Compare and contrast the way Wales and its people are portrayed in the poems Toast by Sheenagh Pugh and Some Christmas Haiku by Peter Finch Essay Example

Compare and contrast the way Wales and its people are portrayed in the poems Toast by Sheenagh Pugh and Some Christmas Haiku by Peter Finch Essay I am going to be discussing comparisons and differences between the two poems. The poem Toast is set in Cardiff. I know the poem is set in Cardiff because the poem mentions some Cardiff streets, Westgate Street, St. Johns. I dont think that Sheenagh Pugh cares that much about the stadium because she describes the stadium as vast concrete-and-glass mother-ship, I think that Sheenagh Pugh doesnt care much about the Stadium because she wouldnt have described the Stadium in this way. The poem is mostly about the summer. Theres only two lines in the poem which doesnt relate to summer with November rain, but different, as if the stones retain heat. The fact that its summer creates the atmosphere of the builders flirting with the women and the women flirting back, if it wasnt summer, the poem wouldnt mention the builders with their tops off, being whistled at. They were also described as sex objects, and happily up for it, I think that the builders are happy that its summer so that they can get the attention that they are getting. The poem tells us that the builders w ouldnt get mad that they were being whistled at they never got mad; it was too heady being young and fancied and in the sun. In my opinion a woman wrote the poem because the way the builders were described young builders lay, golden and melting, If the poem was narrated by a man, I dont think he would have described the builders in this way. I think the poem is a positive poem because there are not many negative points in the poem. We will write a custom essay sample on Compare and contrast the way Wales and its people are portrayed in the poems Toast by Sheenagh Pugh and Some Christmas Haiku by Peter Finch specifically for you for only $16.38 $13.9/page Order now We will write a custom essay sample on Compare and contrast the way Wales and its people are portrayed in the poems Toast by Sheenagh Pugh and Some Christmas Haiku by Peter Finch specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer We will write a custom essay sample on Compare and contrast the way Wales and its people are portrayed in the poems Toast by Sheenagh Pugh and Some Christmas Haiku by Peter Finch specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer I dont think that there are many comparisons between the poem Toast and the poem Some Christmas haiku. The only comparisons I can find are the fact that they have welsh relevance, I know this because it mentions Cardiffs streets in Toast, Westgate Street, St.Johns and in the poem Some Christmas Haiku it mentions the word Nadolig more than once. The other comparison I can find is the fact that they are both modern. I think this about the poem Toast because the only Stadium that is in Cardiff is the Millennium Stadium and it was built for the year 2000. I think that the poem Some Christmas Haiku is modern because 100 years ago people went to church, they didnt used to have cars to burn out light of a wrecked car burning. In my opinion there are only a couple of differences between the two poems. My first difference is that Toast is a positive poem and Some Christmas Haiku is a negative poem. I think that Some Christmas Haiku is a negative poem because it says of all the things we could be enjoying over the Christmas period the only thing we have left is the Christmas card image On the moors the snow caught by grass no one to see it, theres only one positive thing to look at over Christmas and there are a few negative things like a man in a Santa suit three women smoking, this is negative because it tells us people are making fun of Christmas, theyre not celebrating it the right way. Another difference I found between the two poems is that Toast is set in the summer and Some Christmas Haiku is set in the winter. The poem Some Christmas Haiku is about what Christmas like now. When I read the first two lines I thought this is going to be a positive poem On the moors the snow caught by grass. These two lines are the only positive points of the poem. This poem puts stuff in perspective of what Christmas has become sound of retching three men in an empty street crushing lager cans people are taking the excuse of it being Christmas to socialise and drink more, jut because its Christmas. Theres a very strong Haiku in the poem, which shows us that Peter Finch doesnt care much about Wales Nadolig Heddwch half of Wales dont care other half cant pronounce it this tells us what Peter Finch really thinks about Wales, he thinks that we dont care about the welsh language and we dont care if we cant pronounce it. At the end of the poem it tells us although Peter Finch is very negative about Christmas he will probably celebrate Christmas the same way next year, Sod dolig this bunt, mmm do it dunnit, don matt er do it again he There are a few Christmas images in this poem there are four negative ones and one positive one. The positive image is at the start of the poem 0n the moors the snow caught by grass, the negative images are in the chapel old wood after so many years still shining, outside the building society a man in a Santa suit and three women smoking. In my opinion this tells me that Peter Finch wants to give us a message that people in Wales are celebrating Christmas the wrong way. Toast also has some images in its poem of the builders, young builders lay golden and melting on hot pavements, vast concrete-and-glass mother-ship, these are both images of the Millennium Stadium when it was being built and after it was built. The meaning of Christmas now is presents and the turkey dinner, not many people celebrate Christmas in the right way anymore, people go to church on Christmas day, most people stay in their house having a turkey dinner an opening Christmas presents.

