Dhaulagiri Journal of Contemporary Issues

Transparency in Financial and Fiscal Affairs at Municipal Level: The Lessons from the Gandaki Province, Nepal

2023-09-15T13:22:59+00:00

This article examines the transparency in financial and fiscal affairs at municipal level in terms of tax revenue misuse, allocation of resources, information on tax revenue collection, local tax system, decision making process, stakeholder engagement, mechanism for public participation, delivery of vital public services, local budget, tax and fees collection procedure, financial allocation and audited statement of municipal revenue and expenditure related information posted in the public places. Descriptive method and purposive sampling procedure were adopted to carry out this study. It is found that majority of the respondents believed that there are misuses of tax revenue; the policy involved in rising for municipal resource mobilization has been found positive but it has to restructure and re-improve as per the time frame; majority of the respondents were found known about the local budget and tax and fees/fines collection procedure but a few respondents were familiar with financial allocation to sectors; almost all the respondents pointed out to municipal authorities to be punished for the reduction of municipal tax. Finally, summarizing the results and discussions pertaining to these issue sit can be said that there is miscellaneous response and less transparency in financial and fiscal affairs. It is necessary to focus on improving information dissemination at public places. Promoting citizen participation in developmental activities, strengthening institutional capacity, building public trust in local governance and creating the harmonization of existing policy concerning to the municipal government effectively can enhance transparency and accountability in municipalities.

Debating Human-Nonhuman Boundaries in Philip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

2023-09-18T07:24:29+00:00

This paper explores the issue of blurred boundaries between human and nonhuman (machines) in a technologically advanced world of Philip K. Dick’s novel, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? employing theoretical perspective of posthumanism. It critically examines how machines, in the form of humanoid robots, are endowed with qualities that are traditionally considered human qualities. This concept of humanoid robot is unique in terms of technical artifacts and human relationship to technology. The traditional idea of humanism that regards all other nonhumans as subordinate to humans cannot function in this case. The theoretical parameters like natural and artificial, mind and body, self-developing and externally designed are used to see whether the boundary between human and machines is blurred or not. This study exposes that the writer artistically blurs the boundaries between humans and nonhumans by presenting highly advanced humanoid robots called androids with a complex Nexus-6 operating system that functions as both subject and object, user and used. Then, it moves to show the need of the present time, that is the companion relationship between man and machines. Such change gives new ways of dealing with modern problems caused by the technological advancement. Following qualitative research design and using critical analytical method for textual analysis, this study examines the dynamics of human-nonhuman relationship and blurred boundaries with the light of posthumanism. It uses the theoretical insights of Rosi Braidotti and Donna Harraway in the act of critical analysis of the textual data.

Boosting Digital Literacy: Empowering Mathematics Students of Bachelor Degree for Learning C Programming

2023-09-15T13:33:14+00:00

This study explores the impact of a general digital literacy module on students pursuing a bachelor's degree in Mathematics under Humanities and Social Sciences at Tribhuvan University. The module was targeted to develop fundamental skills for learning C Programming. Employing a participatory action research approach, a module was developed based on the students' prior knowledge and their ICT course. A ten-day instructional intervention was conducted, utilizing cooperative techniques. The module aimed to establish a foundation for learning the ICT component within the mathematics program. To assess the module's effectiveness, classroom observations and students interviews were employed. The results indicate that the module successfully connects the ICT component with the mathematics program, equipping students with essential digital literacy skills crucial for comprehending the course content. Additionally, the findings emphasize the significance of providing a bridging module to support students' prior knowledge and adequately prepare them for the program's curriculum. This study contributes to enhance digital literacy skills in mathematics education for students in humanities and social sciences, facilitating their academic growth and future success.

An Analysis of Students Dropout in Sociology at Dhawalagiri Multiple Campus, Baglung

2023-09-15T13:44:39+00:00

The main aim of this paper is to investigate the factors influencing the dropout rate at Dhawalagiri Multiple Campus. Similarly, it aims to explore the reasons behind students' dropouts. A survey research design was used to describe the dropout rate. 26 respondents were selected through purposive sampling. Telephone, Messenger, Viber, and WhatsApp interviews were also used for collecting the required information. Assistant campus chiefs, department heads, and the chairperson of the Free Student Union's views were interviewed. This study is based on factors associated with dropout, such as age, gender, marital status, position in the number of siblings, health problems, family environment, fulfilled expectations, family and personal obligations, motivation in relation to the teaching and learning process, self-regulation, and time management. Beside these, family, community, college, and national education policies This study found that there are student-related indicators, campus-related indicators, family-related indicators, and socio-economic and cultural-related indicators. There are several reasons for dropping out of DMC. The main reasons for dropout, as explored by family-related indicators, were a lack of financial support from home and different family problems. The student-related indicators were their low academic achievement in examinations, irregularity in class, and willingness to go abroad; the campus-related indicators were a lack of academic support, feedback, motivation, and encouragement from teachers, a delay in exam results, and problems with institutional information systems. The implication of this study is to solve the problem of dropouts in the development of higher education programs in Nepal. This article will be helpful for academia, researchers, and planners.

