competition will be perceived to the opponent as weakness. Because of ancestral memory, Buck has gained knowledge from the depths of time, and this type of knowledge cannot be ridded of once Buck accepts it in his mind. The memories of Bucks ancestors become a part of who he is, and his conscious self, including his behavior. He draws on his ancestral memory to show him how to behave (The Call, Novels). Although it may not have appeared this way, John Thorntons relationship with Buck could have been a potential way for Buck to return to civilization. In turn, they are only an intermission in Bucks evolution. Bucks craving for leadership and dominance is a main factor in his reasoning for leaving civilization. Although many dogs will permanently remain house pets, many grow and realize their uncontainable side. Buck undergoes a transformation throughout the novel from a domestic dog into an eventually independent animal of nature. Problems in his life arise, and he must learn how to deal with them. In The Call of the Wild, one is reminded of a once domesticated dogs struggles of choosing between civilization or the living freely in the wild, struggling to survive and exercising memories of a dogs ancestors. Works Cited Bolan, Chloe. Overview of The Call of the Wild. Novels for Students, edited by Marie Rose Napierkowski and Deborah A. Stanley, vol. 8, Gale a cengage company, 2000. Literature Resource Center, www.galegroup.com. Accessed 25 Sept. 2018. The Call of the Wild. Novels for Students, edited by Marie Rose Napierkowski and Deborah A. Stanley, vol. 8, Gale a cengage company, 2000, pp. 42-58. Gale Virtual Reference Library, www.galegroup.com. Accessed 26 Sept. 2018. London, Jack. The Call of the Wild and White Fang. Barnes Noble Books, 2003. Mann, John S. The Theme of the Double in The Call of the Wild. Novels for Students, edited by Marie Rose Napierkowski and Deborah A. Stanley, vol. 8, Gale a cengage company, 2000. Literature Resource Center, www.galegroup.com. Accessed 25 Sept. 2018. Originally published in Markham Review, vol. 8, Fall 1978, pp. 1-5. Moss, Joyce, and George Wilson. The Call of the Wild. Literature and Its Times: Profiles of 300 Notable Literary Works and the Historical Events that Influenced Them, vol. 3: Growth of Empires to the Great Depression (1890-1930s), Gale, 1997, pp. 51-56. Gale Virtual Reference Library, www.galegroup.com. Accessed 26 Sept. 2018. Pease, Donald E. Psychoanalyzing the narrative logics of naturalism: the Call of the Wild. Journal of Modern Literature, vol. 25, no. 3-4, 2002, p. 14+. Literature Resource Center, www.galegroup.com. Accessed 25 Sept. 2018. Tavernier Courbin, Jacqueline. The Call of the Wild Is a Study in Devolution. Wilderness in Jack Londons The Call of the Wild, edited by Gary Wiener, Greenhaven Press, 2014, pp. 94-101. Social Issues in Literature. Gale Virtual Reference Library, www.galegroup.com. Accessed 26 Sept. 2018. Yong, Ed. Origin of Domestic Dogs. The Scientist Magazine? ®, 14 Nov. 2013, www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/origin-of-domestic-dogs-38399. Accessed 26 Sept. 2018.