Walking with Dinosaurs essays

Walking with Dinosaurs essays In Walking With Dinosaurs, the film is segmented into stories based on a certain type of dinosaur or a specific period in dinosaur evolution. The first segment of the film focuses on the first dinosaurs, in the Triassic period, 220 million years ago. The Coelophysis is featured here. They show the Coelophysis hunting Placerias, an ancient reptile not related to dinosaurs. They show how the speed and agility of the Coelophysis helped it survive and dominate. Another reptile featured in this segment is the Cynodont. These creatures are referred to in the film as the missing link between mammals and reptiles. They had backbones that moved from side to side as they walked, but they were also covered with fur. The largest carnivore of the period is the Postosuchus. This reptile is a distant relative of the dinosaurs. They only creature that they had to protect themselves from was another Postosuchus. The flying reptile of this period that the documentary shows is the Peteinosaurus. This dinosaur had fingers to protect his wings, which were made of a very fine membrane. The next period they explore is the Jurassic, about 152 million years ago. They describe this as the age of the giants. The first dinosaur they feature is the Diplodocus. They emphasize the length and massive size of the dinosaur, and then go on to show the life span of the Diplodocus from egg to adult. The first Carnisaur shown in this segment is the Ornitholestes, a dinosaur with a crested head and two long clawed fingers. These dinosaurs are connected to the line that led to birds. Stegosauri were also around in this period. They flushed blood into their back plates to frighten away carnivores. Allosaurus preyed on the herbivores of this period as well. The final moments of this segment are dedicated to the Brachiosaurus, a Sauropod much larger than the Diplodocus. Still in the Jurassic period, they move the focus from l...

Global studies Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

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Four Circles of HR Professionalism Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Four Circles of HR Professionalism - Assignment Example This involves having a knack for managing people and conducting activities which may include hiring and recruiting the staff, managing work culture and job performance within an organization, training the personnel working within an organization, assuring that the staff complies with the rules and regulations in an organization, and the overall management of the behaviour of personnel at the workplace (Sartain &Finney 2005). Thereby in a professional context, any HR manager does need to be astutely aware of as to how to conduct oneself at the workplace (Kulik 2004). There stand to be some predominant professional considerations related to the workplace that an HR manager does need to hold sacrosanct. As an HR I am well aware of the fact that within a professional environment it is not only the sacrosanct ‘best practices’ but also an array of rules and regulations that my conduct needs to be subservient to. I am well aware of the fact that for the personnel I manage, I am the actual company. Not only the staffs that I manage to view me as the management but in the courts of law, I will also be considered to be the actual employer (Muller 2012). This realization has a serious impact on my professional conduct. I am well aware of the fact that as an HR manager I will always be directly held responsible for the things I do or fail to do for the employees (Muller 2012). The other thing that I always keep in my mind is that employees never leave organizations; they mostly tend to leave bosses. Thereby I also keep in my mind that every employee that comes to work in the organization is not a passive toolbox, but rather a complete person with a heart and a mind and a soul. My approach towards employees is always imbued with concern and I hold very human expectations from them. I well understand the fact that employees do always need a feedback. Whether they are doing a good job or are not doing well, the employees are mostly not able to ascertain it until they are evinced an honest feedback (Slade 1994). I have also realized that extending a timely feedback to the employees does go a long way in assuring organizational efficiency and thereby as an HR professional I make it a point to be thorough and prompt with the feedback I extend to the employees.  