A Review on Teachers and Students Engagement in Mathematics Learning: A Critical Reflection on Nepalese Context

2023-09-15T13:50:52+00:00

This article focuses on the engagement of students and teachers in mathematics learning within Nepalese classroom. Mathematical interaction is considered a significant concern in Nepal, particularly due to the multicultural and multilingual nature of the classrooms. Nepalese students come from diverse cultural and linguistic background, posing challenges in implementing constructive approaches to teaching mathematics. The teacher-student interaction is regarded from a cognitive perspective, recognizing both parties as mutually authoritative subjects actively interpreting and anticipating within the classroom. The primary objective of this article is to investigate the dynamics and effective use of constructivist principles in mathematics classrooms in Nepal. Through qualitative research methods, the study has the potential to offer valuable insights into the challenges and interactions between teachers and students, especially in multicultural and multilingual settings. By exploring these dynamics and analyzing the successful application of constructivist principles, this research can have a positive impact on mathematics education and instructional strategies in Nepalese classrooms, ultimately leading to improved student engagement and learning outcomes.

Students' Fear in Presenting Assignments in the Classroom

2023-09-15T13:57:00+00:00

This action research focuses on exploring the Psychological behaviors of students' fear in presenting assignments in the classroom of BED first year students at Dhawalagiri Multiple campus of Tribhuvan University in Nepal. It investigates the factors contributing to students' fear of presenting assignments, fear on academic performance and personnel l well-being, and potential interventions to reduce anxiety and improve student outcomes. The research reviews the historical evolution of studies from twentieth century to onwards on the fear of presenting assignments and examines the factors that contribute to this fear, including like physiological, psychological, cognitive, behavioral, environmental, and technological factors. The study adopts a mixed-methods approach, combining qualitative and quantitative data collection techniques such as interviews and observations. Based on the findings, multiple interventions are implemented, including workshops, mentoring, and changes in assessment practices, to address the identified factors and reduce fear. The effectiveness of these interventions is continuously monitored and evaluated. The research aims to provide insights and recommendations to create a supportive and empowering classroom environment for students, promoting their academic success and well-being.

Examining +2 Level Students' Email Writing Proficiency: A Critical Analysis and Recommendations

2023-09-15T14:02:36+00:00

This paper examines +2 level students’ email writing proficiency critically and recommends the necessary tips for improvements. Email writing has become a crucial aspect of teaching and learning activities in EFL classes. It is the quickest means of communication for bulk messaging. The practice of post offices is almost obsolete. The postman used to deliver letters to people from one place to another place and the delay was common. Now, in the digital age, email writing has become the fastest means of communication for disseminating the messages to the recipients. Despite this, both the teachers and students do not take the email writing process as a crucial matter. The findings of the study show that +2 level students write emails like a letter in their exam papers. They can do the same in reality as well. Their teachers should instruct them properly. Email writing is not as simple as the teachers and students think. Email writing does not only inform, it also persuades the recipients. The study aims at empowering the +2 level students’ email writing proficiency by suggesting with required methods, techniques and tips. Their skills are not well patterned because their teachers do not instruct them sincerely. Therefore, both the teachers and students should tackle this email writing with the exact formats and methods. The study is qualitative research and it adopts the descriptive survey methods for the analysis of their email writing skills.

Greene’s Quest for Seediness in Journey Without Maps

2023-09-15T14:07:31+00:00

This paper examines Graham Greene’s travel text, Journey Without Maps (1936/2010), so as to discover why Greene makes a quest for seediness, especially a primitive one. The study is drawn by Greene’s paradoxical fascination to the seediness, which literally suggests the squalor or ugliness. But why does he like it? This is the major concern of the study. Using the concept, primitivism, that was frequently used by the Western travel writers to depict the non-Western peoples and their societies during the colonial era, the study analyzes and interprets the text, and claims that Greene’s journey to the interior of Liberia is the journey of his escape from the contemporary seediness of civilization that he experiences in Britain into the seediness of primitivism that he supposes to find in Liberia where the civilization has comparatively a weaker grip upon human being. After the textual analysis, the study expects to add a new perspective to the critical reading of the Western texts written about the non-Western societies representing them as the primitive and uncivilized others.

