Susannah Alexander

International Conference on Social Science, Arts, Business and Education (ICSSABE-21) 14th September, 2021 Virtual conference Academic Research and Development Association www.ardaconference.com Publisher: ARDA Explore © Copyright 2021, ARDA-International Conference No part of this book can be reproduced in any form or by any means without prior written Permission of the publisher. This edition can be exported from India only by publisher ARDA-Explore Editorial: We cordially invite you to attend The International Conference on Social Science, Arts, Business and Education (ICSSABE-21), which will be held on September 14th, 2021. The main objective of ICSSABE-21 is to provide a platform for researchers, students, academicians as well as industrial professionals from all over the world to present their research results and development activities in Social Science, Arts, Business and Education. This conference provides opportunities for the delegates to exchange new ideas and experience face to face, to establish business or research relations and to find global partners for future collaboration. These proceedings collect the up-to-date, comprehensive and worldwide state-of-art knowledge on Social Science, Arts, Business and Education. All accepted papers were subjected to strict peerreviewing by 2-4 expert referees. The papers have been selected for these proceedings because of their quality and the relevance to the conference. We hope these proceedings will not only provide the readers a broad overview of the latest research results on Social Science, Arts, Business and Education but also provide the readers a valuable summary and reference in these fields. The conference is supported by many universities and research institutes. Many professors played an important role in the successful holding of the conference, so we would like to take this opportunity to express our sincere gratitude and highest respects to them. They have worked very hard in reviewing papers and making valuable suggestions for the authors to improve their work. We also would like to express our gratitude to the external reviewers, for providing extra help in the review process, and to the authors for contributing their research result to the conference. Since July 2021, the Organizing Committees have received more than 40 manuscript papers, and the papers cover all the aspects in Social Science, Arts, Business and Education. Finally, after review, about 10 papers were included to the proceedings of ICSSABE-2021. We would like to extend our appreciation to all participants in the conference for their great contribution to the success of International Conference 2021. We would like to thank the keynote and individual speakers and all participating authors for their hard work and time. We also sincerely appreciate the work by the technical program committee and all reviewers, whose contributions make this conference possible. We would like to extend our thanks to all the referees for their constructive comments on all papers; especially, we would like to thank to organizing committee for their hard work. Acknowledgement ARDA is hosting the International Conference on Social Science, Arts, Business and Education this year in month of September. International Conference on Social Science, Arts, Business and Education will provide a forum for students, professional engineers, academician, and scientist engaged in research and development to convene and present their latest scholarly work and application in the industry. The primary goal of the conference is to promote research and developmental activities in Social Science, Arts, Business and Education and to promote scientific information interchange between researchers, developers, engineers, students, and practitioners working in and around the world. The aim of the Conference is to provide a platform to the researchers and practitioners from both academia as well as industry to meet the share cuttingedge development in the field. I express my hearty gratitude to all my Colleagues, Staffs, Professors, Reviewers and Members of organizing committee for their hearty and dedicated support to make this conference successful. I am also thankful to all our delegates for their pain staking effort to travel such a long distance to attain this conference. Dr. Simpson Rodricks President Academic Research and Development Association (ARDA) CONTENTS S.NO TITLES AND AUTHORS PAGE NO 1. Domestic Labour Rights Belongs to Her if Domestic Labour Belongs to Her-Kind: a Situational Analysis of the Domestic Workers in West Bengal  Ms. Ayshi Banerjee  Mr Subrata Kar 1-5 2. Environment –for the Survival of Human Paternity  Prof. Manjunatha K N  Prof. Manjula S  Pavan Kumar M  Dhananjaya Reddy  Sandeep M 6-8 3. The Intercorrelation between Text Typology and Strategy Use in Textual Reading among Moroccan English Department University Students  Mohammed Msaddek 9-15 4. Social Policy and Social Legislation – A Jurisprudential Interface  Shefali Raizada 16 5. To Study the Impact of Mediating Role of the Learning Strategies between the Knowledge Characteristics of a Job and Employee Innovation Process  Umar Farooq  Syed Anwer Hasnain  Irfan Ali  Sami Ullah 17-21 6. An Analysis of Gobi Corporations Marketing Strategy And It’s Consumer Perceptions  Oyuntuguldur Gan-Unur  Munkhzaya Narantsetseg  Oyuntulkhuur Tumenjargal  Delgertsetseg Davaadorj  Narantsatsral Gankhuyag 22-28 7. An Analysis of Mongolian TelecommunicationC Sector Situation And It’s Consumer Perception  Oyuntuguldur Gan-Unur  Bayartsetseg Badralt  Tamiraa Munkhbat  Gombosuren Nyam-Osor  Enkh-Och Zolbayar 29-33 8. Political Correctness as a Monolingual Language in the Era of Multiculturalism  Dr. Sara Zamir 34-38 9. The Development of an E-assessment Prototype by assessing the Three Levels of Digital Literacy among Communication Lecturers  Nurul Nisa Omar  Yi Jun Phung 39-48 10. India’s Strategy to Manage the LOC Conflict and Its Relevance to Other Border Conflicts  Susannah Alexander  Aditya Bharadwaj  Tonmoyee Kashyap 49-61 CONTENTS S.NO TITLES AND AUTHORS PAGE NO Domestic Labour Rights Belongs to Her if Domestic Labour Belongs to Her-Kind: a Situational Analysis of the Domestic Workers in West Bengal [1] [1] Ms. Ayshi Banerjee, [2] Mr Subrata Kar Tata Institute Of Social Sciences, Tuljapur Campus [2] Sristy For Human Society, Calcutta, India Abstract:--- Domestic Labour in India has not been recognised as a form of work and has neither been considered under Labour laws. The work involving care in the private sphere of home has been feminized . Thus female domestic workers face an array of problems due to non-recognition as labour.The Paper expounds on the situation of domestic workers and their condition of work in West Bengal and thus suggests why we need National and not state wise legislations for the welfare of domestic workers and that India needs to urgently ratify the 189th Convention of ILO. Keywords— Domestic Labour, Unrecognised , Decent Work Conditions , National Legislation I. INTRODUCTION The history of domestic labour in India relegates the position of domestic work to that of subjugation . The traditional domestic worker has his or her rights resting on the feet of the master and his hierarchy was lower than his employer either on the basis of caste ,class or gender. The contemporary market driven economy shifting from its’ earlier agrarian base has redefined domestic work as an industry which caters the need of maintenance of the household order. ... It is also associated with the growth of urban middle class , especially the increase in the number of women working outside their home and the availability of cheap domestic labour (Mehrotra Surabhi , 2010 ).However the conventional hierarchical suppression remains. Domestic work includes mental, manual and emotional aspects, including care work that is necessary to maintain people and communities (Anderson 2000) Domestic work thus involving social reproduction or nurture and is centred in the private sphere of the house .Having these characteristic features the occupation is highly feminized. According to NSSO data- out of 2.52 million domestic workers in India approximately 57 percent are women .Also two-thirds of these domestic workers belong to urban India. Both the above statistics combined we can infer that the female labour force specifically in urban India mans the domestic labour profession. The fact that domestic work does not demand much skills or ARDA International Conference specialisation is a major reason for women getting involved in this profession. However care receives no recognition so does domestic work, it is undervalued and thus remains unrecognised. The lack of labour laws for domestic workers not only makes this work invisible and the attitude of the employers highly paternalistic but also poses an array of difficulties for the female domestic worker including physical assault, lack of maternity benefits and also sexual harassment at workplace.However in most of the cases the victims are bereft of rights over their rights because of no comprehensive labour laws in their favour.In many cases workplace violations go unreported. In the wake of the 189th Convention of ILO vocalising the rights of domestic workers and their recognition we need to analyse the status of domestic labour in India and the scope of legislations in favour of due recognition of domestic work under the fold of labour. The following paper, expounds on field based analysis on working conditions of domestic workers in the State Of West Bengal and analyses the need for immediate legislation for the domestic workers at the Centr II. FINDINGS The following tables are based on filed based interviews undertaken with 46 female domestic workers in the selected slums of Calcutta namely Dhakuria ( South 24 Paraganas ) and Hridaypur ( North 24 Paraganas ) .The ICSSABE-21 1 Domestic Labour Rights Belongs to Her if Domestic Labour Belongs to Her-Kind: a Situational Analysis of the Domestic Workers in West Bengal domestic workers of these areas are heeded by Srishty an NGO working for women in the informal sector. Table 1.1: 1.1.1 Number of Houses Worked In : One House More than one House 13 33 1.1.2 Number of Hours Worked Per Day : Less than 9 More than 9 Hours >= 12 hours Hours 38 2 6 Analysis : According to Domestic Workers Welfare and Social Security Draft Act of 2010 4. “ Working hours :no employee shall be required or allowed to work in any household for more than nine hours in a day or for more than 48 hours ina week .working hours are defined as per the nature of work and taking 8 hours as maximum ,with sufficient periods of rest and food for full time workers,provided that the work span should not be more than 12hrs for live in ( with 3-4hrs) rest in-between ...provided further that any adult employee may be allowed to work in such household premises for any period in excess of the limit fixed under this section subject to payment of overtime wages if period of work , exceeds 48 hrs a week and including overtime work ,does not extend to 10 hrs in any day and in aggregate 50 hrs in any week .” 6. Interval For Rest – The Periods Of Work For Employees In A Household Shall Be So Fixed That No Period Shall Exceed Five Hours Before She Has An Interval Of Rest Of Not Less Than Half Hour .” Considering this propositions we analyse table 1.1 we would see that a majority of workers work in more than one houses ,( 33 out of 46 or 71.7 % ) ,thus exactly how many hours a domestic worker can be made to work in a day would be a better yardstick of deciding working hours I feel , since their work falls under the unorganised sector , there are no fixed wages per hour as implemented on a uniform basis by the State Government yet , thus they try to work for the maximum hours possible in maximum number of households to earn their living , the highest recorded within the sample is 9 houses per day by a particular respondent 13 out of 46 respondents works in one house only as shown in table 1.1 , 4 out of them work for greater than 12 hours , the kind of work done by three of these four are that of an “AYA”( nursemaid) , ARDA International Conference they are not permanent residing members in the employers’ house . In general as able 1.2 showcases out of 46,6 work for more than 12 or equal to 12 hours , 2 work more than or equal to 9 hrs. and 38 or about 82 % work for less than 9 hours. Two interesting analysis can be drawn from this , firstly the respondents working for less than 9 hours are the majority or 82 % so knowingly or unknowingly the working hours requirement is not getting violated in 82 % of the cases . This working hours is significant because for domestic workers have double burden of domestic work,and for most of my respondents spare time meant doing household work, the concept of leisure is so obscure for them that it became impossible for me to tabulate what they did as leisure activities in the course of the day. Thus limiting their working hours to 9 hours would give them more space and time at their homes and perhaps spare time would getchannelized to some useful activities like learning sewing,or being aware of the world through daily news etc. It was seen that workers employed as “AYAS”(nurse-maid) did not receive any timely breaks during their course of work, they said even during their lunchtime they were called to do some work or the other. They said that originally it is the rule of several service centres to employ them for 11 hours but that got extended to 12 hours in practice. This shows that the maids who were employed as through agencies and stayed at the house for longer periods faced more harassment. Table 2: ONE WEEKEND HOLIDAY Does Not Receive Receive one weekend one weekend holiday holiday 45 1 Analysis: The above table basically indicates that there is no concept of one holiday in a week ( i.e. a weekend ) or four holidays in a month , of the 46 respondents only one formally received one holiday every Sunday of the month , the rest did not get a weekend holiday as their right . There were various responses on how they managed to get holidays in spite of no formal holidays, some made excuses, some lied about ill health,some honestly took a leave and there was a cut from their salary as per the number of days missed multiplied by the wage for each day,this mainly happened for all AYAS (nurse-maids) who receive wage on a daily basis .The fact is that none of these 45 respondents knew that they deserved one holiday in a week. ICSSABE-21 2 Domestic Labour Rights Belongs to Her if Domestic Labour Belongs to Her-Kind: a Situational Analysis of the Domestic Workers in West Bengal On a slightly different note , taking a leave without prior notice for genuine reasons too can lead to serious consequences , an example was the case of Kalpana Halder , who lost her job for not being able to come to her employers’ place for one evening due to heavy rainfall , the employers were also not ready to give her the due wages for the number of days she had worked in the month , a group of domestic workers went to the house of this employer to demand re-recruitment or compensation by giving wages of two months at least .In this light I would like to say that maternity leave and sickness leave along with a 15 -20 days leave in the year as being circulated as their demands in various government sectors and NGOs is not just a demand , it is their dire necessity . Many lose their job on becoming pregnant whereas it is their right to get a maternity leave, this can be secured by organising them through service centre, the pregnant mother can be substituted with another worker, and post- giving birth the mother can be given work in some other household from the service centre itself. Another point that I want to drive home is that giving the domestic workers a leave on Sundays the day when employers to get a leave and want to relax can be an issue but I feel, this would rise only when domestic work is not recognised at par other professions and secondlydomestic chores aregender stereotyped and in absence of domestic help the male members of the family should be given some domestic work responsibility during the weekends. Table 3: WAGES RECEIVED PER MONTH <-=>- Nil 5 25 16 nil Analysis: The Central Government has proposed a 9000 salary for domestic workers per month .Taking this into consideration I have tabulated the above table. This proposal has not been implemented yet .But if we take this as the yardstick , we see that none of by respondents receive this wage per month , the majority of my respondents ( 54.34 % ) receive wages between the range of- , followed by- ( 34.7 % ) , 5 out of 46 even gets salary ranging between- . Now evaluating the necessary salary that domestic workers should receive becomes very difficult because wages are not fixed on a per hour basis and moreover most workers ( 33 out of 46 for my sample as table 3.1 ARDA International Conference indicates ) works in more than one houses . The wages for a particular kind of work has also not been fixed .For example I took the work of a cook to compare the wages of three workers from the same slum area of Dhakuria. A respondent named Lakshmi Mandal who does the job of cook in three houses gets rupees 3000 per month as her total wage whereas Ruma Mohanty who works in two house as a cook gets rupees 3000 too .Another respondent named Mathura Mandal who works for an NGO as a cook and cooks for 38 people per day gets only 6500 rupees per month , thus it is obvious that different work should be classified and per hour wages determined accordingly. While working with Sristy I came to know that a demand has been fixed at 54 rupees per hour .This demand was reached at by considering various factors like yearly expenditure on food , house rent , education , health related expenditure , expenditure on clothes etc. This is a progressive measure departing form the traditional approach of considering only calorie intake and extending requirement of money for a holistic set of activities. . Recently Rajasthan government has come up with a comprehensive policy regarding wages of domestic workers ( Times Of India February 2016 . ) , according to this notification the labour for an entire day ( 8 hours) is Rs.5642 per month , this came into effect from January 1 ,2016 . For overtime employers will have to pay workers double the minimum fixed per hour for every hour exceeding 8 hours. Furthermore domestic helps hired for just washing dishes will have to pay a minimum of rupees 705 per month for a household of four, and for every additional member 10 percent more .I think this is a wellplanned policy and can be implied in West Bengal as well. Such an approach of paying specific money for specific jobs is essential to prevent casualization of labour. The market the proponents of free market would say, should be the deciding factor for determining the wages of the workers however the market can also systematically exclude some people such as these female domestic workers whose skills have yet not been quantified by the government. Thus besides fixing rate for special work a minimum wage support is necessary. Table 4: ICSSABE-21 3 Domestic Labour Rights Belongs to Her if Domestic Labour Belongs to Her-Kind: a Situational Analysis of the Domestic Workers in West Bengal Analysis: This above table gives a general over-view of the percentage facing exploitation at workplace, which was found to be approximately 21 % .The kind of exploitation faced at workplace also has also been delineated. The major limitation in tabulating exploitation are two firstly the respondents do not openly come out with the exploitations often , in fear of being fired by the employer , many cases of sexual harassment are not even recorded , secondly in some cases the respondents narrative of the exploitation faced on hearing becomes a biased one sided understanding of the exploitation , the employers’ account of the incident must also be duly considered. Breaking The Silence a public meet held on 20th December 2016 had brought up 48 cases of violations of rights of domestic workers through various kinds of exploitations ranging from sexual exploitation to loss of income due to child-birth .Such public platforms to allow domestic workers to voice their opinion and to stand in solidarity against their oppressors are required. III. CONCLUSION India has yet not ratified the 189thILO convention on rights of domestic workers .Till date there has been no finalized National legislation speaking about the rights of Domestic workers, a draft policy for Domestic Workers were reached at in the year 2015 but it has not reached the implementation stage .Seven states in India has passed minimum wages declaration and two of these states have constituted welfare boards for them. As of West Bengal is concerned so such measures has been taken. At present there are two trade unions constituting of Domestic Workers namely PaschimBengal Griha Paricharika Samiti and Sramik Sahayata Kendra . These unions has yet not received legal recognition from the State Government and are striving towards the same. In the absence of government law in favor of Domestic workers the state run NGOs, Sristy , ActionAid , Durbar Disha , Pratikar to name a few are collaborating for voicing the rights of the domestic workers .In 20th December 2016 Sramik ARDA International Conference Sahayata Kendra had arranged a public hearing of around 48 untold cases of harassment as faced by the domestic workers with the aid of several NGOs working in this field. The hearing was successful and was attended from people from different walks of life ranging from the Chairperson of the West Bengal Women’s’ Commission to advocates and academiciansand most importantly the domestic workers themselves. The purpose of this collaboration was to arise in the hearts of the suppressed domestic worker the collective awareness about their rights. Of the decisions arrived at this hearing the following are the high-lights:  Domestic workers should be first and foremost recognized as workers and given right over decent standards of work as propounded by the 189th ILO convention  The panel opined that Inter-State migrants labor Act to be made applicable for domestic workers  As per the panel the Unorganized workers social security act 2008 ,and Domestic Workers( Regulation of Employment ,Conditions of Work , Social Security and Welfare Bill ) , 2008 Domestic Workers Welfare and Social Security Act ,2010 – these three bills must be made into Acts immediately by the Central Government  Domestic Workers’ platform should demand from the Central Government the monetary allocation for the Food Security Act , which would enable all pregnant domestic workers to get Rs.6000 as entitlements and additionally 26 weeks maternity leave and provision for crèche  The idea of unionization of domestic workers were welcomed.  