HUMAN RESOURCES MANAGEMENT Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

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Population Pressure And Living Environment Within Slums Sociology Essay

Population Pressure And Living Environment Within Slums Sociology Essay In this context the present paper tries to analyse the variation in composition and distribution of slum population as well as the population pressure and living environment therein. Utilising data from census of India and NSSO 49th, 58th and 65th rounds, the variations in composition and distribution of slum population along with the living environment therein has been analysed. The study shows that the increase in number of urban poor has led to increase in number of slums and this has very adversely affected the living conditions in slums and has resulted in the further deterioration of many essential facilities. In major developed states there has been further deterioration of living conditions in the slums and the most basic necessities have become scarcer. At the district level, higher concentration of slums can be found in northern, north-eastern and western states while dispersed slums can be seen in central and southern states. The problem of slums has turned to be more gig antic than earlier and thus requires immediate actions for checking the further growth of slums and improvement in the living conditions as well. Keywords Slums, population composition, infrastructure, Spatio-temporal pattern. Introduction The mountain of trash seemed to stretch very far, then gradually without perceptible demarcation of boundary it became something else. But what? A jumbled and pathless collection of structures, cardboard cartoons, plywood and rotting bottles, the rusting and glassless shells of cars, had been thrown together to form habitation. Michael Thelwell (Adapted from Mike Davis, 2004) The earth has urbanized even faster than originally predicted by the club of Rome in its popular report limits to growth and this has resulted in the rise of gigantic hyper cities. The megacities have come up as the brightest stars in the urban firmament, but at the same time three quarters of the burden of population growth is borne by faintly visible second tier-cities and smaller urban areas where there is little or no planning to accommodate these people or provide them with services. Urbanization, thus, must be conceptualized as structural transformation along, and intensified interaction between every point of an urban-rural continuum. But the price of new urban order has been increasing inequality within and between cities of different sizes of specializations. Urbanization at many places has been radically decoupled from industrialization, even from development per se. More sinister has been the urbanization-without-growth. The urban population growth in spite of stagnant or negative urban economic growth is the extreme face of what researchers have labelled as over-urbanization. It is just one of the several unexpected tracks down which a neo-liberal world order has shunted millennial urbanization. In spite of the drastically weakened pull of the city by debt and depression, the rapid urban growth in the context of structural adjustment has been an inevitable recipe for the mass production of slums (Davis, 2004). The UN-Habitat report in 2003, titled The Challenge of the Slums stands out to be the first truly global audit of urban poverty. It has established that the primary direction of both national and international interventions during the last twenty years has actually increased urban poverty and slums, increased exclusion and inequality and weakened urban elites in their efforts to use cities as engines of growth. But all other things remaining aside, slums remain an invaluable expose that amplifies urgent research findings with the institutional authority of the United Nations. If the reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change represent an unprecedented scientific consensus on the dangers of global warming, then slums sounds an equally authoritative warning about the global catastrophe of the urban poverty. In fact slums are basically the urbanization of poverty. When human beings were able to produce more than they consumed and had found ways of storing the surplus to provide for a large number of people, living away from the field, they settled on such areas which provided good environment, climate and soil favourable to plant and animal life, an adequate water supply, ready materials for providing shelter and easy access to other peoples. Concentration of population grew at the intersections of trade routes, at harbours and at the mouths of rivers with easy access to the sea. Athens, Rome was located near the sea. Mecca, Damascus and Samarkand were island cities located on caravan routes. In India all big cities were located near the banks of rivers, ports, etc. Varanasi is one of the ancient and famous cities located on the bank of river Ganges. The officials and priests lived in the main hub whereas lower classes craft persons, artisans and labourers lived around the city republics. Gradually people from fields and small settlements sta rted moving to city republics because of lack of farm work all time of the year and safety in cities. These city republics became powerful and tapped the surpluses and other resources. In 1800 only 2% of world population lived in towns of more than 5000 inhabitants. No more than 45 cities had population over 100,000. The 19th and 20th Century saw enormous growth of urban population. In fact the 20th century was a time of great change, and the greatest of those changes was in the numbers of people on the globe and where they lived. Since 1950, mankind