Female Subjugation and Resistance in Jean Rhys's Wide Sargasso Sea

2023-09-15T14:30:28+00:00

Jean Rhys's Portrays the European domination and patriarchal cultural context of Jamaica after the passage of the Emancipation Act (1833). The novelist stages creole characters who are exclusively exploited, subjugated and marginalized in colonial regime. In this respect, the representations of the female characters such as Antoinette, Christophine, Gracepoole, Amelie, Leah, among others clearly display the debased status of females in Jamaica even after the emancipatory proclamation. The novel dramatizes the violence perpetrated on women by the White colonizers even after the colonial rule. Moreover, Rhys projects female characters to expose the humiliating state of women in the novel. Thus, this article proposes to analyze the female body as a subordinated site as well as resistance in the purview of postcolonial feminist theory especially of Gyatri Spivak, Ketu Katrak and Chandra D. Mohanty address the challenges faced by subjugated and marginalized voices in representing themselves within dominant discourses. So, the research draws on the ideas of Spivak’s “Can the subaltern speak?” as the subaltern refers to individuals or groups who are socially, politically, racially, culturally and economically subjugated and silenced by dominant power structure and system. Their feminist stands unbox the exploitation of female and their feeble resistance in the commonwealth countries that this research critically analyzes Rhys’s novel. Imbibing their arguments it further, argues that Wide Sargasso Sea not only revisits the lacuna prevalent in colonial historiography by depicting the colonized people but also clearly points out the marginal representation of female under the ambit of imperial power.

Chemical analysis of the Triticum aestivum Cropped Soil

2023-09-15T14:36:08+00:00

Triticum aestivum commonly known as wheat. Simple random sampling method was used for collection of samples from twenty different locality of Tarakhola Rural Municipality-1, Majhakharka. The chemical compositions (NPK, Zn, B, and organic matter), EC and pH of Tarakhola Rural Municipality had been investigated. The micronutrients (Zinc and Boron) were determined by using Spectrophotometer and Colorimetric method. Nitrogen, Phosphorous and Potassium were analyzed by Kjeldahal method, Flame Photometer method, Modified Olsen's bicarbonate method respectively. Organic matter was determined by Calorimeter. Nitrogen- 0.57%, Phosphorus-29.05 ppm (65.08kg/hector), Potash-159.68 ppm (357.69kg/hector), organic matter-3.57%. pH is 6.4 which is suitable pH for wheat crop, Electrical conductivity is 0.087ds/m (87 milisimen), Zinc-0.54 ppm, Boron is 0.01 ppm. Organic matter and Nitrogen were medium but P and K were maximum and Zn and B were minimum.