It would be ideal for the domestic workers to have a flag and an identity card , as first steps towards forming an union  The organizations formed for the welfare of the domestic workers should take into consideration that domestic workers are not a homogeneous group the different socio-economic –religion backgrounds should be catered to  The core demands were identified to be minimum wage and child care unit for maternity benefits  The State should establish a welfare board for domestic workers  The panel opined greater direct participation of domestic workers in elections at every level and that they being vote- banks their demands should be effectively put before the political parties  The panel concluded in a strong demand for a National Legislation for domestic workers ICSSABE-21 4 Domestic Labour Rights Belongs to Her if Domestic Labour Belongs to Her-Kind: a Situational Analysis of the Domestic Workers in West Bengal While discussions and panels concerning the rights of domestic workers are being held it is important to consider what the outcome is. Are the voices of protest so raised heeded by the Centre? So far the welfare of the labourers has surfaced in acts like the Unorganised Workers’ Social Security Act 2008 .The rights of the marginalized labour as such has been secured through several department like health , education etc. However the rights of the labour as such is not declared in any particular act. Furthermore whenever we say labour the primacy is given to the male labour working in construction sites or transportation. The female labour force working as helpers to the male labour force or at home go unrecognized.Such delay in legislation is only leading to a perpetuation of the informal, unrecognised and ostracized from the law group.The female domestic labourers unable to secure the a healthy childhood or cress facilities for their children due to lack of wage and work security and cress are forced to send their children specially female children to perform the same chores .This is how the vicious unskilled labour force gets perpetuated. The workers themselves are losing faith on the glimmering ray of hope for their rights and subjugation is slowly being ingrained into their consciousness .Soon the market led oppression of the women belonging to this sector of the informal economy would be no different from the slavery practiced in yesteryears. 5. Documented reports on BRAKING THE SILENCE : TESTIMONIES AND RECOMMENDATIONS FROM PUBLIC MEETING AND PANEL DISCUSSION ON THE CASES OF VIOLATION OF THE RIGHTS OF THE DOMESTIC WORKERS IN WEST BENGAL ( online print of this is not available) 6. SEWA. 2014. Domestic Workers’ Laws and Legal Issues in India. WIEGO Law and Informality Resources. Cambridge, MA, USA: WIEGO. (http://www.wiego.org/sites/wiego.org/files/resource s/files/Domestic-Workers-Laws-and-Legal-IssuesIndia.pdf ) ACKNOWLEDGEMENT   Mr. Subrata Kar , founder of Sristy For Human Society and Research Guide Sristy For Human Society , 271 , R.N. GUHA ROAD KOLKATA-700074 ( provided guidance for collection of field data ) REFERENCE 1. • Mehrotra , TS( 2010) , A Report on Domestic Workers : Condition , Rights and Responsibilities ,A study of part-time domestic workers in Delhi.( http://www.jagori.org/wpcontent/uploads/2006/01/Final_DW_English_report_-.pdf) 2. D’Souza , Asha ( 2010) , Moving towards Decent Work For Domestic Worker – An Overview of ILO’s Work (http://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/@dgrepo rts/@gender/documents/publication/wcms_142905.p df ) 3. Domestic Worker Welfare and Social Security Draft Act 2010 (http://ncw.nic.in/PDFFiles/domestic_worker_welfar e_and_social_security_act_2010.pdf) 4. • Mohapatra , Diptirekha ( 2015 ) , Female Workers in the Unorganised Sector in India , International Conference on Studies in Humanities and Social Sciences (ICSHSS'15 ) , Thailand .( http://icehm.org/upload/6334ED715042.pdf) ARDA International Conference ICSSABE-21 5 Environment –for the Servival of Human Paternity [1] [1] [2] Prof. Manjunatha K N, [2] Prof. Manjula S, [3] Pavan Kumar M, [4] Dhananjaya Reddy, [5] Sandeep M Asst. Prof. Mathematics, Science and Humanities Department Sri Sairam College of Engineering, Anekal, Bengaluru [3] [4] [5] Department of Science and Humanities Abstract:- In this paper we are discussing about the environment completely. Here our aim is better than later to know mistakes and correcting it. As we are in critical state to survive on earth. Also we will come to know how men utilizing the environment. The evils created by the human paternity in earth: pollution, increasing temperature, deforestation, chemicalizing both soil and water. Polluting air as well sunrays. We will discuss here about the effects of all this problems created by the human, like dangerously facing health problems, unbalancing environment, disappearing of many species, both in case of animals as well in plants and finally how earth has becoming place which will become unfit to live. Here we are not just identifying the problems or mistakes of human. Our main aim is to solve the problem making the environment friendly to human. For that men how they have to change themselves are going to discuss like non-utilization of plastic, proper utilization of natural resources, a forestation, stoppage of chemicals in agriculture, minimization pollution I. creation, by destructing the natural environment, By knowing destroying himself and putting full stop to whole living on earth. INTRODUCTION Environment a much known word to each and every human being but very complex. As environment is not same as it was in the initial days of human being born on earth. Because men added to it n-number of things in which many are not required for environment. Environment has given everything to live comfortably on earth. But men with over greediness and our ambition utilizing environment to a maximum extent. By this process we human being created different environment on earth completely different from our existence. The environment which men created is becoming unfit to live because of imbalance which has happened in the natural environment which is because of human activities on earth without boundary. Now our concern here is how to safeguard our self safely by bringing balance in the environment as men is in search of other planet to live by escaping from earth. That is the amount of fear human is getting because of his misdeeds. Before going to the problem we will know what is actually environment is all about and then we will go inside of it. II.DEFINITION TO ENVIRONMENT In general sense environment means very simple that the surrounding where we live, in which human is small part actually. But as time prolonged men called him different from other living hood on the earth and he has started so called development from the beginning of the earth’s existence. As he was small part of environment now natural environment become very small part of men’s so called developed environment by neglecting and rejecting what god has given to him. In comic sense we can tell now that environment on earth is not created by god, it is human gods! Invention and ARDA International Conference III. THE PATH OF DESTRUCTION As god created this earth by creating a beautiful and safe environment and given us the place to live happily and comfortably. As time goes on men identified him that he is different from all other in the environment. As he is maturing he is started distancing from all the parts of the natural environment and started dominating by putting legs in every part of the environment and creating his own creatures. As men go on changing his way of living from time to time he started exploiting environment slowly from generation to generation. When men started his life by making his own group and started using resources and creating things which he needs for his daily need. Men first step is started with agriculture by starting clearing trees from forest and preparing soil suitable for agriculture for food for him. As second step of agriculture he was started constructing dams for storing water for agriculture purpose through that disturbed environment by removing trees and started deforestation. As men started improving his living style. He started constructing houses by using natural resources. After that he has improved further in living style. He has started inventing many things to improve his living condition like transport and infrastructure to transportation like roads, railways, water ways, airways etc. For all this men started using fertile and forest land, rocks, ore and fuel resources which further reduced forest and useful land. Again men started expecting much comfortability in living so he has started many industries to invent and ICSSABE-21 6 Environment –for The Servival of Human Paternity manufacture products and services which provide luxury to the human life. For all this man was in need of electricity for that he has depended on coal initially to produce electricity later further he depended on water and wind for power generation. In the recent days he further using solar and atomic resources for the generation of electricity as the demand increased. This has become very dangerous to the environment. Along with that we human beings started constructing infrastructure for housing and his other activities like industrial production and servicing and business by destroying forest. These are the many ways men started destroying forest and constructing his own concrete forest which is spoiling natural environment in many ways. As per current data around 160000 acres of forest is destroying by men every day for different reasons by loosing around 50,000 plants. IN the past agriculture was doing by men in natural ways by using natural manures, but now as science improved it has its image in agriculture also. For getting more and quick yields we have started using chemical fertilizers which are dissolving in soil and water and pesticides polluting are by mixing with it. Because of the above reasons the soil has become barren and not becoming useful for agriculture also spoiling the environment. Next is industrialization which is much dangerously effecting the environment. For starting industries men started cutting trees and utilized the same land for industrialization because of this forest area came down drastically. Also the different types of waste coming out of industries contaminated air, water and soil, polluted all the natural sources. Also this has created sound pollution and light pollution by omitting some dangerous light rays. Next is turn of general public with their daily activities for their comfort and luxury started overutilization of natural resources and power started exploiting the nature. Also for his greedy he has started constructing more infrastructures and stated depending more on machinery for his work to do which leads in to serious ways of pollution which leads in to depletion of ozone also. Also wasting the natural resource like water ore etc. Usage of useless things for his comfort like plastic and equipments like refrigerators, coolers, and heating equipments release dangerous gases which lead in to depletion of ozone. About more than 8 million tones of plastic is dumping to the sea every year in the world. Adding to this, man with his greed started using atomic fighting with others through which he is destroying himself as well also the living things on the earth one best example to this is Hiroshima and Nagasaki of Japan incident. This is how men has walked in the way of destroying the natural environment and created his own artificial and dangerous environment like digging his own grave yard. ARDA International Conference IV. EFFECT OF HUMAN DEVLOPED ENVIRONMENT: As I was mentioned instead of becoming a part of natural environment men become dominant and created his own environment containing concrete forest with several other pollution agents connecting to it and finally made natural environment as small part of it. Because of this artificial environment men lost many things in going towards luxury and comfort, now feeling effects of this directly. As men started destroying forest for several uses which is affecting in such a way that we care feeling shortage of oxygen now. Not getting proper rain. As forest land becomes dry land it become barren land and becomes no use. Soil erosion started as there is no strength in the soil. One more main cause created due to lessening of forest is increasing of pollution and temperature. Because of farming methods which currently following by men to get more and quick yield leads to polluting soil and water source by chemical fertilizers, finally soil will become poisonous and there will be of no use of it and air pollution because of usage of chemical pesticides for crops leads into dangerously effecting the environment. This will together affect human directly that whatever food we have contains dangerous chemical contents. Usage of artificial products in daily life which leads into mixing of chemicals to soil, water and also to air. This leads into pollution of the entire earth. One such a material men is highly depending is plastic which is effecting environment in such a way that the air is polluted to a maximum extent is because of plastic, as manufacturing process of plastic releases dangerous gases as well plastic doesn’t decompose on its own so to destroy if we burn it, it pollutes the air very dangerously. Next effect which we can see is the major effect in all the constituents of environment such as air, water, soil, light are getting polluted along with that sound also increased beyond the normal limit. As the industries releasing dangerous gases, chemicals in liquid and solid form during the process of production of different products so which leads into pollution of air to maximum extent. Water source is contaminated to maximum extent by industrial waste which leads into water pollution also industries polluting soil to maximum extent by solid waste of industries which leads into reduction of useful land & water for use. Beyond all this sound produced by industries may be some times beyond audible limits which lead into sound pollution. Adding to all this some industries omit dangerous light rays which mixes with sun rays leads into light pollution too. Because of all this pollution temperature of environment increasing and also we are not getting oxygen to breathe, proper water to drink which makes difficult to live. ICSSABE-21 7 Environment –for The Servival of Human Paternity Over consumption of electricity leads into going for producing electricity by dangerous way like atomic source. Which is dangerous than any other process which may destroy entire earth itself. In some daily routines men polluted environment in such way that we are making earth’s safety jacket called ozone to deplete. Like this because of human activities environment got polluted and spoiling environment which is making us difficult to live on earth. www.wikipedia.org www.earthtrust.org & from previous news papers and my own research knowledge. V. MEASURES TO SOLVE THE PROBLEM Directly we can tell that planting more and more oxygen omitting trees is one of the solutions for reducing the pollution and improving the quality of the soil for growing more trees and to get rain by reducing temperature. Next one more step is reduction of plastic and related items drastically. Starting again environmental friendly methods of agriculture process without using chemical fertilizers. Taking more initiatives by the industries to reduce the omission of pollution agents to the different constituent of earth like water, soil, air etc. Men also should take initiative in reducing the utilization of natural resources and exploitation of natural resources. Men also should reduce usage of machines and depending on them for the work to get it done. This leads into less utilization of fuel and electricity so nature will be saved as we are going to depend nature to maximum extent. Also over utilization of natural resources should be reduced and should not disturb the nature for our greedy. These are some of the initiative which solves the problems for us. VI. CONCLUSION God has given everything to men on earth to live comfortably by using it to limited extent. But men utilized all the resources to maximum extent and exploited all the resources because of his greediness and for his luxury and comfort ability. Now dangerous alarm is ringing that we have to take initiative to bring back environment to normalcy. So that the men can survive on earth for some time if not going to do the same mistake of exploiting the environment and digging his own grave yard. Instead of that let us and take a oath of changing the way of living and taking initiative to improve the environment to become part of environment to live safely on earth. REFERECES For getting certain data related to pollution we have referred some secondary sources of data like www.who.int ARDA International Conference ICSSABE-21 8 The Intercorrelation between Text Typology and Strategy Use in Textual Reading among Moroccan English Department University Students Mohammed Msaddek Delegation of Salé, Morocco Abstract:- The present study is a succinct manifestation of the extent to which text typology (i.e., narrative, expository) can have an effect on English Department learners’ strategy use during the reading act at the pre-testing as well as post-testing stages. Two selected Moroccan EFL groups, control (n=50) and experimental (63), majoring in English Language Studies, were addressed with a view to thoroughly investigating the issue at hand and reaching robust, comprehensive findings. For achieving this, a series of such research instruments as reading comprehension tests (i.e., pre-test, post-test), reading strategy instruction and reading comprehension texts (i.e., narrative, expository) were implemented throughout the conduct of this research. The findings revealed that text typology is a strong variable affecting the frequency of the use of some strategies among both EFL groups (i.e., control, experimental) at the pre-test and post-test levels. Finally, some useful implications and applications relevant to textual synthesis are presented and a few suggestions for future research are called upon. Keywords: expository text, narrative text, reading comprehension, strategic reading, strategy use, text genre I. processing academic texts of narrative and expository sorts is in need of academic INTRODUCTION It is worthy of claiming that undertaking the reading comprehension act can only come into effect if strategic reading processes are invoked and tapped by EFL learners. As postulated by many reading researchers (e.g., Goodman, 1970; Olshavsky, 1976-77; Yang, 2006; Shang, 2011), reading is an active process in which the reader utilizes efficient strategies to understand the textual information. This reflects the view that the receptive skill of reading, which represents a huge part in the language learning process in any academic context, can be conducted in a successful way only if learners are highly acquainted with the underlying strategies that are deemed indispensable footsteps towards the achievement of textual comprehension. This being said, it is worthy of note that there exists an interactive interplay between the reading strategy use and the meaning-getting process. Even if many reading research specialists have delved into a deep investigation of the reading act with respect to text genre (i.e., narrative, expository) in their studies (e.g., Goelman, 1982; Zabrucky & Ratner,1992; Best et al., 2008; Baretta et al., 2009; Yoshida, 2012), they rarely, if ever, tend to cope with the extent of the frequency of diverse reading strategy use as to narrative and expository texts. In other terms, the postulate that some reading strategies are used more frequently than others among Moroccan EFL learners whilst ARDA International Conference research support and sufficient corroboration. Additionally, throughout the existing reading research pertinent to text genre, the effect of the latter on a single reading strategy or some specific strategies is a common, constant investigation conducted by researchers. Thus, the present study tends to bridge the apparent research gap by exploring the correlation between the variable of text genre (i.e., narrative, expository) and such diverse strategies as predicting, inferring, visualizing, paraphrasing, rereading at the pre-testing and post-testing levels. This will manifest both the plain interplay of text genre and strategic reading mode among Moroccan EFL learners and the extent to which the text-based strategies are „genre-specific‟. II. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK A. Strategies Strategies are viewed as “potentially conscious and controllable activities” (Pressley et al., 1985). By being engaged in a cognitive task, EFL learners, especially mature ones, deliberately select and employ strategies with the purpose of facilitating the process of reaching an adequate comprehension. In fact, the use of strategies is inextricably interwoven with both simple tasks which require a small amount of efforts and highly complex tasks that entail concentration and focused attention. This shows ICSSABE-21 9 The Intercorrelation between Text Typology and Strategy Use in Textual Reading among Moroccan English Department University Students that the making use of strategies, as important footsteps to fully process information and make learning tasks easier, necessitates intention and effort on the part of the learner. In this sense, Ellis (1994) notes that if strategies become so automatic that learners are no longer conscious of using them, they will lose their significance as strategies. This reveals that the component of „consciousness‟ is primarily associated with the use of strategies. In the context of reading, Block (1986) admits that strategies “indicate how readers conceive a task, what textual cues they attend to, how they make sense of what they read, and what they do when they do not understand”. In principle, strategies are primarily made use of by learners with a view to constructing a complete understanding of a particular written text. In this regard, strategies do assist readers to undertake their reading task in a successful manner by relating their previously acquired knowledge to the text content and by attempting to predict and infer the sought meaning. Additionally, paraphrasing, and comprehension checking are other strategies that readers employ in an attempt to attain textual understanding. Plausibly, strategies are the mental operations via which readers purposefully cope with the text and make sense of what they read (Barnett, 1988). B. Importance of Strategy Use The use of strategies in reading written texts has proved to be an efficient means of constructing a sufficient understanding of the included content. This view is supported by Huang, et al. (2009) who posit that “the effective use of reading strategies has been recognized as an important way to increase reading comprehension”. Put differently, the development and use of certain strategies can provide EFL learners with a solid basis upon which they approach various kinds of textual discourse (i.e., narrative, expository) and improve their reading performance in an efficient way. Accordingly, the functioning role of strategy use is embodied in facilitating the process of extracting the meaning from the text. Many studies have revealed a close link between strategy use and reading achievement (e.g., Barnett, 1988; Anderson, 1991; He, 2008; Huang et al., 2009; Li, 2010). In effect, the significance of the reading strategy use lies in enabling the learners to deal with a diverse range of written materials with a high degree of efficiency and perfection. In fact, since strategies represent “knowledge of procedures” (Pressley & Harris, 2008) that can be applied to any cognitive undertaking (e.g., text processing), they serve the ultimate purpose of accomplishing an effective comprehension of the textual content. They are deemed a potential medium via which learners can proceed in their reading process with a view to exploring the meaning of words/sentences and paragraphs more successfully. This reveals that the use strategies while tackling written texts of any type (e.g., narrative, expository) can be productive and useful. C. Interactive View of Reading ARDA International Conference The interactive approach involves “an integration and combination of both top-down and bottom-up approaches” (Celce-Murcia & Olshtain, 2000) since the task of textual reading, as a cognitive process, requires readers to rely on two diverse knowledge sources (e.g., background knowledge, textual information). This fact is espoused by Anderson and Pearson (1988) who posit that during the process of reading, the reader is expected either to find a mental „home‟ for the textual information or to alter an existing mental „home‟ in order to understand the new information (p.37). In this sense, reading written texts for attaining comprehension entails that readers match up what they already know with the text content. Thus, the process of depending on what is stated in the text and activating prior knowledge is the main principle upon which the interactive approach is strongly based. C. Interactive View of Reading The interactive approach involves “an integration and combination of both top-down and bottom-up approaches” (Celce-Murcia & Olshtain, 2000) since the task of textual reading, as a cognitive process, requires readers to rely on two diverse knowledge sources (e.g., background knowledge, textual information). This fact is espoused by Anderson and Pearson (1988) who posit that during the process of reading, the reader is expected either to find a mental „home‟ for the textual information or to alter an existing mental „home‟ in order to understand the new information (p.37). In this sense, reading written texts for attaining comprehension entails that readers match up what they already know with the text content. Thus, the process of depending on what is stated in the text and activating prior knowledge is the main principle upon which the interactive approach is strongly based. Research Objectives & Research Questions The current exploratory study has a two-fold purpose. It showcases the impact of text genre on Moroccan English department university learners‟ strategy use during the reading process. It is also intended to reveal the extent to which strategy instruction can impact English department university learners‟ strategy usage with regard to text type (i.e., narrative, expository). Accordingly, the following two research questions are deemed as a baseline for investigating the issue under critical consideration. 1- To what extent does text typology impact the Moroccan English department university learners‟ reading strategy use? 2- To what extent does reading strategy instruction impact Moroccan English department university learners‟ reading strategy use whilst reading narrative and expository texts? ICSSABE-21 10 The Intercorrelation between Text Typology and Strategy Use in Textual Reading among Moroccan English Department University Students III. METHOD A. Participants A sampled 113 Moroccan English department university students took part in the present study. The target EFL learners are at the first-semester level studying at the Faculty of Letters and Human Sciences, Mohammed V- Agdal in Rabat. Indeed, two groups were selected at random. One group consisting of 63 students was assigned to the experimental condition and the other group of 50 students, serving as the control group, received no treatment. B. Procedure Predicated on a pre-post-test design, the current exploratory study involves the administration of pre- and post-tests to the control and treatment groups. At the pre-testing stage, both groups (control & experimental) were pre-tested on narrative and expository written discourse and given a „self-report questionnaire‟. Following this, the control group (50) was exposed to the traditional instruction of reading comprehension without being initiated into any systemic training in strategy application. On the contrary, the treatment group (63) was instructed in basic reading strategies for a semester-long period (Fall Term/ 2012). This was accompanied with a „self-report questionnaire‟ for measuring the learners‟ strategy knowledge and usage throughout the course of text processing (i.e., narrative, expository). The data reported by the target subjects in the „self-report questionnaire‟ were computed through the Excel software Program (version 2007) in an attempt to reveal the frequency of strategy use among both groups (i.e., control, experimental) during the processing of narrative and expository written discourse. The strategic processes reported by the sampled learners were numerically counted. Further, illustrative figures reflecting the attained findings were used. Figure 1. Frequency of predicting use among EFL groups‟ at pre- and post-test levels It is obvious that the strategy of predicting the content of the given written texts (e.g., narrative, expository) was reported to be relied on by a great majority of the participating subjects (i.e., control, experimental). This indicates that, prior to being engaged in the reading text, EFL learners usually formulate a preliminary overview about what is incorporated in the textual input. For instance, most of the subjects relied on predicting as a gateway into text ideas and views with different percentages for the narrative and expository texts at both pre-testing and post-testing. This fact reveals that predicting the text meaning is not genre-specific given its extended use across text type (i.e., narrative, expository) among EFL learners. It is executed by learners in tackling any given textual input (Afflerbach, 1990; Berardo, 2006). B. EFL Learners’ use of inferring in textual reading As was the case with meaning prediction, inferring the meaning of words/sentences whilst coping with written discourse is effected by the learners on a regular basis. This is illustrated in the following figur IV. FINDINGS & DISCUSSION A. EFL Learners’ use of predicting in text reading Upon the examination of the target subjects‟ retrospective insights as to predicting, it can be declared that the overwhelming majority of the EFL participants made use of this technique as an effective means of facilitating their understanding of the text. This is showcased in Figure 1. Figure 2. EFL groups‟ frequent use of inferring at preand post-testing As shown in Figure 2, all the target readers resorted to inferring the meaning of words and sentences. However, this inferential process can be executed in various ways as the primary recurrent moves learners have recourse to in their endeavor to interpret the textual content involves mainly „guessing the meaning from context‟ and „reading ARDA International Conference ICSSABE-21 11 The Intercorrelation between Text Typology and Strategy Use in Textual Reading among Moroccan English Department University Students the whole sentence‟ or „relating the sentences to other ones‟. In fact, both the control and experimental groups had recourse to the inferring strategy while processing the text content (i.e., narrative, expository) at the pre-testing and post-testing levels. Thus, as claimed by many researchers (e.g., Moreillon, 2007; Baretta et al., 2009), the achievement of understanding is closely interrelated with the extent to which the readers can draw accurate inferences from the content of the texts. written texts (narrative & expository) at both the pretesting and post-testing levels. The results are manifested in Figure 4. C. EFL Learners’ Use of visualizing in text reading Visualizing is invariably used by EFL learners in the act of reading. Its use by the groups (control & experimental) was primarily associated with the processing and synthesis of the narrative written texts. This is displayed in figure 3. Figure 4. EFL groups‟ frequent use of paraphrasing at pre- and post-testing Figure 3. EFL groups‟ frequent use of visualizing at preand post-test stages It is evident that most subjects (i.e., control, experimental) did not show heavy dependency on this mental process, namely in reading the expository text. This evinces the extended degree of implementing the visualizing strategy in tackling the narrative written discourse. Most notably, it can be acknowledged that the strategy of visualization was more frequently used by EFL learners in processing the narrative texts since the content of this genre entails the building up of mental images which extensively facilitate the comprehension process in varying ways. The fact that visualizing is bound up with the analysis of the narrative text is in concordance with Denis‟s (1982) claim that “one interesting feature of narrative texts in particular is that they appear to induce visualization in the reader as part of the reading process”. In effect, though paraphrasing was used by the target groups in reading the narrative written discourse, a highly significant number of the learners in both groups did recruit the paraphrasing technique during reading the expository text in a substantive way. This features that by rephrasing some difficult statements and ideas set forth in expository written texts, EFL learners can make the textual content more accessible and easier to digest in an effective manner. This reveals that this strategic step can assist the target learners to interpret the message that the author/writer intends to convey via the text. However, paraphrasing is performed by the learners slightly better in the narrative than expository EFL text since the latter type requires more frequent use of paraphrasing which facilitates the achievement of adequate understanding (e.g., Geva & Reyan, 1985; Zabrucky & Ratner, 1992). E. EFL Learners’ use of rereading Occupying a fundamental part of the textual comprehension procedure during textual analysis, it is apparent that rereading was relied upon by a greater number of the control and treatment EFL groups in an attempt to strengthen their mastery of the assigned texts‟ content. The frequent usage of text reprocessing among the sampled EFL learners is shown in the ensuing Figure. D. EFL Learners’ use of paraphrasing during reading Paraphrasing was basically recruited by the participating EFL learners during the analysis and synthesis of both types of ARDA International Conference ICSSABE-21 12 The Intercorrelation between Text Typology and Strategy Use in Textual Reading among Moroccan English Department University Students processes when reading different kinds of texts. It is of note that the influence of the text type on strategy usage had been consistent throughout the reading strategy intervention. The wide scale of the application of these „genre-specific‟ strategies (i.e., visualizing, paraphrasing, rereading), which involve cognitive and critical thinking on the part of EFL learners, rests on the genre of the text under thorough analysis. Indeed, many researchers (e.g., Francis & Hallam, 2000) maintain that learning in higher education is impacted by many variables such as subject prior knowledge, learning approaches and the ability to deal with text type. This shows that the influence of text genre can be deemed one major factor, among others, in the reading process. Figure 5. EFL groups‟ frequent use of rereading at preand post-testing stages As manifested in Figure 5, the dominant use of rereading is embodied in processing expository texts among both groups along the pre-post-test continuum. One plausible explanation for the EFL learners‟ engagement in somewhat extensive rereading whilst handling the expository texts is that the latter include difficult sentences/ paragraphs. When faced with many difficult sentences, learners opt for re-analyzing the entire paragraph or the text so as to have an overall overview of the core ideational content. Though the narrative written text requires learners to reread the content for the sake of having a clear perspective of what stated, they cope with this genre of text with somewhat greater facility. This view supports Geva and Reyan‟s (1985) claim that the learners experience greater difficulty in discovering the logical relations in the expository texts than the narrative ones. Overall, it seems that text genre has an impact on the sampled EFL students‟ strategic reading behavior throughout the conduct of the comprehension process. In fact, it is manifest that the disparity at the level of strategy use frequency in coping with narrative and expository reading texts is a consistent variable among EFL learners. Given that some strategies (i.e., predicting, inferring) were recruited with roughly similar percentages in text reading, it is fairly observable that other strategies (e.g., visualizing, paraphrasing, text rereading) were used with rather different proportions across the narrative and expository reading texts included in the pre-test and post-test. For instance, the control and treatment subjects depended on the strategy of visualizing in reading the narrative text in an intensive way, whereas in processing the expository written text, the subjects did make use of this strategy with a minimal degree. Also, the use of paraphrasing and rereading appears to be „genre-oriented‟ since recourse to these strategic moves while analyzing the expository written texts at the pre-test and post-test levels was made with a high proportion among both groups. This attested view is in utter concert with some researchers‟ (e.g. Duke, et al., 2011) assertion that readers engage in different ARDA International Conference V. CONCLUSION It can be claimed that the target learners‟ reading strategy use was not uninfluenced by the text genre (narrative & expository) they were exposed to. During the cognitive act of reading, recourse to some strategies was more frequent and higher in reading the narrative text than reading the expository text and vice versa among the target EFL subjects. This shows that differential frequency at the level of strategy use when reading differing text types (e.g., narrative, expository) is a common mode of strategic behavior among EFL learners. This is in concert with previous pertinent research (e.g., Geva & Reyan 1985; Zabrucky & Ratner, 1992; Best et al., 2008; Yoshida, 2012). Indeed, the influence of the component of text type on the use of some strategies (i.e., visualizing, paraphrasing, rereading) did persist from the pre- to the post-test stage. This can be mainly attributed to the nature of text genre which entails the frequent use of some textbased techniques.The implied perspective is that the EFL university learners are to be exposed to differential text types (e.g., narrative, expository) on a frequent basis. This leads them to invoke some „genre-specific‟ strategic moves that aid in the sense-making act. Also, by enabling EFL learners to strategize the content of varying text types (e.g., narrative, expository), along with strategy training, they can have a substantive degree of awareness as to the strategic requirements of each given text type. Hence, it is recommended that a wide range of narrative and expository written texts be assigned to the first-semester English department learners. In brief, granted that the study is undertaken within the context of the Faculty of Letters & Humanities in Rabat, it is of critical import that other higher education institutions be representative case studies in future related research. Further, the postulate that either EFL female or EFL male learners could resort more frequently to some strategic moves while coping with academic texts of narrative and expository sort can be ICSSABE-21 13 The Intercorrelation between Text Typology and Strategy Use in Textual Reading among Moroccan English Department University Students taken into consideration in prospective reading-oriented research. [12] Ellis, R. The Study of Second Language Acquisition. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994. REFERECES [1] Afflerbach, P., “The influence of prior knowledge and text genre onreaders‟ prediction strategies”. Journal of Reading Behaviour, vol. XXII , no. 2, pp.131-148, 1990 [2] Anderson, N., “Individual differences in strategy use in second language reading and testing”. Modern Language Journal, vol.75, no. 4, pp. 460–472, 1991 [3] Anderson, R., C., and Pearson, P., D. A schema-theoretic view of basic processes in reading comprehension. In P. L. Carrell, J. Devine, and D.E. Eskey (Eds.), Interactive Approaches to Second Language Reading (pp. 37-55). New York: Cambridge University Press, 1988 [4] Baretta, L., Tomitch, L. M. B., MacNair, N., Lim, V. K., and Waldie, K. E. “Inference making while reading narrative and expository texts: An ERP study”. Psychology and Neuroscience, vol. 2, no. 2, pp.137-145, 2009 [5] Barnett, M. More than Meets the Eyes: Foreign Language Reading. Englewood Cliffs, N.J: Prentice Hall Regents, 1988 [6] Berardo, S., A. The use of authentic materials in the teaching of reading. The Reading Matrix, vol. 6, no.2,pp. 60-69, 2006 [7] Best, R. M., Floyd, R. G., and McNamara, D. S. “Differential competencies contributing to children‟s comprehension of narrative and expository texts”. Reading Psychology, vol.29,no.2, pp.137-164, 2008 [8] Block, E. “The comprehension strategies of second language readers”. TESOL Quarterly, vol.20, no. 3, pp. 463-494, 1986 [9] Celce-Murcia, M., and Olshtain, E. Discourse and Context in Language Teaching: A Guide for Language Teachers. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000 [10] Denis, M. “Imaging while reading text: A study of individual differences”. Memory and Cognition, vol.10,no.6, pp.540-545, 1982. [11] Duke, N., K., Pearson, P., D., Strachan, S., L., and Billman, A., K. Essential elements of fostering and teaching reading comprehension. In S.J. Samuels & A.E. Farstrup (Eds.), What Research Has to Say about ARDA International Conference Reading Instruction (4th ed., pp.51-93). Newark, DE: The International Reading Association, 2011. [13] Francis, H., and Hallam, S. “Genre effects on higher education students‟ text reading for understanding”. Higher Education, vol.39,no.3, pp.279-296, 2000. [14] Geva, E., and Ryan, E. B. “Use of conjunctions in expository texts by skilled and less skilled readers”. Journal of Reading Behavior, vol.17, no.4, pp. 331346, 1985. [15] Goelman, H.”Selective attention in language comprehension: Children‟s processing of expository and narrative discourse”. Discourse Processes, vol. 5, no.1, pp.53-72, 1982. [16] Goodman, K. “Reading as a psychologistic guessing game”. In H. Singer and R. b. Ruddell. (Eds), Theoretical Models and Processes of Reading. Newark, N.J.: International Reading Association, 1970. [17] He, T. “Reading for different goals: The interplay of EFL college students‟ multiple goals, reading strategy use and reading comprehension”. Journal of Research in Reading, vol.31, no.2, pp.224-242, 2008. [18] Huang, H., C., Chern, C., L., and Lin, C., C. “EFL learners‟ use of online reading strategies and comprehension of texts: An exploratory study”. Computers & Education, vol.52, no. 1, pp.13-26, 2009. [19] Li, F. “A study of English reading strategies used by senior middle school students”. Asian Social Science, vol.6, no.10, pp.184-192, 2010. [20] Moreillon, J. Collaborative Strategies for Teaching Reading Comprehension: Maximizing your Impact. Chicago: American Library Association, 2007. [21] Olshavsky, J., E. “Reading as a problem solving: An investigation of strategies”. Reading Research Quarterly, vol.12, no.4, pp. 654-674, 1976/1977. [22] Pressley, M., and Harris, K., R. (2008). Cognitive strategies instruction: From basic research to classroom instruction. Journal of Education, vol.189, no.1/2, pp.77-94, 2008. ICSSABE-21 14 The Intercorrelation between Text Typology and Strategy Use in Textual Reading among Moroccan English Department University Students [23] Pressley, M., Forrest-Pressley, D., Elliot-Faust, D. L., and Miller, G. E. “Children's use of cognitive strategies, how to teach strategies, and what to do if they can't be taught”. In M. Pressley and C. J. Brainerd (Eds.), Cognitive Learning and Memory in Children (pp.1-47). NY: Springer-Verlag, 1985. [24]Shang, H., F. “Exploring the relationship between EFL proficiency level and reading strategy use”. International Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences, vol.1, no.3, pp.18-27, 2011. [25]Yang, Y. “Reading strategies or comprehension monitoring Strategies?” Reading Psychology, vol.27, no.4, pp. 313-343, 2006. [26]Yoshida, M. The interplay of processing task, text type, and proficiency in L2 reading. Reading in a Foreign Language, vol.24, no.1, pp.1-29, 2012. [27]Zabrucky, K., and Ratner, H. H. Effects of passage type on comprehension monitoring and recall in good and poor readers. Journal of Reading Literacy Research, vol.XXIV, no.3, pp.373-391, 1992. ARDA International Conference ICSSABE-21 15 Social Policy and Social Legislation – A Jurisprudential Interface Prof. (Dr.) Shefali Raizada Amity Law School, Amity University, U.P., India Abstract:- Principle of democracy as governance is for the people by the people and of the people. People are not the recipient of state framed policies and programs. Citizens are not only consumers, choosers or users, but active participants for making and shaping the policies. According to Duguit, “Essence of law is to serve and secure social solidarity, where individual has to perform obligations as a member of the community”. Duguit says that “everyone has to perform his duties to the society which would help to develop cooperation and social solidarity.” Law and society are interrelated and interdependent. Changes in every social component leads to change in various aspects, right from the social institutions, customs, ideologies, human behavior and human interactions. Law is meant for laymen. The welfare of the society &humanity is the sole purpose of Indian constitution. To take care of interests, social security, social solidarity are the main aim of law. Sociological school of thought says that „Law is social phenomenon‟. According to this school essential characteristic of law should be to represent common interaction of men in social group. Treatment towards law should be as instrument of social control and social progress. The role of law and its functioning towards society is the basic philosophy of sociological jurisprudence. Thus social progress is very much regulated by the degree of law. Law is like the steering to lead society in particular direction. Law may be the fulcrum to control society. Balance between law and society will certainly responsible for social progress. Keywords: Democracy, social institutions, social solidarity, law. ARDA International Conference ICSSABE-21 16 To Study the Impact of Mediating Role of the Learning Strategies between the Knowledge Characteristics of a Job and Employee Innovation Process [1] [1][2][3][4] Umar Farooq, [2] Syed Anwer Hasnain, [3] Irfan Ali, [4] Sami Ullah National College of Business Administration and Economics, Lahore, Pakistan Abstract: This study explains conceptual model that elucidates how work based learning strategies are playing mediating role between the knowledge characteristics of a job and employee innovation process. Knowledge characteristics of job are playing role as independent variable and the key component of this variable is problem solving. . The work based learning strategies is mediating variable and the key factor of this variable is cognitive learning strategies. The dependent variable is innovation process. A survey methodology is adapted for this research. Population frame is the software engineers. Simple random sampling technique is used. The questionnaire is used as a research instrument. For analyzing the data, apart from descriptive statistics, the regression analysis is conducted for testing hypotheses. The result shows that problem solving has positive impact on the innovation process during direct relationship. The problem solving also has positive impact on the innovation process through the mediation of cognitive learning strategies. Index Terms— Performance; Learning strategies; Organization. I. INTRODUCTION The research in the domain of Job Design is trying to develop the mechanisms through which knowledge characteristics of a job has positively effect on the output of the employees in the form of innovative behavior, wellbeing and performance. The work based learning strategies has been suggested as one type of mechanism [1]. The knowledge characteristics of a job and work based learning strategies mechanism encourages the employees to learn about the job and enable them to perform effectively and efficiently. The previous studies findings support that the employee outcomes are task performance [2] and wellbeing [3,4] due to the mechanism between the job design and work based learning strategies. This mechanism also helps the employee in the idea generation, promotion and implementation within the organizations [5]. The job design represents the characteristics of the job. Knowledge characteristic of a job is a part of job design. It is important to identify the effect of knowledge characteristics on the innovation process via direct or through mediating role of work based learning strategies. After the identification of this affect, the organizations can improve or promote the employee innovation process by coalescing knowledge characteristics with interference to enhance work based learning strategies. The previous studies support directly the relationship of problem solving [6] and skill variety with the employee learning. The employee learning is ARDA International Conference directly associated with innovation [7]. The results of these studies did not elaborate the mechanism through which job design affect the employee innovation process. This article proposes a mechanism; it explains the knowledge characteristics effect on the innovation through work based learning strategies. The key component of the knowledge characteristics of a job is problem solving. Problem solving engrosses innovating idea, generating idea, solving non routine problems, and preventing from error [8]. The key component of the work based learning strategies is cognitive learning strategy and behavioral learning strategy. The employee uses this learning strategy to get and organize the knowledge [9]. Cognitive learning strategies elaborate the new information in the light of existing information and originate the principal, creating scheme and key issues. The employee innovation process consists of three different categories. First is idea generation, the concept of idea generation is similar with the concept of creativity. The idea generation in the innovation process should reflect newness and originality. The next in innovation process is idea promotion. This stage proposes the new ideas to employees and organization and getting the support of the idea. The final stage of the innovation process is idea implementation. In this stage new ideas are amalgamated within the organizational process (Figure 1). ICSSABE-21 17 To Study the Impact of Mediating Role of the Learning Strategies between the Knowledge Characteristics of a Job and Employee Innovation Process. Theory and Hypotheses Development The problem solving effect on cognitive learning strategies and innovation Knowledge characteristics are the part of job design. The first part of conceptual model explains the relationship between the knowledge characteristics and work based learning strategies. This model proposes that problem solving will recognize the use of cognitive work based learning strategies. The problems are obstacles for employees to attain goals and task performance. Due to this, the employees deploy the different skills and problem solving techniques through work based learning strategies. The work based learning strategies did not provide surety of the solution of problem. Problem solving is commonly regarded as most significant cognitive activity in the professional context. The familiar educational settings are required for learning to solve the problems [10]. The employees learn from the past precedence’s, events, situations and happenings when an employee’s identify similarities of the current problem with the previous ones. The old problem gives the solution pattern of the new problem. This sort of solution guides the individual’s to creativity [11]. Psychological theory. explains that problem solving leads to students for gaining knowledge and learns about thinking strategies. The learning due to the problem solving assists the students for developing learning strategies. The problem solving inventing theory explains knowledge base, practical methodology, technology according to model and tool sets for problem solving and developing new ideas. This theory consists of first, specific problems convert into general problem, second is finding the typical solution of general problems and third is get the solution of specific problem from converting the typical solution into specific solution [12]. This theory examines the challenges about the problems where innovation is needed. This theory applied in different categories of industries, including process development [13,14], eco-innovation [15], and service innovation (Table 1) [16] H1: Problem solving has positive impact on the Innovation ARDA International Conference The cognitive learning strategies effect on innovation The learning strategies encourage knowledge acquisition for job context and task. The cognitive learning strategies assume dual procedure models of cognition. One is Intentional mode and second is analytical mode of cognition. These modes motivate to learn the new rules, facts and knowledge of organization [17,18]. Cognitive work based learning strategies is considered as example of premeditated and intentional approaches of thoughts in which effort and time deliberately spent on topic. The cognitive work based learning strategies encourage the employees to knowledge acquisition and elaborate new information by investigating the implications of novel information from the existing knowledge. The consequences of cognitive work based learning strategies on knowledge gaining have considered in the circumstances of everyday work. Knowledge acquisition in workplace setting and training has been linked with experimental application strategies [19]. The theoretical and experimental evidence proposes that cognitive work based learning strategies endorse the knowledge acquisition or gaining. It is suggested that knowledge acquisition through work based learning strategies develops potential to generate and create novel and useful ideas [20]. Many theoretical perceptions encourage this idea. Amabile’s [21] componential theory explains knowledge acquisition is a fundamental element to develop new ideas and increase potential of peoples or employees to amalgamate information for generating new different ways. The potential of the peoples or employees intensify by organized knowledge according to common principles comparatively unrelated information [22]. An insinuation from cognitive load theory explains that the enhancement in knowledge helps to decrease the burden on working memory when present situation demonstrated as problem solving and learning. This theory can be applied to relevant cognitive activities, such as find solution of problem or create a new idea [23]. Both theories suggest that the relevant domain knowledge Table 1: Model summary. acquisition has positive relationship between the creativity. The results of empirical studies show that expert employees (higher level of knowledge) are more innovative and create new ideas than employees who have less knowledge [24]. The researcher argued in this study ICSSABE-21 18 To Study the Impact of Mediating Role of the Learning Strategies between the Knowledge Characteristics of a Job and Employee Innovation Process. that job characteristics manipulate cognitive work based learning strategies. The cognitive work based learning strategies effect on the innovation process. The job design has effect on the innovation. Pervious results of empirical studies show that the job design has relation with task performance. The skill utilization plays a mediating role between the relationship of job design and well-being of employees. H2: Problem solving has positive impact on the Innovation through mediation role of cognitive learning strategies. Research Methodology The research approach is quantitative. Quantitative research is essential about collecting numerical data to explain a particular phenomenon. A survey methodology is adapted for this research. Population frame is the software engineers. Simple random sampling technique is used and unit of analysis is individual. The sample size is calculated with the help of statistical formula. The data for this research will be gathered using a questionnaire. For analyzing the data, apart from descriptive statistics, the traditional statistic for testing hypotheses will be used. Measures The developed scale of Barkman and Machtmes [25] is used to measure the problem solving. The total items of the scale are 24. The response point of scale consists of five points used (1=Never, 5=Always). The developed scale of Holman et al. [26] is used to measure the Cognitive learning strategies. The total items of the scale are 8. The response point of scale consists of five points used (1=Not a lot, 5=A great deal). The developed scale of Holman et al. is used to measure the Innovation. The total items of the scale are 9. The response point of scale consists of five points used (1=Not a lot, 5=A great deal). Demographic statistics In the gender statistics it can be observed that both male and female participated as respondents. Male and female respondents are 49 and 11 out of total 60 valid responses i.e. 81.7% and 18.3% respectively. The reflection of male dominance is visible from the statistics. Both married and single respondents participated in the survey. Married and single respondents are 12 and 48 out of total 60 valid responses i.e. 20% and 80% respectively. The reflection of single dominance is visible from the statistics. The respondent’s age divided in the four groups; first group falls between the 21-30 years old, the second group falls between the 31-40 years old, the third group falls between the 41-50 years old and lastly greater than 50 years old. The age of 50 respondents fall between the 21-30 years old which is 83.3% of the total respondents. The age of 7 respondents fall between the 31-40 years old which is11.7% of total respondents. The age of 3 respondents fall ARDA International Conference between the 31-40 years old which is 5% of total respondents. The result shows that majority of respondent’s falls in 21-30 years old group. The respondent’s qualification divided in the two groups; first group has 16 years education and second group has above 16 years education. The 39 respondents have 16 years education which is 65% of the total respondents. The 21 respondents have above 16 years education which is 35% of total respondents. The majority of respondents have 16 years education. The respondents were categorized into five categories on the basis of salary. First category was less than 20, second category is 21-40, third was 41-60, fourth was 61-80 and 81-100 thousands rupees salary of respondents. The majority of respondents get less than 20 thousand salaries. This survey envisaged on a sample of people having different length of experiences. It was important to analyze the data from view point of experience of respondents. The majority of respondents have up to five years’ experience. Testing assumptions of regression The regression analysis is based on specific assumptions. The assumptions of regression are linearity, multi colinearity, normality and homoscedasticity. The assumption of normality examined through the graphical technique by histogram. The assumptions of linearity and homoscedasticity examined through scatter plots diagram. The assumption of the multi co-linearity examined through the correlation matrix. Regression analysis The purpose of regression analysis is to check the relationship between the independent variables with dependent variable. In the regression analysis examined the individual impact of the independent variable on the dependent variable, quality of the goodness of the model, significance of the model and strength of the relationship between the independent variables and dependent variable. • The R²=0.25 of model 1 indicates that the problem solving predictor explains 25% variance in Innovation. • The R²=0.305 of model 2 indicates that the problem solving predictor explains 30.5% variance in Innovation. • The p<0.05 shows that at least one variable plays significant role in the both model. The p value for PS<0.05 which shows significant relationship between PS and IN and is interpretable. It means significant positive relationship exists between PS and IN (β=0.428, p<0.05) showing IN will increase by ICSSABE-21 19 To Study the Impact of Mediating Role of the Learning Strategies between the Knowledge Characteristics of a Job and Employee Innovation Process. 0.428 units for every one unit increase in PS, keeping all other predictors constant in model 1. The p value for PS<0.05 which shows significant relationship between PS and IN and is interpretable. It means significant positive relationship exists between PS and IN (β=0.359, p<0.05) showing IN will increase by 0.359 units for every one unit increase in PS, keeping all other predictors constant in model 2. The p value for CLS<0.05 which shows significant relationship between CLS and IN and is interpretable. It means significant positive relationship exists between PS and IN (β=0.223, p<0.05) showing IN will increase by 0.223 units for every one unit increase in PS, keeping all other predictors constant in model 2 (Tables 2 and 3). 1. Parker SK, Wall TD, Cordery JL (2001) Future work design research and practice: Towards an elaborated model of work design. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology 74: 413-440. II. CONCLUSION 4. Taris TW, Kompier MAJ, De Lange AH, Schaufeli WB, Schreurs PJG (2003) Learning new behavior patterns: A longitudinal test of Karasek’s active learning hypothesis among Dutch teachers. Work and Stress 17: 1-20. This research tested a conceptual model of the knowledge characteristics (problem solving) learning mechanism (cognitive learning strategies) in relation to innovation. The result shows that problem solving has positive impact on the innovation process during direct relationship. The problem solving also has positive impact on the innovation process through the mediation of cognitive learning 2. Wall TD, Jackson PR, Davids K (1992) Operator work design and robotics system behavior: A serendipitous field study. Journal of Applied Psychology 77:-. Holman DJ, Wall TD (2002) Work characteristics, learning-related outcomes, and strain: a test of competing direct effects, mediated, and moderated models. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology 7: 283-301. 5. Rank J (2004) Three Avenues for Future Research on Creativity, Innovation, and Initiative. Applied Psychology 41:-. Hmelo-Silver CE (2004) Problem-Based Learning: What and how do Students Learn. Educational Psychology Review 16:-. Janssen O (2000) Job Demands, Perceptions of EffortReward Fairness and Innovative Work Behaviour. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology 73: 287-302. Table 2: ANOVAc 8. Morgeson FP, Humphrey SE (2006) The Work Design Questionnaire (WDQ): Developing and validating a comprehensive measure for assessing job design and the nature of work. Journal of Applied Psychology 91:-. Table 3: Coefficientsa. strategies. This model confirms the mediating relationship of cognitive learning strategies between the problem solving and innovation. This conceptual model can guide future research in this particular area, which could focus on the wider set of variables related to the knowledge characteristics for improving innovation in organization. REFERENCES ARDA International Conference 9. Holman D, Epitropaki O, Fernie S (2001) Understanding learning strategies in the workplace: A factor analytic investigation. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology 74:-. Janssen O, Van Yperen NW (2004) Employees’ goal orientations, the quality of leader-member exchange, and the outcomes of job performance and job satisfaction. Academy of Management Journal 47:-. Hargadon AB, Bechky B (2006) When collections of creatives become creative collectives: A field study of ICSSABE-21 20 To Study the Impact of Mediating Role of the Learning Strategies between the Knowledge Characteristics of a Job and Employee Innovation Process. problem solving at work. Organization Science 17:-. Wang CH (2015) Using the theory of inventive problem solving to brainstorminnovative ideas for assessing varieties of phone-cameras. Computers and Industrial Engineering 85:-. Sheu DD, Hou CT (2013) TRIZ-based trimming for process-machine improvements: Slit-valve innovative redesign. Computers and Industrial Engineering 66:-. Yeh CH, Huang JCY, Yu CK (2011) Integration of four-phase QFD and TRIZ in product R&D: A notebook case study. Research in Engineering Design 22:-. Chai K, Zhang J, Tan K (2005) A TRIZ-Based Method for New Service Design. Journal of Service Research 8: 48-66. 23. Renkl A, Atkinson RK (2003) Structuring the transition from example study to problem solving in cognitive skill acquisition: A cognitive load perspective. Educational Psychologist 38: 15-22. 24. Christiaans H, Venselaar K (2005) Creativity in design engineering and the role of knowledge: Modelling the expert. International Journal of Technology and Design Education 15:-. Barkman S, Machtmes K (2002) Four-fold: A research model for designing and evaluating the impact of youth development programs. News and Views 4: 46. 26. Holman D, Totterdell P, Axtell C, Stride C, Port R, et al. (2012) Job Design and the Employee Innovation Process: The Mediating Role of Learning Strategies. Journal of Business and Psychology 27: 177-191. 16. Su CT, Lin CS (2008) A case study on the application of Fuzzy QFD in TRIZ for service quality improvement. Quality & Quantity 42:-. Craik FIM (2002) Levels of processing: Past, present and future? Memory 10:-. Smith ER, DeCoster J (2000) Dual-process model in social and cognitive psychology: Conceptual integration and links to underlying memory system. Personality and Social Psychology Review 4:-. Sonnentag S, Kleine B (2000) Deliberate practice at work: A study with insurance agents. Journal of Occupational and organisational psychology 73:-. Zhang F, Yang M, Liu W (2014) Using integrated quality function deployment and theory of innovation problem solving approach for ergonomic product design. Computers and Industrial Engineering 76: 6074. 21. Amabile TM (1983) The social psychology of creativity: A componential conceptualization. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 45:-. Amabile TM (1988) A model of creativity and innovation in organizations. In: Staw BM, Cummins LL (eds.) Research in organizational behavior. Greenwich, CT: JAI Press, Vol. 10, pp: 123-167. ARDA International Conference ICSSABE-21 21 An Analysis of Gobi Corporations Marketing Strategy And It’s Consumer Perceptions [1] Oyuntuguldur Gan-Unur, [2] Munkhzaya Narantsetseg, [3] Oyuntulkhuur Tumenjargal, [4] Delgertsetseg Davaadorj, [5] Narantsatsral Gankhuyag [1][2][3][4][5] Da Yeh University, International Business Management and Business Administration Department Abstract: Every war and every competition have their own strategies. If you cannot define your suitable strategy, you will be listed one of the unsuccessful company. Therefore, every company needs to define good marketing strategy. Our research findings indicate that Gobi corporations’ marketing strategy. The Gobi corporation is one of the top cashmere producing company in Mongolia. We collected 311 participations from Mongolian consumers and analyzed by competitive marketing strategy. Index Terms—Marketing strategy, SWOT, PEST, product life cycle 1.1. Background of Important Factors, Affecting Mongolian Cashmere Sector I. INTRODUCTION Mongolia, is the last land of the nomads which live in the traditional house, wearing natural processing clothes and eating bio natural foods. Our country almost 2000 years has been part of the human history. Therefore, our ancestors were wearing badge, cashmeres and other leather clothes. Thenceforth every famous historian said that Mongolian cashmere processing history has begun 2000 years before. In our paper to introduce Mongolian cashmere products marketing situation. The marketing is the newest thing of our market. Because, Mongolian People’s Republic was eventually moved to democratic present Mongolia in the 1990 and wrote new constitution. Since this revolution, market economy was reformed and transited to free market from centrally planned economy by slowly. Cashmere wool is the main domestic product of Mongolia. But only one company can successfully enter in the Global market, because the Mongolian business marketing has been developing only for past 2 decades. Recently, marketing tools of Mongolian companies are rapidly developing. Many of them are still using traditional marketing tools such as Advertising and Promotion. But most companies cannot control the whole market. Only Advertising cannot help a brand to become famous. Each brand has its own image and personality. Also, this paper divided by three parts. First part that introducing Mongolian cashmere market situation and Mongolian cashmere markets history. Second part presenting that some required literatures. Last part presenting that results of consumer survey, SWOT, PEST of Mongolian cashmere sector and defining some Marketing strategies. ARDA International Conference Service quality Mongolian cashmere market service is unsatisfied now. See graph 1 below. In 2017, We researched 311 customer’s satisfaction of cashmere sector service quality. The results of the research are shown as Graph 1 below. Product price Cashmere products are special products made from 100% natural raw materials. That is why, cashmere products always have been highly priced. In the Mongolian cashmere sector, their price wouldn’t be medium or low for Mongolian people. Medium price is 300 000 – 800 000 MNT (about 3000 - 10.000 NTD) (Mongolian marketing consulting group Cashmere sector survey, 2015). Mongolian average wage of Mongolian citizens is 700 000 – 880 000 MNT (NTD 9800 – 11,000) for women and- MNT (13,000 NTD) for men (Office, 2016). The cashmere product price is half of an average wage of Mongolian ICSSABE-21 22 An Analysis of Gobi Corporations Marketing Strategy And It’s Consumer Perceptions customers. Though Mongolia has 60 million livestock, camels and goats make only a half of it; so, cashmere products cannot sell for the fair price to customers. Because of the high prices, Mongolian companies cannot become global companies. Product Quality Mongolian cashmere product quality is excellent. The report of the Mongolian domestic product customer satisfaction research (Group, 2015) published in 2015, showed the Mongolian cashmere product Hight quality. 90% of the customers, who bought the Gobi LLC products were highly satisfied with them (Group, 2015). 1.1. Company Situation Competitors In the Mongolian cashmere sector, 7 big manufactures are producing (Industry, 2015). The GOBI Corporation is one of the best and biggest share of a cashmere sector. Its biggest competitor is the GOYO Corporation that also produces cashmere products. In 2016, GOBI LLC market share was 66%, and the GOYO LLC market share was 13%. But it is on the international market. On the local market, the GOBI Corporation market share constituted 38% and the GOYO Corporation market share was 30% of the local market place (Gobi, 2016) Suppliers of the Gobi Corporation The main supplier of the company is 500 thousand of Mongolian herders. Goats now comprise almost half of Mongolia’s total livestock population, and the population explosion has caused environmental stress, evidenced by overgrazing, pastureland degradation and desertification. At the same time, volatile international cashmere prices have pushed many herders to keep larger flocks as a hedge against falling prices. Last year, prices dropped 29 percent to 50,000 tugriks (about $37) per kilo (Industry, 2015). Company Target Market The cashmere is one of the high-end product of the world. The GOBI company is targeting to heighten the revenue of Mongolian people and their life-cycle, like in Europe (Group M. M., 2016). Company Segmentation Many Gobi Corporation branch stores are in Zaisan, where businessmen, popular singers, top models, politicians, CEO’s live, and the main street of Ulaanbaatar (capital city of Mongolia). It is segmenting high value customers (Group M. M., 2016) Product Prices Below, the price scale of the GOBI corporation products is presented. GOBI’s average price is focusing on high revenue customers of the Mongolian market (Group M. M., 2016). ARDA International Conference № 1 2 3 4 5 6 Male Female Children Accessors Sweaters (1870ntd3800ntd) Pants (1500ntd4500ntd) Overcoats /(5000ntd14000ntd) Hats and scarfs (800ntd1500ntd) Socks (100ntd500ntd) Gloves (100ntd500 ntd) Sweaters (1500ntd3500ntd) Sweaters -ntd) Pants - ntd) Pants - ntd) Skirts -ntd) Hats and scarfs -ntd) Scarfs -ntd) Bags -ntd) Overcoats -ntd) Socks (100ntd500ntd) Gloves (100ntd-500 ntd) Socks (100ntd500ntd) Gloves (100ntd500 ntd) Socks (100ntd500ntd) Gloves (100ntd500 ntd) Table 1. The Gobi Corporation Products’ Price List II. LITERATURES Many industries contain one firm that is the acknowledged market leader. This firm has the largest market share in the relevant product market. It usually leads the other firms in price changes, new-product introductions, distribution coverage, and promotional intensity. Choosing a specific attack strategy The challenger must go beyond the five broad strategies and develop more specific strategies (Porter): • Price discount: The challenger can offer a comparable product at a lower price. This is the strategy of discount retailers. Three conditions must be fulfilled. First, the challenger must convince buyers that its product and service are comparable to the leader’s. Second, buyers must be price-sensitive. Third, the market leader must refuse to cut its price in spite of the competitor’s attack. • Cheaper goods: The challenger can offer an average- or low-quality product at a much lower price. Little Debbie snack cakes are lower in quality than Drake’s but sell at less than half the price. Firms that establish themselves through this strategy, however, can be attacked by firms whose prices are even lower. • Prestige goods: A market challenger can launch a higher-quality product and charge a higher price than the leader. Mercedes gained on Cadillac in the U.S. market by offering a car of higher quality at a higher price. ICSSABE-21 23 An Analysis of Gobi Corporations Marketing Strategy And It’s Consumer Perceptions • Product proliferation: The challenger can attack the leader by launching a larger product variety, thus giving buyers more choice. Baskin-Robbins achieved its growth in the ice cream business by promoting more flavors-31-than its larger competitors. • Product innovation: The challenger can pursue product innovation. 3M typically enters new markets by introducing a product improvement or breakthrough. • Improved services: The challenger can offer new or better services to customers. Avis’s famous attack on Hertz, “We’re only second. We try harder,” was based on promising and delivering cleaner cars and faster service than Hertz. • Distribution innovation: A challenger might develop a new channel of distribution. Avon became a major cosmetics company by perfecting door-to-door selling instead of battling other cosmetic firms in conventional stores. • Manufacturing cost reduction: The challenger might achieve lower manufacturing costs than its competitors through more efficient purchasing, lower labor costs, and/or more modern production equipment. • Intensive advertising promotion: Some challengers attack the leader by increasing expenditures on advertising and promotion. A challenger rarely improves its market share by relying on only one strategy. Its success depends on combining several strategies to improve its position over time. Product life cycles Most product life cycles are portrayed as bell-shaped curves, typically divided into four stages: introduction, growth, maturity and decline (Kotler, 2000) Marketing strategies: Growth stage The growth stage is market by a rapid climb in sales. Early adopters like the product, and additional consumers start buying it. New competitors enter, attracted by the opportunities. They introduce new product features and expand distribution. Prices stabilize or fall slightly, depending on how fast demand increases (Bartels, 1965). Companies maintain marketing expenditures or raise them ARDA International Conference slightly to meet competition and continue to educate the market. Sales rise much faster than marketing expenditures, causing a welcome decline in the marketing-to-sales ratio. Profits increase as marketing costs are spread over a larger volume, and unit manufacturing costs fall faster than price declines, owing to the producer-learning effect. Firms must watch for a change to a decelerating rate of growth in order to prepare new strategies (Cravens, 19991). To sustain rapid market share growth now, the firm: • Improves product quality and adds new features and improved styling • Adds new models and flanker products (of different sizes, flavors, and so forth) to protect the main product • Enters new market segments • Increases its distribution coverage and enters new distribution channels • Shifts from awareness and trial communications to preference and loyalty communications • Lowers prices to attract the next layer of price-sensitive buyers Marketing strategies: Maturity stage At some point, the rate of sales growth will slow, and the product will enter a stage of relative maturity. Most products are in this stage of the life cycle, which normally lasts longer than the preceding ones (Kotler, 2000). The maturity stage divides into three phases: growth, stable, and decaying maturity. In the first, sales growth starts to slow. There are no new distribution channels to fill. New competitive forces emerge. In the second phase, sales per capita flatten because of market saturation. Most potential consumers have tried the product and, future sales depend on population growth and replacement demand. In the third phase, decaying maturity, the absolute level of sales starts to decline, and customers begin switching to other products (Kotler, 2000). Marketing strategies: Decline stage Sales decline for a number of reasons, including technological advances, shifts in consumer tastes, and increased domestic and foreign competition. All can lead to overcapacity, increased price cutting, and profit erosion. The decline might be slow, as for sewing machines and newspapers, or rapid, as it was for 5.25 floppy disks and eight-track cartridges. Sales may plunge to zero or petrify at a low level. These structural changes are different from a short-term decline resulting from a marketing crisis of some sort. “Marketing memo: Managing a marketing crisis” describes for a brand in temporary trouble. As sales and profits decline, some firms withdraw. Those remaining may reduce the number of products they offer, exiting smaller segments and weaker trade channels, cutting marketing budgets, and reducing prices further. Unless strong reasons ICSSABE-21 24 An Analysis of Gobi Corporations Marketing Strategy And It’s Consumer Perceptions for retention exist, carrying a weak product is often very costly. III. METHODOLOGY This research designed by core marketing concepts. Specially we defined companies market environment as SWOT and PEST, and defined marketing strategy by their product life cycle. Research questions 1) What is the Gobi’s main strategy? 2) What is the Gobi’s position on product life cycle? 3) Who are the Gobi LLC consumers? 4) Where do they use cashmere products? Hypotheses In our research has 2 main analysis. First one is aims to describe Gobi’s marketing strategy using by SWOT, PEST and Competitive marketing strategies theory, second analyze is to find their consumer perception of Gobi’s brand image. It gives two big information that Gobi’s marketing strategy and Brand image. However, marketing strategy is being our big part of the paper. A company’s positioning and differentiation strategy must change as its product, market, and competitors change over the product life cycle. To say a product has a life cycle is to assert four things: 1. Product have a limited life. 2. Product sales pass through distinct stage, each posing different challenges, opportunities, and problems to the seller. 3. Profits rise and fall at different stages of the product life cycle. 4. Products require different marketing, financial, manufacturing, purchasing, and human resource strategies in each life-cycle stage. Most product life cycle are portrayed as bell-shaped curves, typically divided into four stages: Introduction, Growth, Maturity and Decline 1. Introduction – A period of slow sales growth as the product is introduced in the market. Profits are nonexistent because of the heavy expenses of product introduction. 2. Growth – A period of rapid market acceptance and substantial profit improvement. 3. Maturity – A slowdown in sales growth because the product has achieved acceptance by most potential buyers. Profits stabilize or decline because of increased competitions. 4. Decline – Sales show a downward drift and profits erode. However, we created following hypotheses from last chapter of literature review H1: The Gobi’s product life cycle is locating on growth stage. Therefore, Gobi is may need to be use Competitive marketing strategies. ARDA International Conference H2: The Gobi’s product life cycle is locating on maturity stage. Therefore, Gobi is may need to be use Market modification or Product modification. H3: The Gobi’s product life cycle is locating decline stage. Therefore, Gobi is may use to be Eliminate weak products and Harvesting and Divesting IV. RESULTS AND ANALYSIS 4.1. SWOT analysis Strength Main strength of Gobi Cashmere and wool product, it is made out of 100% natural raw textile. 