has endured its most rapid expansion, from 2.5 billion to 6 billion people. As a result of this rapid increase of population, the cities were not able to sustain the pressure of increased population and could not provide good environment and basic services to new entrants as they were unable to afford reasonable shelter within their means. They were therefore forced to live in slums. Sixty per cent of this gain has been in urban areas, particularly in the urban areas of the developing world, where the urban population has increased more than six fold in only 50 years. Humanity is only about half way through this great transformation to urban living. During the next 30 years, the global urban population will increase by more than 2 billion while rural populations will be almost static. The greatest impact will be felt in the developing world and nowhere more so than throughout South and South-eastern Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. During the next 15 years, many large cities in Asia and Africa will nearly double their population. The huge increase in urban populations amounts to a crisis of unprecedented magnitude in urban shelter provision. Every year, the worlds urban population is increasing by about 70 million, equivalent to seven new megacities. These people all need to be provided with shelter, with employment and with urban services. The stretched capacity of most urban economies in developing countries is unable to meet more than a fraction of these needs, so that the informal sector is providing most of the new employment and housing in environments that have come to be known as informal settlements or slums, where more than half of the population in many cities and towns of developing countries are currently living and working. The evolution of the new urban poverty has been a non- linear historical process. The slow accretion of shanty towns to the shell of the city is punctuated by storms of poverty and sudden explosions of slum building. In this context the present paper tries to analyse the variation in composition and distribution of slum population as well as the population pressure and living environment therein. Utilising data from census of India and NSSO 49th, 58th and 65th rounds, the variations in composition and distribution of slum population along with the living environment therein has been analysed. Apart from this some secondary data published in different books and articles have also formed a part of the analysis. Under the methodological section, firstly on the basis of the literature review, two objectives have been determined for this paper. For the fulfillment of these objectives statistical tools have been widely used to analyse the raw data. Graphical presentation and cartographical tools (maps and diagrams) too have been utilized to extend the level of analysis and explanation. Needs and Approaches to the Study of Slums Slums are consolidated and compact physical, social, cultural and economic units with distinct neighbourhood system within the greater environment of cities. These are patronised by the local political organizations which strengthen their existence on those very locations. The growth and development of slums have never become phenomena of few days or months; a sufficient number of years have been passed to reach the full growth and vigour when it has come to the notice of urban planners, administrators and municipal authorities that slums have become problems and threats to health city life. The growth of slums is a manifestation of urban poverty as the majority of urban poor lives in slums. On one hand the government documents tries to establish a fall in the levels of poverty but on the other hand the consistent rise in slums population and deteriorating living conditions depicts some different story. The provision of lifeline infrastructure lags far behind the pace of urbanization and peri-urban slum areas often have no formal utilities or sanitation provision whatsoever. The urban poor are forced to settle on hazardous and otherwise unbuildable terrains over-steep hill slopes, river banks and flood plains. Likewise they squat in the deadly shadows of refineries, chemical factories, and toxic dumps or in the margins of railroads and highways. Poverty has created an urban disaster problem of unprecedented frequency and scope. The interest and need for the study of slums has stemmed from two basic causes a) An urge to bring about social reform and b) An effort to reach an understanding of the process of urbanization. The studies which have an element of reform interest are preoccupied with poverty and related problems and focus extensively on the working class standards of living. However they have little to speak upon the social life of the slum dwellers. On the other side of the coin lie the urbanization studies that provide a closer approach to the analysis of social behaviour in this area (Whyte, 1943). However off the two reasons the latter claims more attention and validity than the former. Even the global report on slums published by the United Nations Habitat more or less recognises slums as the face of urban poverty in the new millennium. The Slums of the World Report has appeared at a time of growing awareness of the red flags raised by the urbanization process, particularly because of an increasing number and proportion of city residents who live in poverty in precarious settlements in the core historic part of cities and in the peri-urban areas. For the first time in history, rapid population growth and its concentration in cities around the world constitute a crucial element affecting the long-term outlook for humanity. Despite standing out as centres of civilization and economic activity for