नेपालमा तालुकदारी प्रथा {Talukdari custom in Nepal}

2023-09-17T04:55:50+00:00

तालुकदारी प्रथा विगतमा न्यायिक, प्रशासनिक तथा वित्तीय अधिकारसहित भूमिकर वा मालपोत सङ् कलन गर्नका लागि राज्यकातर्फदेखि व्यवस्था गरिएको एक महत्वपूर्ण प्रथा मानिन्छ । यस प्रथालाई जिम्वाली तथा मुखियाली प्रथा पनि भन्ने गरिन्छ । नेपालमा तालुकदारी प्रथा र यस प्रथामा भूमिकर सम्बन्धी व्यवस्थाका बारेमा विमर्श गर्ने र तत्कालीन अवस्थामा तालुकदारहरुको सामाजिक, प्रशासनिक तथा न्यायिक अधिकार एवम् दायित्व जस्ता विषयका सम्बन्धमा जानकारी गराउने उद्देश्य तथा सीमाभित्र केन्द्रित रही स्वअनुभव, तत्कालीन समयमा मुखियाको जिम्मेवारीमा रहेका एवम् तालुकदारी प्रथाको अनुभव गरेका अग्रज व्यक्तिहरुको धारणाहरुसमेत समावेश गरी पुस्तकालयीय अध्ययनबाट प्राप्त तथ्य र सूचनालाई आधार मानेर विवरणात्मक र व्याख्यात्मक शैलीमा योआलेख तयार गरिएको छ । नेपालमा विगतमा प्रचलनमा रहेको तालुकदारी प्रथामा तालुकदारहरुको सामाजिक दायित्व तथा स्थानर भूमिकर सम्बन्धी व्यवस्थालाई अनुसन्धान समस्याका रुपमा उठान गरिएको छ । लिच्छवी शासनकालदेखि नै केन्द्रीय शासकहरुबाट नियुक्त गरिएका स्थानीय व्यक्तिहरुले आफ् नो क्षेत्र वा इलाकाबाट कर सङ् कलन गर्नका लागि जिम्मावाल तथा मुखियाहरु (तालुकदार) को व्यवस्था गर्ने गरेको पाइन्छ । राज्यका तर्फबाट व्यवस्था गरिएका तालुकदारहरुका माध्यमबाट भूमिकर सङ् कलनगरी सरकारी कोषमा दाखिला गर्ने चलन विक्रम सम्वत् २०३७ सालसम्म रहेको पाइनुले यस प्रथाले नेपाली समाजमा बलियोसँग जरा गाडेको तथ्य पत्ता लाग्दछ । जिम्मावाल, मुखिया, जिमीदार, चौधरीजस्ता तालुकदाररुको व्यवस्था गरी उनीहरुलाई न्यायिक, प्रशासनिक तथा वित्तीय अधिकार प्रदान गरिनुले यो प्रथाले कानूनी हैसियत पनि प्राप्त गरेको देखिन आउँछ । जग्गा जमिनलाई विभिन्न एकाइ तथा प्रकारमा विभाजन गरी सोहीअनुसार राज्यद्वारा निर्धारण गरिएको कर सङ्कलन गरी राज्यकोषमा दाखिला गर्नेकार्य तालुकदारहरुले गर्दथे । वर्तमान समयमा यो प्रथा कायम रहेको छैन तर पनि आफ्नो जिम्माभित्रको गाउँबस्तीमा सामाजिकतथा सरकारी कार्यहरुका लागि झारा लगाउने, सर–सफाई गर्ने तथा थिति बसाल्ने जस्ता काममा पनि तालुकदारको भूमिका धेरै रहने गर्दथ्यो ।

सम्यक् सम्बुद्ध महाकाव्यको कथानक र चरित्रचित्रणबिचको सङ्गति {Correlation between plot and characterization of Samyak Sambuddha epic}

2023-09-17T05:13:09+00:00

नेपाली महाकाव्य लेखन परम्परामा घनश्याम कँडेलको सम्यक् सम्बुद्ध अनुष्टुप छन्दको शान्तरस प्रधान महाकाव्य हो । यसमहाकाव्यका नायक गौतम बुद्ध हुन् । उनी यस महाकाव्यको भूमिकामा सिद्धार्थ गौतम, गौतम बुद्ध अनि महामानव बुद्धका नाममा विकसित छन् । चरित्रप्रधान महाकाव्य भएकाले शोध्य महाकाव्यको कथानक विकास फितलो भए पनि कथानक र पात्रचरित्रबिचको सङ्गति रहेको छ । कथानक र पात्रचरित्रबिचको सङ्गति प्रक्रियाको अध्ययन नै प्रस्तुत आलेखको मुख्य समस्या हो । पुस्तकालयीय अध्ययनमा आधारित यस लेखमा यथार्थपरक समालोचनात्क अध्ययन विधिको उपयोग गरिएको छ । महाकाव्यको कथानक विकास कमजोर, असानदर्भिक, उपकथाहरु जोडिएको तथा दर्शनप्रधान भएकाले चरित्रचित्रण पनि प्रमुख नायक बुद्धकोजीवनी सबैभन्दा बढी आएको छ । कथानक र चरित्रको अन्तर्सम्बन्ध पनि कृतिम खालको छ । महाकाव्यका अन्य तत्त्वलाई अध्ययनको विषय नबनाउनु नै यस लेखको सीमा हो । महाकाव्यको रचना प्रक्रियामा शास्त्रीय छन्दको प्रयोग गरिए पनि चरित्रचित्रण तथा कथानक पूर्वीय मान्यताबाट अलि भिन्न तरिकामा प्रस्तुत गरिएको छ । महाकाव्यको चरित्र चित्रणले कथावस्तुलाई गति दिएको छ र सर्गशीर्षकीकरण छुटाइएको छ । चरित्र चित्रणबाट विकसित महाकाव्यमा धेरै तर अनावश्यक पात्रहरूको व्यवस्थाले महाकाव्यको बोधका लागि गौतम बुद्धको जीवनीमा पुग्नुपरेको, कथानक विकास सपाट वर्णनात्मक बनेको छ । यसमा नायकको चरित्र खोटपूर्ण नदेखिए पनि घटनाहरू पनि नपत्याउँदा छन् । महाकाव्य रचनामा प्रक्रियागत केही सीमा भए पनि मूलतः नेपाली महाकाव्य लेखन परम्पराको सकारात्मक प्राप्ति बनेको छ ।