80 % of the Gobi Kashmir is considered patronage good ness Cashmere with 16.5 micrometer and 35-37 mm duration. Compared to Cashmere of other companies which supplies most of world’s cashmere, Gobi cashmere is slightly midst, however, longer. This is briny senior high caliber of Mongolic cashmere. • No negative affect to human sound box, 100% natural • Senior high quality and durable • Good design and colorful, can change design according to client’s request • Relatively cheaper than similar products in the world market • Wool, cashmere and knitted products have /GSP+/ preferential terms of tax in the EU. • Gobi company’s equipment and technology to produce cashmere products reached world standard • Can offer discounts to large orders • Have representative offices and sales agents abroad and through them doings promotional campaigns. • Pays good attention on grooming. Weakness Gobi produces the commodities according to counterfeit of trade and this minimizes risks. In plebe way, unfavorable stand point of this control is become absent-minded Gobi equipment their trade to intermediaries for utterly cheap price. Mongolian funds are very up to snuff to wintry germaneto and assets command up wool read someone the riot act is durable and can easily be refreshed. • Carpet and carpet products are not competitive in the world market in terms of color, quality. These products have many stitches. • Knitted products do not enjoy preferential tax terms of EU. • After-sales services are not good. • Dependent on cashmere and wool yarns • High production cost • Does not put forward plan and goals • Equipment and machineries of the carpet factories are lagging behind world standards • Quality of raw materials is inconsistent. ICSSABE-21 25 An Analysis of Gobi Corporations Marketing Strategy And It’s Consumer Perceptions • Lacks systematic information about target market • Financially, it is difficult to conduct survey and analysis of the foreign markets • Few sales channels • Transportation cost of products that are transported across land is high and transit transport tax is high. Opportunities World over, consumers are abnegation actinic articles and adopt to blot ecologically authentic products. This is abundant befalling for not alone cashmere and woolen articles but as well for accomplished Mongolia. Use of “natural” products, abnormally cashmere articles tend to access in boiling and algid North America and Western European countries. Through conception of new sales channels in adopted markets, it is accessible to access sales. In apple market, consumers adopt cashmere affection and cloths over cashmere knitted products. Cashmere cottons are produced out of aphotic cashmere. About 60% of the cashmere able by Gobi is dark. Gobi JSC was awarded allembracing accepted affidavit for its articles in 1996 and this shows that is it absolutely accessible to get acceptance in this area for Mongolian products. World demand for natural products is increasing. • Markets of Western European and Scandinavian countries for wool, cashmere products can be expanded due to their climate, living standards etc. • Can open new sales channels and expand existing sales channels. • Interest to use cashmere products and cashmere cotton products are increasing in the world market. Threats Natural disasters could cause curtailment of raw abstracts and advance of assorted livestock beastly ache and can bind consign of articles originated from animals. Herdsmen are growing herds of goats added due to accumulation and assets of cashmere. They pay added absorption to the weight of cashmere and these approaches access abnormally in the cashmere quality. Quality of raw materials is deteriorating every year. • Herd composition is lost. • Price hike of raw materials and supplies • Customs tax and Transit transport tax of Russian federation is high • Far from major carpet markets 4.2. PEST Analysis Political environment: Politics of Mongolia takes place in a framework of a semi-presidential representative democratic republic, and of a multi-party system. Executive power is exercised by the government. Legislative power is vested in both the government and parliament. The United States values Mongolia's contribution to stability in a volatile part of the world, as well as its positive example in promoting ARDA International Conference economic reform and democracy. Mongolia stands well across several governance indicators. The Economist political stability index suggests that Mongolia fares above average in the world. The cashmere industry has less threat to the political sector. As the industry is making the most out of it, the political noises are not getting into it. Economic Environment: World cashmere market can be generally divided into raw cashmere and finished cashmere product segments. In the world market of raw cashmere, the main players are China supplying about 67% (10.000 tons) and Mongolia with about 21% (3.000 tons), and countries such as Iran, Afghanistan etc. supply about 12% of the annual output (SECO Sector Consulting). Size of micron and color of Chinese cashmere is far the best, which is one of the biggest strengths of Chinese industry; however the length of fiber in Mongolian cashmere is longer and considered to be most suitable for spinning. Social environment: The majority of the population in Mongolia follows Tibetan Buddhism as their religion, and the majority of the state's citizens are of Mongol ethnicity, although Kazakhs, Tuvans, and other minorities also live in the country, especially in the west. As many of the people are related with the cashmere industry, so the social environment is in a good condition. The employees are interrelated and know each other. The gradual international involvement is also appreciable in making social contacts. Gobi has completely changed the management board with all intelligent people and successfully turned around the whole company since 2008. Currently Gobi’s P/E ratio is 13%, and it’s the best time to invest. As a suggestion, don’t pay attention to the past performance, but pay attention to who takes over the company and pay attention to the management team. Gobi Corporation strives to do environmental friendly practices in our operations and will promote care for societies and environment as a whole. Technological Environment: In Mongolia, it is obvious that scientific and technological activities need to be changed with other sectors in order develop them in front of other countries. Although Mongolia has a comparatively strong science and technology base, including human resources and institutions, its scientific capacity is largely centralized in the capital. In addition, as the economic transition progresses to a more advanced stage, such resources are in danger of being underutilized, dissipated or even lost. 4.3. Product Life cycle We analyzed that Gobi’s sales income. The cashmere product is seasonally using product. Therefore, Gobi’s sales ICSSABE-21 26 An Analysis of Gobi Corporations Marketing Strategy And It’s Consumer Perceptions is decreasing from 5 to 9th month of each years. But look at the graph below. Gobi's Sales Graph- 2 3 2014 4 5 2015 6 7 8 2016 9 10 11 12 2017 In 2017, Gobi is introducing new collection and enter the Global market such as China and Russia. The sales revenue is constantly increasing. The Gobi’s new collection is locating on the Growth market stage and they need to be use competitive marketing strategies. V. RECOMMENDATIONS AND CONCLUSIONS 5.1. Recommendations Ecological balance is a worldwide pressing issue and there are approaches to decrease production and consumption of chemical products. This tendency contains great opportunities of the development for woolen and cashmere garments of Mongolia. It is necessary to open the door to utilize these opportunities. At that time wool and cashmere processing sector which will be an export face and Mongolia can be internationally recognized and can prosper and develop. But besides this issue, overgrazing of pastureland and desertification have been pressing and difficult issues for Mongolia. Particularly, herds of goats, source of the world-famous qualified cashmere are one of the main factors of desertification. Therefore, the state needs to pay special attention to how to increase the proper ratio of herd structure, numbers of livestock and yield. There have following complications in the export activities of the wool and cashmere processing industries. 1. Yield of livestock animal husbandry and quality of herd structure of Mongolia have been deteriorating. Micron of the world-famous cashmere of Mongolia has been widening and its length has been shorter, content of fleece has increased, and cashmere quality has been worsening. 2. Domestic wool and cashmere processing industries work on the raw material preparation mobilizing all the power every year, but they have been losing raw materials to Chinese procurers. To collect raw materials is really a ARDA International Conference difficult and complicated issue for domestic industries competing with Chinese procurers who take special concession and support from their Government. 3. It is more difficult to get familiar and expand the foreign market, and find clients and partners in the foreign market. Lack of financing, human resources of Mongolian small factories is the root cause of this. 4. Transportation issue is very problematic for producers. Cashmere products are light, unit price is more expensive and so the products are transported by air cargo. Size of woolen products is bigger, and these ones are comparatively cheaper and so it is possible to transport them overland and waterway. Therefore, transportation cost of woolen products is higher and in addition, customs tax and transit transportation cost of the Russian Federation are higher. Due to these reasons the opportunities to deliver products to the main markets of European Union and sell products in the market rate are very restricted. From Government of Mongolia: It is impossible that just an organization or industry solves above mentioned complicated issues and all the counterparts of the market should cooperate to solve these problems and the government should implement definite policy on it. In order to solve all these complicated issues there are needs of support and assistance as follows: 1. There are needs to determine state policy on protecting of yield of livestock, herd structure under the state protection of Mongolia and conduct activities to achieve the definite effects. Particularly, it includes maintaining number of goats, tax and incentives, geographical issue, producing of new products and felt made heat-isolating materials. 2. To render assistance to create the procurement system of raw materials. To control the quality, improve and develop kinds of raw materials through price policy. 3. It is necessary to make negotiation to decrease customs tax of the Russian Federation and People’s Republic of China and transit transportation tax. In this way it is possible that our woolen and cashmere garments are valued in the market price in the market of Western Europe. 4. To improve domestic and foreign control of the industries, pay tax as less as possible in cooperation with foreign investors and partners, find activities to eliminate negative things including undervalue employees and raw material suppliers. VI. CONCLUSION Gobi has completely changed the management board with all intelligent people and successfully turned around the whole company since 2008. Currently Gobi’s P/E ratio is 13%, and it’s the best time to invest. As a suggestion, don’t ICSSABE-21 27 An Analysis of Gobi Corporations Marketing Strategy And It’s Consumer Perceptions pay attention to the past performance, but pay attention to who takes over the company and pay attention to the management team. Gobi, already a part of Mongolian culture, has always been synonymous with quality and elegance. Established in 1981 by the Mongolian government, we are the first Mongolian luxury knitwear brand to break into European, Japanese and the US market during the last century. Since then Gobi has been consistently earning more recognition in luxury knitwear and fashion industry than ever before. After almost 30 years as a government owned company Gobi started a fresh chapter in July 2007. Its government owned stocks were sold and started operating under private owners. A new campaign was set out, with a vision dedicated to introducing the brand on new grounds and to continue the tradition of innovation, authenticity and glamour. Our manufacturing methods based on latest technologies and our continuously inspiring quality and design give us an edge over the competition. Under the same campaign the Gobi Corporation will keep leading the way in luxury knitwear industry and inspire many competitors to improvement. 15. Lynn, Robert A., and John M. Thies. "Marketing Strategy and Execution." In Dartnell Marketing Manager's Handbook, edited by Stewart Henderson Britt and Norman F. Guess. Dartnell Corp., 1984. 16. McCarthy, E. Jerome, and William D. Perreault Jr. Basic Marketing. 13th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill College Div., 1998. 17. Schnaars, Steven P. Marketing Strategy: A CustomerDriven Approach. Reference ed. New York: Free Press, 1995. 18. Walker, Orville C., Boyd, Jr., Harper W., and JeanClaude Larreche. Marketing Strategy: Planning and Implementation. 3rd ed. New York: McGraw-Hill College Div., 1998. REFERENCES 1. Bartels, R. (1965). Development of Marketing Thought: A Brief History. Science in Marketing. 2. Cravens, D. W. (19991). Strategic Management Cases. 3. Gobi. (2016). Gobi Fiscal Year Report. 4. Group, M. I. (2015). Sector analysis. Ulaanbaatar. 5. Group, M. M. (2016). Cashmere sector analysis. Ulaanbaatar. 6. Industry, M. N. (2015). Year report. Ulaanbaatar. 7. Kotler, P. (2000). Designing Competitive Strategies. In P. Kotler, Marketing Management,Millinum Edition. 8. Office, N. S. (2016). Year Report. Ulaanbaatar. 9. Porter, M. (n.d.). Competitive advantage. In M. Porter, Competitive advantage. 10. Gardner, David, and Howard Thomas. "Strategic Marketing: History, Issues, and Emergent Themes." In Strategic Marketing and Management, edited by Howard Thomas and David Gardner. New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1985. 11. Gladish, Alan W. "Plan to Market for Long-Term Prosperity." Marketing News, 7 December 1998, 14. 12. Graham, John R. "Making Marketing Work." Direct Marketing, September 1998, 40. 13. Guiltinan, Joseph P., and Gordon W. Paul, et al. Marketing Management. 6th ed. New York: McGrawHill College Div., 1996. 14. Hiam, Alexander, and Charles D. Schewe. The Portable MBA in Marketing. 2nd ed. New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1998. ARDA International Conference ICSSABE-21 28 An Analysis of Mongolian Telecommunication Sector Situation And It’s Consumer Perception [1] Oyuntuguldur Gan-Unur, [2] Bayartsetseg Badralt, [3] Tamiraa Munkhbat, [4] Gombosuren Nyam-Osor, [5] Enkh-Och Zolbayar [1][2][3][4][5] International Business Management and Business Administration Department Abstract: Globally, the Telecommunication area is a fast-changing apple with latest innovations continuously in the works. The Telecommunication Area in Mongolia is no different. It is active and continuously adapting to new technologies and to the accretion customer demands. Although the bazaar is saturated with account to accession of new consumers, the ambit lies in accretion the bazaar allotment by accretion the account provided to the consumers. At this stage, the bazaar baton is assertively by the akin of account superior and amalgamation offered to the consumers. This account superior is delivered to the consumers by the account providers who are able to do this with the technology and advice of Telecommunication vendors. This constitutes the allencompassing archetypal of the Telecom aliment chain. Index Terms—Market situation, Telecommunication I. INTRODUCTION Mongolian Telecommunication is developing under 70 years. At the day concerning challenge formulation, Mongolia’s telecommunications infrastructure consisted mostly over a powerless yet out of date analog-based network timbered above with Soviet support a long time previously. A digital alternate of the capital, Ulaanbaatar, then a moon Earth station because of international connections had been set up among the promptly Nineteen Nineties beneath bilateral assistance, however have been only partially used due to the fact regarding inadequacies somewhere else among the network (Community, 2015). The Government, thru the Ministry regarding Infrastructure Development, used to be accountable for whole the design, implementation, management, or operations concerning the telecommunications network. The sector lacked someone legislative framework, inclusive of because of leading nonpublic area involvement. Services lousy than utter telephony, telegrams, yet telexes have been almost nonexistent; call completion prices had been low; network fulness born according to excessive degrees regarding shared services; and automated systems, such as worldwide then long reach direct dialing, have been impossible. Billing yet ministerial structures were manual then outmoded, and little mace had coaching in digital telecommunications systems. The bad telecommunications law was viewed by Government as a important disincentive to home yet foreign private funding within Mongolia, ARDA International Conference and for this reason so a obedience to the continuous transition beside a command in imitation of a market-based economy. Improvement regarding the telecommunications quarter was once deemed by using Government in imitation of lie a national priority. Permanency 1.1. Purpose This paper aims to find Mongolian telecommunication sector’s current situation. This paper divided by 2 main chapter. First chapter presents current telecommunication sector situation and its competitors’ analysis. Second chapter presents that customers satisfaction of telecommunication sector. 1.2. Background of Mongolian Telecommunication sector In Mongolian Telecommunication sector has 4 main competitors 1. Mobicom 2. Unitel 3. Skytel 4. G-Mobile The Mobicom MobiCom Telecom or IT was installed in 2001 via a team on government cell communications or software program engineers, aimed in conformity with satisfy the needs over community operators then infrastructure suppliers via capability of professional cellular community engineering functions or software program tools. MobiCom Telecom then IT provides services then products among Telecommunication and IT sectors, more often than not of the Middle East or Turkey (Mobicom, 2016). MobiCom is ICSSABE-21 29 An Analysis of Mongolian Telecommunication Sector Situation And It’s Consumer Perception a corporation imparting solutions, capabilities then products protecting a large spectrum regarding telecommunication needs. Some on these solutions then applications include Network Planning yet Optimization, RF Design yet Planning, Drive Test, Post Processing yet Reporting, Network Integration, Site Audit, Technical Site Survey, Site Acceptance, Field Maintenance or Deployment. MobiCom additionally affords high gray specialists and engineers in conformity with leaders of the sector because all fields over Telecommunication (Mobicom, 2016). Apart from telecom services, MobiCom presents revolutionary yet environment friendly IT options after its customers as optimization, integration or administration tools (Mobicom, 2016). MobiCom’s customers consist of Telecom leaders such as Ericsson, Alcatel, Nokia Siemens Network, Turkcell, Vodafone, QTel then Zain. MobiCom is devoted after reap its intention with moral practices then associative responsibilities by way of supplying whole products then capabilities along virtue to all customers namely by their needs yet expectations. It is a organization aiming in conformity with grant gainful employment, coaching or development according to every among discipline in accordance with make bigger productivity. MobiCom also ambitions after discovering recent ways, products then solutions to that amount can have a massive affect of class and economy. Core Values Respect: Maintain or inspire excessive dimensions of honour among employees then clients. Honesty: Demonstrate justice into moves or treatments to others. Truthfulness: Uphold fidelity yet truthfulness among movements within the business enterprise and customers or hand over so promised. Leadership: Strive after exhibit leading at an odd then company level. Performance: Maintain excessive stage of overall performance among movements some is accountable for Responsibility: Embrace responsibility in accordance with the company, clients, worship or society. Quality: Ensure excessive characteristic regarding outcomes in conformity with whole tasks (Mobicom, 2016). The Unitel UNITEL Corporation LLC affords cellular telecommunications applications because mobile employment users within Mongolia. Its purposes encompass postpaid package, roaming, entertainment, or tune download. The enterprise additionally provides sordid services, inclusive of SMS, 6 course calling, caller ID blocking, missed call log, recharging other people’s accounts, transfer, or Web interest care; call forward, barring, hold, then waiting; COLP in imitation of enable the ARDA International Conference visitor in accordance with advise the cellphone range about the person of the ignoble cease between action the call buyer transferred the call; yet COLR to permit the visitant in accordance with hide their cellphone range into the lawsuit the name buyer transfers the call. It offers its applications thru licensed distributors. UNITEL was once fabricated within 2005 and is based among Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. UNITEL Corporation LLC operates as much a subsidiary over MCS Holding LLC (University, 2015). The Skytel Is one over Mongolia’s conduct cellular smartphone operators up to expectation currently holds a bottom of the mobile market. With above 500,000 lively subscribers and 400 personnel concerning which 90% bear a bachelor's dimensions yet higher education. The company's community capabilities on an HSPA+ community into Ulaanbaatar yet [CDMA2000 1x] & [EVDO] community technology within the relaxation concerning the country (University, National Competitiveness Report, 2014). Skytel has forty-three branches then above 4000 retail retail outlets throughout Mongolia, or their community covers every other 250 counties worldwide. Skytel Group was once created between 1999 and was once a peace calamity into private Mongol or Korean companies until December 2010 now it grew to be a a hundred percent national enterprise along even shareholders about Altai Holding and Shunkhlai Group. In 2011, Skytel has multiplied between a crew over groups via the whole acquirements on Sky C&C, a properly set up internet, IDD, SI work provider, namely well as most important shares over Telemax Communications, a cellular WiMax operator, and Tengis Movie Theatre, the first present day picture among Mongolia. The corporation also owns 50% about Skynetworks, a ethnic string visible infrastructure operator, yet a infant part over Sky Resort, a present day