eight millennia, cities never attracted more than ten per cent of the global population until the second half of the 19th century. Now, systems of cities have become the worlds social , economic, cultural and political matrix. One-third of the worlds urban population lives in slums, and four out of ten inhabitants in the developing world are informal settlers. The report accepts that the number of issues relevant to urban poverty and slums is practically infinite and it requires an in-depth analysis and comprehensive effort to deal with the worsening situations. Understanding the notion of slums The first step in solving a problem is to define it correctly. Therefore a clear understanding of the notion of slums is indispensible. Since its first appearance in Veuxs Flash Dictionary during the 1820s as part of the London cant, the term slum was used to identify the poorest quality housing and the most unsanitary conditions; a refuge for marginal activities including crime, vice and drug abuse; and a likely source for many epidemics that ravaged urban areas a place apart from all that was decent and wholesome. The word slum was derived from slumber which means a sleepy unknown back alley. Slum meant `wet mire where working class housing was built during British Industrial revolution in order to be near the factories. These were uncontrolled settlements and lacked basic services and only poor people lived there. During the major part of the 19th century, the word appeared in the written language in quotation marks mostly as back-slum(s). At the end of the 19th century, slum mea nt a street, alley, court, situated in a crowded district of a town or city and inhabited by people of a low class or by the very poor; a number of these streets or courts forming a thickly populated neighbourhood or district where the houses and the conditions of life are of a squalid and wretched character (oxford dictionary)à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦. a foul back street of a city, especially one filled with a poor, dirty, degraded and often vicious population; any low neighbourhood or dark retreat usually in the plural, as Westminster slums are haunts for thieves (The Challenge of Slums: Global Report on Human Settlements, 2003) The housing reform movement in England during the 1880s changed a popular word that once described an awkward phenomenon to a general operational concept as a house materially unfit for human habitation, and made possible the delimitation of slum areas on city maps for planning purposes. It became a common word in the Anglophone world, used, for example, in India in order to designate without distinction the bustees, chawls or cheris of Mumbai, Delhi or Chennai. The 20th century made the word obsolete in contexts requiring more precise and rigorous terms, such as tenement house, tenement district and deteriorated neighbourhood, because of legislation from the 1890s and 1930s authorizing the eradication of the so-called slums, and imposing technical and legal definitions and standards for such actions. At the same time, the social movement generated new words, such as neighbourhoods or communities, to qualify the designated slums in order to rename the socially stigmatized slum areas. As with most euphemisms, alternative terms were eventually subsumed into the argot and served to maintain rather than counteract the negative prejudices against slum dwellers. The polite neighbourhood has become shortened to hood, a badge of youthful attitude in Los Angeles. Today, the catch-all term slum is loose and deprecatory. It has many connotations and meanings and is banned from many of the more sensitive, politically correct and academically rigorous lexicons. It can also vary considerably in what it describes in different parts of the world, or even in different parts of the same city. In developing countries, the term slum, if it is used, mostly lacks the pejorative and divisive original connotation, and simply refers to lower-quality or informal housing. Large, visible tracts of squatter or informal housing have become intimately connected with perceptions of poverty, lack of access to basic services and insecurity. Terms such as slum, shanty, squatter settlement, informal housing and low-income community are used somewhat interchangeably by agencies and authorities. The coverage of settlement types is even more complex when one considers the variety of equivalent words in other languages and geographical regions. Slums are today known by dif ferent names throughout the world: Barrio or tugurio (Latin America), Basti (Bangladesh), Bidonville (France/Africa), Favela (Brazil), Ghetto, Kampung (Indonesia), Katchi abadi (Pakistan), Masseque (Angola), Shantytown, Skid row, Squatter cities . However at this point a note on the current distinction between slums and shanties is essential. While slums describe old residential buildings which have deteriorated and lack essential services (but in most cases do not lack security in terms of tenure), shanties refer to spontaneous settlements which have developed in outskirts and unbuilt areas of the city. At the FirstWorld Urban Forum, a position paper elaborated by UN-HABITAT on Cities Without Slums used the term slum to describe, a wide range of low-income settlements and/or poor human living conditions and note that these inadequate housing conditions exemplify the variety of manifestations of poverty as defined in the Programme of Action adopted at the World Summit for Social Development. The term slum includes the traditional meaning that is, housing areas that were once respectable or even desirable, but which have since deteriorated, as the original dwellers have moved to new and better areas of cities. The condition of the old houses has then declined, and the units have been progressively subdivided and rented out to lower-income groups. A typical example is the innercity slums of many historical towns and cities in both the industrial and the developing countries. The term slum has, however, come to include also the vast informal settlements that are quickly becoming the most visual expression of urban poverty. The quality of dwellings in such settlements varies from the simplest shack to permanent st ructures, while access to water, electricity, sanitation and other basic services and infrastructure tends to be limited. Such settlements are referred to by a wide range of names and include a variety of tenurial arrangements. Slums: a point of discord The entire scholar community has failed to converge on a single definition of slum. As a result the buzzword has been defined differently for different regions and contexts. The difference in the definitions is primarily the result of discrepancies in the parameters adopted for the purposed of identifying the slums. Even amidst the web of definitions, the basic features rather the elements of the slums remain similar. Slum, at its simplest, is a heavily populated urban area characterized by substandard housing and squalor. This definition encapsulates the essential characteristics of slums: high densities and low standards of housing (structure and services), and squalor. The first two criteria are physical and spatial, while the third is social and behavioural. This spread of associations is typical, not just for the definition of slums but also of our perceptions of them. Dwellings in such settlements vary from simple shacks to more permanent structures, and access to basic service s and infrastructure tends to be limited or badly deteriorated. Slums and urban poverty are not just a manifestation of a population explosion and demographic change, or even of the vast impersonal forces of globalization. Slums must be seen as the result of a failure of housing policies, laws and delivery systems, as well as of national and urban policies. The definition of the term slum includes the traditional meaning that is, housing areas that were once respectable or even desirable, but which have since deteriorated as the original dwellers have moved to new and better areas of the cities. The condition of the old houses has then declined, and the units have been progressively subdivided and rented out to lower-income groups. Typical examples are the inner-city slums of many towns and cities in both the developed and the developing regions. Slums have, however, also come to include the vast informal settlements that are quickly becoming the most visible expression of urban poverty in developing regions cities, including squatter settlement s and illegal subdivisions. The quality of dwellings in such settlements varies from the simplest shack to permanent structures, while access to water, electricity, sanitation and other basic services and infrastructure is usually limited. Such settlements are referred to by a wide range of names and include a variety of tenure arrangements. The problem with measuring slums starts with the lack of an agreed definition. As a result, enumeration of slums has not yet been incorporated within mainstream monitoring instruments, such as national population censuses, demographic and health surveys, and global surveys. Some surveys provide proxies or related variables, such as proportion of unauthorized housing or proportion of squatters. Participatory poverty assessments in many least developed countries (LDCs) generally provide only qualitative information on urban poverty. The generic definition suggests that a slum is a contiguous settlement where the inhabitants are characterized as having inadequate housing and basic services. A slum is often not recognized and addressed by the public authorities as an integral or equal part of the city. According to another definition given by the Cities Alliance Action Plan: Slums are neglected parts of cities where housing and living conditions are appallingly poor. Slums range from high-density, squalid central city tenements to spontaneous squatter settlements without legal recognition or rights, sprawling at the edge of cities. Slums have various names, favelas, kampungs, bidonvilles, tugurios, yet share the same miserable living conditions. The Encyclopaedia Britannica on the other hand defines slums as: residential areas that are physically and socially deteriorated and in which satisfactory family life is impossible. Bad housing is a major index of slum conditions. By bad housing is meant dwellings that have inadequate light, air, toilet and bathing facilities; that are in bad repair, dump and improperly heated; that do not afford opportunity for family privacy; that are subject to fire hazard and that overcrowd the land, leaving no space for recreational use. In India also there is no agreed upon definition of slums and there is no unanimity in the identification criteria used at the various level of governance as well as research. In the year 1993 attempts were made to define the slums on the basis of housing conditions and availability of facilities. However the most accepted definition of slums in the country has been given by the Registrar General of India for the purpose of Census of India. It defines the slums as: All specified areas in a town or city notified as Slum by State/Local Government and UT Administration under any Act including a Slum Act. All areas recognized as Slum by State/Local Government and UT Administration. Housing and Slum Boards, which may have not been formally notified as slum under any act. A compact area of at least 300 populations or above 60-70 