ski, golf motel into Ulaanbaatar (Skytel, 2016). The business enterprise affords a range concerning purposes inclusive of SkyMarket an e-market about cellular telephones according to its post-paid OPEN yet Nice subscribers, as like nicely as to its pre-paid d20, SkyPhone yet SkyCall subscribers. Its center are located within the center of Ulaanbaatar city, concerning Chinggis Khaan Avenue - 9. The G-Mobile Mission Statement To turn out to be the nearly trusted yet reliable cellular network operator. To become a community as values purchaser satisfaction, or offers employment in conformity with each citizen To attempt forward, contribute in imitation of society, yet develop Mongolia. G-Mobile Corporation, a country wide cell operator, was established in April about 2006 by means of triumphing the gentle because “Delivery on Communication Services according to ICSSABE-21 30 An Analysis of Mongolian Telecommunication Sector Situation And It’s Consumer Perception Isolated Soums and Settled Areas”. The soft was introduced with the aid of the Communication Regulatory Committee within the mold of the Mongolian Government. In a quick danger on time, G-Mobile managed in conformity with establish an records then conversation infrastructure protecting the great territory concerning Mongolia. GMobile effectively whole installation or launched its services of the twentieth concerning April, 2007 (GMobile). G-Mobile is the first 100% domestically funded being in telecommunication industry. G-Mobile Corporation has been effectively turning in all kinds over telecommunication capabilities in accordance with its clients based totally concerning 3G, recognized as 3rd era concerning cellular verbal exchange CDMA2000 1x/EV-DO technology, or at its 5 yr anniversary about 2012, such has delivered the present day science on information and conversation industry, 3.99G, according to allow its customers in imitation of suffice arm between arm together with empirical advances round the world by means of the use of smartphones and drugs after get right of entry to after the net along high velocity regarding 42mbps. At present, G-Mobile is effort-fully aiming in conformity with introduce its trendy 3.99G technology, which has been deployed in metropolis town about Ulaanbaatar, Zuun mod soum of Tuv aimag, and Hovd city on Hovd aimag, in imitation of sordid most important cities and rustic areas. To date, G-Mobile has included 285 soums yet settlements of 21 aimags and gives every kinds about telecommunication purposes based totally on 3G, also recognised as 3rd technology CDMA2000 1x/EV-DO, DC-HSPA+ 3.99G technology, in conformity with upstairs 500,000 its subscribers nationwide. In yr about 2012, because our 5th 12 months annual celebration, we have added greater revolutionary yet enjoyable capabilities in conformity with our customers, which include: Postpaid job recognised so Perfection 3.99G situation concerning cellular internet DoReMi employment in accordance with set the preferred note because of coming calls Units mortgage service Units mortgage service Data bundle for pre-paid service HD Voice job or much mean treasured features for appropriateness in imitation of our customers G-Mobile employs greater than 500 fantastically professional or skilled specialists, engineers and managers which make on to viii departments or 20 divisions or subdivisions. Service community consists over 14 branches within Ulaanbaatar city, 29 branches within rustic areas, and on 6000 licensed distributors. ARDA International Conference II. METHODOLOGY In customer survey segmentation is 18-35 ages group and total participations are 250. We collecting survey designed by questionnaire. In total, 200 users were 18-35 years old. 57% of the respondents were pre-paid and 43% were customers. Questionnaire design Our questionnaire has main 9 questions and 2 demographic questions. We collected survey from Ulaanbaatar city. III. RESULTS AND ANALYSIS 3.1. Reliability analysis First analysis is about reliabilities. We using SPSS 20.0 Table 3.1 Reliability The Cronbach’s alpha is higher than 0.800 it gives excellent reliability results. The first answer is about define reason for using phone number. Graph 3.1 presenting the result. Graph 3.1 Reason From the picture above, it can be seen that the message for users aged 18 to 20 years, the message for users aged 22-29, data and time-dependent discounts are needed for data and 30-35 year users. Next question is emphasizing cell phone type. ICSSABE-21 31 An Analysis of Mongolian Telecommunication Sector Situation And It’s Consumer Perception Graph 3.2 Type Unitel corporation is main telecommunication sector. Graph 3.5 Genuineness player of Mongolian 76.4% of respondents indicated that the use of touch-screen is high among young people using touchscreen phones. As a result, young people are interested in connecting to the Internet through their mobile phones. Next graph presents that age and their cell phone type Graph 3.5 presents the genuineness of operating companies customers. Mobicom and Unitel has many genuineness and Skytel and G-Mobile is less. Next table is presenting customer satisfaction. We measured 8 types of satisfactory categories designed by likert scale 1 unsatisfied to 5 satisfied. Graph3.3 Age and Cell phone type Table 4.1 Customer Satisfaction The target cellular usage of the target market is as follows: Social media is the most widely used social media through mobile phones. Users are increasingly approaching the web, such as facebook, twitter and youtube, suggesting that data usage is increasing. For example, the number of Facebook users is 17021 per month, or 8%. Graph 3.4 Market share The market share of telecommunication has presented above graph. 41 percent of customers using Mobicom, 36 percent is of customers using Unitel LLC. However, Mobicom and IV. RECOMMENDATIONS AND CONCLUSIONS ARDA International Conference ICSSABE-21 32 An Analysis of Mongolian Telecommunication Sector Situation And It’s Consumer Perception In total, 250 respondents of 18-35 years old were involved in this survey. The survey was conducted by 200, by interview method by 30, by focus group method by 2 groups of 8 and 12 composers. The majority of respondents aged 18-22 years, 60.2% are up to 700000 and- respectively, and 52.8% from 23 to 27 years old are from- and 61.5% are from 601000 and over average monthly income for customers increased. 57% of all survey participants were prepaid and 43% were subscribers of the next payment. Average monthly consumption of youth is 33833 ₮ for prepaid users and 19373 ₮ for total pre-paid customers is 26447 ₮. The number of users in the post-paid year-on-year increase is 71207, or 19.6%, which is likely to increase in subsequent users. In 2009, one out of 8 people used one after the number, but in 2013, one in five used the number after payment. Users have a tendency to understand and use the post-pay number as a prince, their own expression. This was the most noticeable for users aged 18-27 years. Easy payment payment for the paid serial usage is the simplest and simplest way to get detailed information about the payment method (Focus Group and Interview Technique, where there is no time to find a Mobicom center or branch). results are shown. 72.2% of all surveyed customers are required to get detailed information and 3 out of 4 people need to pay for easy payment of payment. The general trend of youth is a way of life to be proud of as a customer of the pay group afterwards. Thus, brand image, reputation, and people are very important to the portfolio. Consumers look at colors, words, and advertisement elements that are color-white, black, yellow, and red. For a word that expresses the package, users are boundless, and only the word, like your usage and choice. 5. Mongolian University of Science and Technology (2013). Conference of Computer Science Management School. Ulaanbaatar 6. National University of Mongolia, Mongolian Marketing Association. Research and reports of National 2nd Olympiad of Marketing. Ulaanbaatar 7. University of Finance and Economics, Mongolian Marketing Association. Research and reports of National 3rd Olympiad of Marketing. Ulaanbaatar 8. Mongolia Telecom. (2016). Report. Ulaanbaatar 9. Communications Regulatory Commission of Mongolia (2015). Report. Ulaanbaatar 10. Communications Regulatory Commission of Mongolia (2016). Report. Ulaanbaatar 11. Communications and Information Technology agent (2013). Report. Ulaanbaatar 12. Communications Regulatory Commission of Mongolia (2014). Report. Munkhtulga G. Ulaanbaatar 13. Setgeshgui club and Mongolian Lecturrer center (2011). Report. MG. Ulaanbaatar REFERENCES 1. Community, M. T. (2015). Telecommunication Report. Ulaanbaatar. G-Mobile. (n.d.). 2. Mobicom. (2016). Year Report. Ulaanbaatar. Skytel. (2016). Report. Ulaanbaatar. University, M. N. (2014). National Competitiveness Report. Ulaanbaatar. University, M. N. (2015). Telecommunication competitor analysis. Ulaanbaatar. 3. Mongolian University of Science and Technology (2016). Erdmiin Shuvuu conference pg(10-25). Ulaanbaatar. 4. Mongolian University of Science and Technology, Computer Science Management School (2013). Research of Cosmos team. Ulaanbaatar. ARDA International Conference ICSSABE-21 33 Political Correctness as a Monolingual Language in the Era of Multiculturalism Dr. Sara Zamir Achva Academic College & Ben-Gurion University at Eilat Abstract- Political correctness may be defined as what is correct and appropriate to include in oral or written public verbal formulations. Thereof, it may create, allegedly, monolingual language in multicultural societies. The aim of this paper is to expose the ambivalence of the Israeli education system toward political correctness in the era of multiculturalism. On one hand, there is seemingly nothing more respectful than simply adopting political correctness as it is in our education system: the idea that language shapes reality, and eventually may directly affect changes in our discourse and indirectly exert a positive influence on rectifying social injustices towards social sectors, suits the ideals of the educational process. But on the other hand, educationists have raised some serious objections against the idea of political correctness, seeing it as hypocrisy and a way of ignoring the multicultural reality. Key words: Political Correctness; multiculturalism; education system. I. INTRODUCTION Political correctness may be defined as “what is correct, from a political point of view, to include in oral or written public verbal formulations” (Carmel, 2000). There is no unanimous opinion regarding the origin of the expression. Nir (1998) believes that it originated in the literal translation of its Chinese equivalent appearing in Mao‟s Little Red Book entitled “Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse Dung,” which was the source of politically acceptable and correct social utterances. During the Cultural Revolution in China, which took place between 1966 and 1976, learning the quotations from the Little Red Book was compulsory both at school and at work, where passages from it were read and learned by heart regularly. Quotations from the book were also included in all publications, including academic ones. Chinese citizens were bound by law to carry the booklet wherever they went, incurring heavy penalties such as floggings and imprisonment in work camps if they were caught without it. However, the prevailing opinion is that the expression “politically correct” originated in the United States during the Fifties, derived to a large extent from the ideology that emerged from the “flower children” movement: although the flower children movement initially started as a protest movement against the Vietnam War and its atrocities, it soon grew into an ideological movement with a new world view of society and life. The flower children appealed to people to change their belligerent ways and adopt a culture of love and brotherhood. Accordingly, they demanded to uproot from the language potentially or actually offensive expressions considered as discriminating against various ARDA International Conference sectors of the society. Therefore, political correctness would relate to the unemployed with more sensitivity (calling an unemployed person as being „between jobs‟ for the moment, but not „unemployed‟); it would also attempt to eliminate sexism from the language (changing the „electronic secretary‟ at the other end of the telephone line into an „answering machine‟); it would relate to old age more gently (the old would become „senior citizens,‟ old age would change to „the golden age,‟ etc.); disability would be treated in a similar way (invalids would be known as „physically challenged‟ individuals). The substitute expression would help to construct a new reality that would serve to correct and perhaps elevate the status of an individual considered weak or physically handicapped: a change in the way language refers to an individual would elevate him from the status that has immobilized him in his weakness, resulting in an amelioration of the individual‟s status. The political correctness movement is based on the idea that although language reflects the social reality of a given culture, the opposite is also true: a change in discourse, in conceptualization and in style can impact social attitudes. This view is consistent with Whorf‟s hypothesis (1956), which states that the language we speak shapes our way of thinking and our way of looking at the world. The insight that can be derived from this hypothesis is that a change in the discourse is likely to engender changes in our social values in general and a change in our values regarding our attitude toward discriminated and disadvantaged individuals in particular. The far-reaching repercussions of Whorf‟s hypothesis are expressed by what he called “the theory of linguistic relativity” – the idea that every language has a model of the world embedded in it without ICSSABE-21 34 Political Correctness as a Monolingual Language in the Era of Multiculturalism which the speakers of the language would not be able to comprehend reality. The theory of linguistic relativity, then, is not simply a linguistic theory, but has implications for all areas of thinking and human endeavor since these are both dependent on and derived from the sociolinguistic load people carry with them. Consequently, one should not wait until the social ethos changes: one may and should use all available resources to expedite desirable processes of change. Language is one of the resources with the potential to enable social change, and not to merely fulfill the instrumental function of human communication (Nir, 1998; Choi & Murphy, 1992). Israeli multiculturalism At the turn of the last century, the term 'multiculturalism' became a cardinal term both in the academic and the public discourse of western democracies including Israel (Reingold, 2005). There are those who discuss multicultural societies emphasizing the demographic sense of the word, that is to say that in a specific political entity there live different ethnic and cultural groups side by side (Sever, 2001), while others prefer to call this demographic aspect "pluralism" (Katz, 1998). However, the more common and important meaning of the concept of multiculturalism is ideological (Reingold, 2005). The issue of multiculturalism has received much attention in the Israeli education system since the inception of the State, when the first great waves of immigration began arriving in the country. The intermingling of cultures – traditions, languages, customs and norms of behavior required the leaders of the country to forge the "cultural fusion" that would change this great ingathering of exiles into one people. The decision to establish a free, compulsory state education system was intended to create a suitable tool to achieve this purpose; the 1953 state education law was passed in the Knesset to give formal sanction to the decision: "The aim of state education is to establish elementary education in the country on the values of the culture of Israel…" Education based on the culture of Israel was stated in the law, as one can observe, as the chief aim of compulsory education. This formulation expressed the dream of the leaders at that time to build the unifying machinery for creating an Israeli culture that was at that time in its formative stage. As the years passed, criticism of this policy favoring cultural uniformity began to surface, with oriental writers at its forefront. Most of the criticism was directed at the domination of the European Zionist narrative concerning the absorption process of the new immigrants and the sidelining of Orientals from cultural, political and governmental positions. The critics held that the melting pot policy worked in favor of the Ashkenazi population in all areas concerning the distribution of resources, in education, land ownership and location of settlements. The critics claimed that Jewish nationalism is an integral part of the Zionist narrative. This new oriental narrative also ARDA International Conference claims that the Zionist narrative has excluded the oriental narrative because Zionism has been repressing Orientals for a long time (in the political and not qualitative sense of the word), and therefore only in a situation of multicultural thinking can the oriental narrative co-exist with the Zionist narrative (Shmueloff et al. 2007). The Pedagogical Secretariat of the Ministry of Education has responded to these claims by placing topics such as "The Unity of Israel," "Year of the Hebrew Language," "The FourHundred-Year Anniversary of the Expulsion of Jews from Spain," and "Cultures of the Communities" as the yearly central topics to be discussed in the education system; it also responded by selecting other subjects for discussion that were chosen from new fields of interest at specific times that highlighted Israel as a multicultural, multilingual and multi-national society. Debate on giving preference or special treatment (as affirmative action) to immigrant communities has evolved. Some even argued that affirmative actions would likely have the opposite effect of what was intended: it would harm these communities since the majority culture would become hostile to them, so that the gap separating the two would be greater than ever. On the contrary, it is precisely the effort to integrate the immigrants in the society that would encourage them to acquire the new customs of their hosts, thus preserving national unity. One of the advocates of this approach, In order to achieve mutual respect among the different cultures, the authorities must change their mono-cultural policy guided, for example, by such things as ethnocentric education and assimilation into a policy favoring multiculturalism (Reingold, 2005) and hence political correctness became a tool for that matter. Political correctness and the Israeli context The status of „straightforwardness‟ (doogriut) was formed during the Thirties and Forties among the first generation of Sabras (native Israelis), and later (in the Fifties) became an important element of the Israeli cultural style. At this stage of the Jewish state‟s existence straightforwardness was not perceived as a lack of manners or as potentially offensive, but as directness and sincerity of speech. Although straightforwardness was perceived as somewhat rough, it was tolerated for its good and sincere intentions. (Catriel, 1999; Rosenblum & Trigger, 2007 ; Rosenthal (2005). In the first few years of the fledgling state, straightforwardness acquired additional value because it helped to construct the character of the “new Jew,” known as the sabra. Whereas the Jews in the Diaspora were occupied with the challenge of survival, so that in their contacts with non-Jews they were often compelled to shuffle and beg, the new Jew in the Land of Israel could afford, like the rest of Israeli society, to say whatever he wished because in the new order of things there was mutual trust, equality and social solidarity. ICSSABE-21 35 Political Correctness as a Monolingual Language in the Era of Multiculturalism The major erosion that subsequently occurred in the image of the sabra and in his value system also eroded people‟s tolerance of straightforwardness and its hubris. With time, the sabra became much more open, unafraid to express his feelings and sensitivities to others. Accordingly, as an indication of this change, a new word now replaced straightforwardness to describe the qualities of the sabra in his new reincarnation: the Yiddish word „firgun‟ (pronounced feergoon) – expressing a „softening,‟ „rooting for,‟ or even a willingness to express laudatory approval for others (Rosenblum & Trigger, 2007). This process of change in the sabra‟s discourse, that is to say the transition from a somewhat offensive straightforwardness to laudatory approval of the other, was to a large extent the harbinger of the first signs of political correctness in Israeli society as well. The aim of the present review is to point out the ambivalence of our education system toward political correctness that may be characterized as an attitude of respectful suspicion. Seemingly, there is nothing more natural for our education system than adopting political correctness as it is: the idea that language shapes reality, and may eventually bring about changes in our discourse directly, and indirectly exert a positive influence on social injustices, suits the ideals of our education system. But on the other hand, educationists and other thinkers have raised serious objections against political correctness, perceiving it as hypocrisy and a way of ignoring reality. Acceptance of political correctness by the education system The education system‟s positive attitude toward political correctness is evidenced by the fact that it has adopted political correctness in its educational discourse. For example, the structural negativity characterizing the „discourse on deficiencies‟ used by teachers, counselors, principals and parents when discussing children with special needs in the past included explicit words such as „backward‟ and „retardation,‟ which have been replaced with „disability‟ or „challenged.