households of poorly built congested tenements, in unhygienic environment usually with inadequate infrastructure and lacking in proper sanitary and drinking water facilities. The level of disagreement upon this matter has gone beyond the national level and in an entirely surprising scenario the different states too have set up different landmarks for the identification of slums for their respective territories. The definition of slum area adopted by the Stare Governments is based on slum Acts of the respective States i.e. based on legal stipulations unlike the definitions adopted by RGI and NSSO. The concept, Perception and definition of slums vary across the states, depending on their socio-economic conditions bur their physical characteristics are almost similar. There are discrepancies between the Parameters adopted by State Governments, RGI and NSSO. Thus there exits divergent opinions at the different levels in the country as to what constitutes the key determinants of slums. In fact Slums are too complex to define according to one single parameter. They are a relative concept and what is considered as a slum in one city will be regarded as adequate in another city. Local variations among slums are too wide to define universally applicable criteria and this has been the prominent cause for existence of different definitions of slums. Slums change too fast to render any criterion valid for a reasonably long period of time. The spatial nature of slums means that the size of particular slum areas is vulnerable to changes in jurisdiction or spatial aggregation posing further difficulties in providing any stable definitional criteria for them. Thus what is agreed is that slums, like poverty and secures tenure, is multidimensional in nature. Some of the characteristics of slums, such as access to physical services or density, can be clearly defined, and others, such as social capital, cannot. Even with well-defined indicators, measurement can be very problematic, and acceptable benchmarks are not easy to establish. Even though the identification and differentiation of slums is a difficult nut to crack, Slums has been divided into two broad classes (Davis, 2004): 1. Slums of hope: These are progressing settlements, which are characterized by new, normally self built structures, usually illegal (e.g. squatters) that are in, or have recently been through, a process of development, consolidation and improvement; and 2. Slums of despair: These are declining neighbourhoods, in which environmental conditions and domestic services are undergoing a process of degeneration. Slums of hope may all too easily yield to despair. Thus a review of the definitions used by national and local governments, statistical offices, institutions involved in slum issues and public perceptions reveals the following attributes of slums in the country: lack of basic services, substandard housing or illegal and inadequate building structures, overcrowding and high density, unhealthy living conditions and hazardous locations, insecure tenure; irregular or informal settlements, poverty and social exclusion, and minimum settlement size. Distribution and compositions of slums in India: The Variations The most important characteristics of a population in addition to its size and the rate at which it is expanding or contracting are the ways in which its members are distributed according to age, sex, ethnic or racial category, and residential status. The analysis of distributional and compositional characteristics of slums is requisite for the effective management of problems related with them. In fact the lack of information regarding the dynamism of extent of distribution of the urban poor is one of the main factors which prohibit the extension of vital facilities to them. The figures available till date shows a highest concentration of slum population in two southern states of India Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh respectively. But the district level analysis shows a clearer picture of the concentration of slum population and its alignment with the urban centres. One of the peculiar aspects which emerges out of the distribution of slums is that in states of north, east and north east India, the slums are concentrated in few districts such as in West Bengal, Jharkhand, Orissa etc. while in states of western and Southern India, the slum population is spread in almost all the districts which is an indicator of the level and process of urbanization in the different states. The sex ratio among the slum populations shows very interesting trends. The major proportion of urban poor is considered to be composed of the male population that migrates from rural areas to cities primarily for work. But contrary to this, both the state and district level analysis shows high sex ratio for the four major states of South India Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Kerala. More surprisingly the distribution of child population in slums shows just the opposite scenario. In this case, parts of central India, Rajasthan, U.P and Bihar are the leading areas both at state and district level. In Southern India, the population in the 0-6 age group is relatively less which indicates towards the changing population dynamics of the slums. The distribution of scheduled caste population shows some other drastic changes with respect to the slum population. In the hierarchy of status in Indian society the scheduled castes have been regarded at the bottom line and thus are associated with the relatively unclean jobs. The analysis here shows some surprising trends where the proportion of scheduled caste population in the total slum dwellers is less and very few districts shows relatively a higher presence of scheduled caste population. In North, West and North East India their presence is further low. Population pressure and living conditions in slums The increasing pace of urbanization and resultant increase in slum population is a matter of deep concern for sustainable living. A continuous rise in the slum population in India and their increasing concentration in fewer cities is posing a threat to urban healthy life and management of city affairs. Any further deterioration in the quality of life in slums directly affects the environment and is dangerous for the ecological sustainability. The assessment of living conditions with respect to population pressure in slums has been one of the most contested issues. Some of the robust indicators of living conditions can be taken as Structure of housing, Electricity Connection, Roads, Water logging conditions, Status of Latrine facility and type of drainage. The household density among slums shows a higher density in parts of Rajasthan and U.P which indicates that even though the slum population is highest in Maharashtra, the congestion is higher in slums of U.P and Rajasthan. The same is true for the slums in Jammu and Kashmir where the slum population is mainly concentrated in two districts. While for the other parts of the country an average density can be seen. There has been a noticeable change in respect to the type of structure of houses in the slums during the period between 2002 and 2008-09. All the three different categories of housing structure i.e. Pucca; Semi-kutcha and kutcha have undergone considerable change over the quin-quinnial period. The most drastic change has been the increase semi-kutcha and kutcha housing structures under both notified and non-notified category of slums. Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Orissa, Delhi, Karnataka are the states experiencing major changes under the two above mentioned categories. Also there has been decrease in the percentage of pucca slums under both notified and non-notified category of slums. The downfall under this category has been high mainly for Delhi, U.P, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu and Gujarat. All such changes signifies the rapid increase in the population of urban poor as well as the deterioration in the quality of living conditions in the slums. The condition of electricity in slums is also not satisfactory among the slums. U.P, Rajasthan, Bihar, Punjab and Jammu and Kashmir are among the major victims where the percentage of slums having no electricity is highest mainly for the non-notified slums. Also there has been a decrease in the number of slums under notified category where electricity is being provided for both households and streets. The condition of street lighting is very poor throughout the slums in the entire northern Indian belt. However none of the slums exists with any electricity under the notified category of slums which is an indication that the major hindrance in the extension of infrastructural facilities to the slums is lack of notification. One of the most drastic deterioration in the electricity facility to the slums have occurred in Karnataka state where almost 100% slums under non-notified category received electricity for both households and streets in 2002; but in 2008-09 this percentage reduced to almost 50%. Another very important infrastruc

Wind Power Essay -- Renewable Energy Environment Global Warming

Wind Power: Nature’s Gift Wind power is a clean and renewable energy that, while at times unreliable, has very low upkeep cost and is growing at a rapid rate. While there is currently enough wind power to provide many times our current energy need, it is unfeasible in reality. Wind power utilizes the kinetic energy of air and uses it to power a generator to produce electricity. Even though dependence on wind power is impossible, it still can provide a strong, clean, quantity of power to supplement current energy production. Wind energy is essentially the conversion of the kinetic energy from air molecules in motion to mechanical energy which is generally then converted into electrical energy. People have used wind power since 700 AD in the form of windmills that grind grain or draw water. Currently, wind energy is generally used to produce electricity and provides approximately one percent of the world’s electrical needs, but the theoretical power possible from wind energy would top 70 Terawatts of power; over five times the world’s total energy consumption. However, this upper limit is most likely unfeasible as it involves utilizing all land suited for wind turbine placement; approximately 13% of the world. s) Only areas class 3 or higher are suited to wind turbine construction Another problem with total reliance on wind energy would be the unreliable nature of the wind; a still day could render anyone depending on the turbines powerless. However, a good option is to keep undesirable but more reliable power generation at the ready for when the wind tapers down. A nation such as Denmark who is already producing about 20% of their electric use through wind power could keep coal or gas plants at standby; because the majority ... ...198 Watts. 3452198 watts / 833.33 watts =~ 4143 The one turbine has the ability to power over 4100 houses in the United States and saves about two tons of CO2 emission every hour the wind is blowing at the above speed. " Evaluation of global wind power." Stanford. 29 Jul 2008, 15:35 PST. . " Wind Energy." American Wind Energy Association. 29 Jul 2008, 15:40 UTC. . "Wind power." Energy Kids. 29 Jul 2008, 15:42 UTC. . "Wind Basics." Other Power. 29 Jul 2008, 15:55 UTC. . " Wind Energy Resource Atlas of the United States." National Renewable Energy Laboratory. 29 Jul 2008, 16:04 UTC. .