‟ Recently, the term „neurodiversity‟ has been suggested as a more suitable word to get away from the negativity of the discourse on deficiencies (Armstrong, 2005). While in the previous terminology children with special needs were identified on the basis of what they were not able to do, the new terminology emphasizes what these children are able to do. The rehabilitative class and the remedial class have had their names changed to „learning disability classes‟ or „small classes,‟ and special education teachers have been renamed „integrative education teachers.‟ An additional example of changes that have occurred in the education system is the renaming of certain jobs and functions out of sensitivity for their status in the system and society. For example, the new „house father‟ is none other than the janitor of olden days. Undoubtedly, just ARDA International Conference being a janitor certainly place janitors, linguistically speaking, at the bottom of the hierarchy of our education system. On the other hand, the term „house father‟ elevates this indispensable school job, linguistically speaking, to a key function in the school‟s social scale. Similarly, the woman who helps a kindergarten teacher keep things in order has been upgraded to kindergarten teacher assistant. Semantically, the new term has liberated her from linguistic (subordination?) proximity to the teacher, assigning her a new independent status. The Hebrew curriculum for seventh and eighth grades (Hebrew curriculum for state and state-religious secondary school, Ministry of Education, Jerusalem, 2003) also includes the teaching of political correctness: in the section dealing with teaching the word formation system, political correctness appears in one of the paragraphs to be taught. It is accompanied by examples of paired expressions such as „failed countries‟ („medinot nichshalot‟ in Hebrew)/‟developing countries‟ („medinot mitpatchot‟ in Hebrew) and „large families‟/‟families blessed with many children‟ („merubot-yeladim‟/‟bruchot-yeladim‟ in Hebrew). A survey of all the director general of the Ministry of Education circulars of the last decade (1997/8 – 2007/8) shows that the Ministry has adopted the spirit of political correctness, albeit not referring to it by name. Political correctness essentially recurs ten times, but under different headings such as „the ways of discourse,‟ „the culture of speaking‟ and „tolerance of the other.‟ This is especially true of the gender issue. One of the more prominent issues is that political correctness in the gender area is particularly problematic in the Hebrew language due to the grammatical distinction between the genders rooted in the language. In the 2003 circular, paragraph 4 (d), the director general wrote that the change of the ministry‟s positions on the subject of genders would include a change “that would express the atmosphere of gender equality both in the use of egalitarian language concerning genders and in the use of egalitarian language concerning genders in communication between teachers and students and among the teachers themselves.” The circular also details various ways to avoid offensive discourse when talking about one of the genders. For example, instead of using the imperative form of the verb (which would require a grammatical distinction between masculine and feminine genders), the circular recommends using an impersonal participial form of the verb or an impersonal infinitive phrase; the gender-sensitive imperative („ptach/pitchi,‟ masculine and feminine forms meaning „open,‟ for example, would then be avoided so that a command such as „open the book,‟ which in the Hebrew imperative has two forms – one for masculine and one for feminine – would be replaced by „yesh liftoach et hasefer,‟ which could be translated as „your book should be opened‟ or by ICSSABE-21 36 Political Correctness as a Monolingual Language in the Era of Multiculturalism the more informal „books open, please!‟) (ibid, paragraph 4.1.3). According to Whorf‟s hypothesis, which claims that our thinking emulates conceptualization, in other words the language we speak shapes the way we think and the way we look at the world, using the masculine grammatical form in speech is likely to affect students to emphasize male superiority over women. Political corrections of language and the use of the term „gender‟ instead of „sex‟ when the need arises to distinguish between the sexes are not restricted to grammar only. The new terminology reflects society‟s growing awareness of sexist language and sexism in general. Similar acts were made by The European Parliament that introduced proposals to outlaw titles stating marital status such as 'Miss' and 'Mrs' so as not to cause offence. It also meant that 'Madame' and 'Mademoiselle', 'Frau' and 'Fraulein' and 'Senora' and 'Senorita' would be banned. The education system‟s critical attitude toward political correctness Side by side with the assimilation of political correctness in the education system, an increasing number of educationists have been voicing some sharp criticism against sweeping and uncompromising demands to use political correctness unconditionally in all situations. One of the arguments against political correctness is that changing our terminology when speaking about one of the sectors of the population does not ameliorate its condition and contributes absolutely nothing to its advancement. Those who advance this argument believe that the negative connotations attached to certain terms stem directly from the plight in which a particular sector of the population finds itself, and that it is just a matter of time until the new terminology will also be loaded with the same negative associations and connotations attached to its predecessors. An example in support of this argument is the expression “Ministry of Welfare,” which today has become loaded with the same negative associations and connotations as the previous expression: “Ministry of [social] Assistance;” although the word „assistance,‟ which evokes poverty and needy people, was replaced by a word having a positive connotation – „welfare,‟ which connotes comfort, both mental and financial, the change did not help. A second argument against political correctness, derived from the argument stated above, is advanced by Scruton (2000). He criticizes political correctness as immoral and therefore not a worthy educational goal: since political correctness only papers over a troublesome reality, it actually prevents us from really confronting vexing issues and it blurs our awareness of painful social phenomena. It prevents us from directly examining shocking truths and blocks any real possibility of looking in the mirror of our society, not to mention changing our behavior in accordance with universal-humanistic codes. To a very large extent, political correctness deals with a semantic ARDA International Conference softening of reality: it deals with soothing our conscience by using words that refine reality, that dull our sensitivity and absolve the individual from doing anything real to rectify social injustices. According to Appelfeld (2002), political correctness is mainly a sophisticated intellectual form of repression: all it does is repress our negative feelings and gives the one who uses it a false image of enlightenment and consideration. Political correctness deletes from our lexicon all the negative expressions that reflect our real attitudes and replaces them with positive expressions, which will not arouse the anger of our “super ego,” that great repository of the moral imperative. All it asks of us is to speak inclusively (from the expression „social inclusion‟) about other cultures, other styles and other values, and never express an opinion or use words that, G-d forbid, could be interpreted negatively in any way. Thus, political correctness is liable to compel us to accept phenomena that should be rightly criticized or out rightly condemned. So, for example, renaming terrorists „freedom fighters,‟ „militants‟ or „activists‟ for the sake of political correctness not only gives legitimacy to murdering innocent people, but it also denies the victims the right to seek redress for the offense committed against them. An additional argument focuses on the tyrannical nature of political correctness: political correctness forces a person to be careful with his speech in order to avoid being criticized for being critical of others. It imposes on its users the adoption of new linguistic coinage instead of the old, reducing people‟s right to freedom of expression. Immediately after a person learns to master the secrets of politically correct discourse, he too can join in the criticism of those who adhere to the old discourse: now he can chide others, correct them and even chastise them for deviating from political correctness. This sort of tyranny is also thought justified “since it is directed against those who still haven‟t seen the light” (Appelfeld, 2002). Lind (2005) claims that political correctness uses the same methods used by the darkest totalitarian regimes. According to Lind, political correctness is Marxist ideology transferred from the economic to the cultural sphere. It is no different than Orwellian “newspeak” illustrated in George Orwell‟s book 1984, written in 1948 as a clever speculation on the future: “war is peace / freedom is slavery / ignorance is power.” Like big brother, political correctness acts like thought police, terrorizing those who dare deviate from “correct terminology.” Lind warns against the danger of the public lightly dismissing and even scoffing at the phenomenon of political correctess as of no consequence (mockingly admonishing others not to say, for example, “black sheep,” but to correctly say “colored sheep”) without noticing the latent threat of this obligation to our consciousness. Acting as the word police, political correctness is liable to censor or even disqualify worthy literary and other works of art considered as offensive to one sector or other. For ICSSABE-21 37 Political Correctness as a Monolingual Language in the Era of Multiculturalism example, if language censorship were applied to classic children‟s books such as The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain, in which the expression „nigger‟ appears more than 200 times, it would almost completely ruin the narrative. Samuel Langhorne Clemens (Mark Twain‟s real name) was born and grew in the slave state of Missouri, and therefore his use of the word “nigger” only reflects his upbringing and education. Changing the word to “Afro-American” would be anachronistic and unfaithful to the hero‟s upbringing and education, social class and way of speaking (Weisbord, 2005). The exact same thing can be said of the demand to disqualify a song such as “in a white sea, a little group of Blacks picks, in the white cotton field it picks all day long.” Disqualifying the song because of the word “Blacks” would actually censor the memory that in pre-Civil War America cotton picking was backbreaking work performed by African slaves. Censorship of racial expressions in texts could also act as a boomerang in the education process: the correction of racist expressions would neutralize any chance of criticizing books for racist attitudes embedded in them. For example, Israeli children reading an improved version of Oliver Twist (in which Feigin would not be identified as a Jew) would be unaware of his anti-Semitism and would be unaware of the attitudes the author shares with his character (Weisbord, 2005). 5. Katz,S.N. (1998).The Legal Framework of American Pluralism: Liberal Constitutionalism and the protection of groups. In W. F. Katin et al (Eds), Beyond Pluralism (11-27), Urbana & Chicago: Uni. of Illinois. 6. Reingold, R. (2005). Curricular Models of Multicultural Pluralistic Education – Four Research Cases from U.S. Universities, Dapim, 40,-. Rosenblum, A. and Trigger, T. (2007). Without Words – Israeli Culture in the Mirror of Language, Kinneret Zemora Bitan, Devir. 8. Rosenthal, R. (2005). Comprehensive Dictionary of Slang, Jerusalem: Keter Publishers. 9. Sever, R. (2001). To Mix or to Intertwine? A Conceptual Framework for Examining 10. Multicultural Issues, Gadish: Journal of Adult Education, 7, 45-54. 11. Weissbord, R. (2005). Bob the Negro is a good boy, Panim, No. 33, pp. 100-107 II. CONCLUSION The major argument of supporters of political correctness is that language is not a neutral and objective tool. It does not merely imitate reality, but it has the power to re-invent reality. On the other hand, the opponents of political reality perceive it as the antithesis of the educational process and point out its alienation from reality and its potential for alienating people from reality as well. However, both advocates and opponents of political correctness see it as a tool of socialization of the first order with a far-reaching educational impact. BIBLIOGRAPHY 1. Appelfeld, B. (2002). „The connection between political correctness and repression,‟ Nefesh No. 11, pp. 19-22 2. Carmeli, A. (2000). It is all Political – The Lexicon of Israeli Politics, Devir and Zemora Bitan Publications. 3. Catriel, T. (1999) Key Words, Haifa: University of Haifa and Zemora Bitan. 4. Nir, R. (1998). Political correctness, clean language and the prostitution of language, Panim, No. 7, pp. 19-26. ARDA International Conference ICSSABE-21 38 The Development of an E-assessment Prototype by assessing the Three Levels of Digital Literacy among Communication Lecturers [1] [1][2] Nurul Nisa Omar, [2] Yi Jun Phung School of Communication and Creative Arts, KDU University College, Malaysia Abstract- This study aims to develop an e-assessment prototype as a digital transformation towards the usual assessment practices among communication lecturers. This prototype is an innovative educational technology created for an easy evaluation of students’ assignments. The process of developing the e-assessment prototype is carried out through assessing the three levels of digital literacy development. The first level is to measure lecturers’ digital competency which is conducted by assessing lecturers’ Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK) through sets of questionnaires. The second level is to determine the sets of features and requirements on the digital usage of an e-assessment which is performed by conducting focus group discussions among lecturers. Finally, the third level is to develop an innovative educational technology as a form of digital transformation which is conducted by creating an e-assessment prototype that follows the sets of features and requirements generated. The sample of respondents participated in this study are the lecturers from School of Communication and Creative Arts in KDU University College, Malaysia. This paper documents how the findings of the three levels of digital literacy are used as the foundation for developing an e-assessment prototype called Operational Metric Assessment and Rubrics (OMAR). This e-assessment prototype consists of features and requirements as determined by the lecturers which are useful in evaluating and assessing students’ work. This e-assessment prototype can be a great innovation towards advancing the use of educational technology among academicians. Key words: Digital competency, digital literacy, digital transformation, e-assessments prototype, educational technology. I. INTRODUCTION The use of technology as part of assessment activities not only are able to enhance educators‟ current evaluation practices, but it also provides opportunities in digitalising assessment methods [1]. Educational technology platform has improved many assessment practices through activities such as online test or quizzes, technology-based instructional materials, blended learning and so on [2]. Additionally, it is important for educators to have a better understanding of using digital tools to evaluate assignments by following a rubric guideline for evaluation purposes [3]. Therefore, adopting technology-based application to generate electronic assessment prototype is a good enhancement towards lecturers‟ assessment practices. Thus, it is important to assess lecturers‟ attitude and opinion to gauge their perspective on the features and requirements needed before developing a new technology approach of an e-assessment prototype. The purpose of developing this prototype is to assist lecturers in conducting an easy evaluation of students‟ work. Furthermore, a focus on digital literacy is necessary prior to develop new medium where educators can fully utilise the benefit of technology [1]. Technology adoption in educators‟ daily routines is essential to the instructional ARDA International Conference needs of the usual practice that does not necessarily involve teaching [2]. As assessment is part of the main task of being an educator, a more innovative approach towards evaluating students‟ assignments is thus deemed necessary to be developed. Besides that, a digitalised assessment system can be designed in which the content requirement can be satisfyingly standardised to improve lecturers‟ efficiency [4]. This paper will document the process of developing an e-assessment prototype to assist lecturers with their current practice. II. RESEARCH BACKGROUND Prior to developing a new technology application, it is vital to understand lecturers‟ attitude and familiarity towards using technology as a medium of practice. Furthermore, the appropriateness of technology can also be seen in a different aspect of an instructional plan [4]. There are many types of assessment in evaluating educators‟ technology integration knowledge; one of them is a wellknown concept called Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge or TPACK [5]. This concept is used to assess educators‟ technology proficiency through following the guideline of Technology Integration Assessment Rubric [6]. TPACK is able to evaluate several aspects on how technology is being used in understanding content, ICSSABE-21 39 The Development of an E-assessment Prototype by assessing the Three Levels of Digital Literacy among Communication Lecturers comprehending pedagogy and applying it to daily tasks that include assessment practices. Educators usually create an assessment rubrics to measure learners‟ level of understanding towards a subject by following the allocation of marks given based on the performance level [7]. Appropriate use of technology will enable educators to generate a more standardised rubrics across the whole educational programme besides attaining the pedagogical benefits. However, this depends on educators‟ digital literacy which includes their technological literacy, informational literacy, communication literacy and multimedia literacy [8]. It is important for educators to be familiar with the use of existing digital platform before focusing on a new platform, and this is why digital literacy is a required assessment prior to developing and introducing a new technology-based approach [9]. There is a concept in assessing the development of digital literacy via three stages of assessment, namely digital competency, digital usage and digital transformation as presented in Figure 1 [10]. Figure 1. Three levels of digital literacy development As shown in Figure 1, the first level reflects educators‟ approaches, attitudes and skills towards using technology where it will reveal their digital competency. The second level reflects educators‟ familiarity in using digital as part of their professional discipline; in this case, it refers to their digital usage in assessment activities. The third level reflects the innovation and creativity in developing new technology to be adopted as part of educators‟ practices. This will reveal a new concept of digital transformation, or more specifically, the creation of an e-assessment prototype. In order to study digital literacy and develop a new technology, all three levels must be evaluated. Technology‟s prevalence has shifted how humans work; therefore, digital literacy is a necessary skill to acquire. Digital literacy is also described as the expertise of an individual in utilising ICT with efficacy as well as the ability to carry out tasks in a digital environment [11]. Additionally, another explanation on digital literacy is related to the awareness, attitude and ability to use digital tools appropriately towards identifying, accessing, managing, integrating, evaluating and synthesising digital resources [12]. Furthermore, technology has transformed daily activities in the education sector for both students and ARDA International Conference lecturers‟ daily practices [13]. Educators‟ digital literacy or competency is an important factor that gauges the specific requirement needed to adopt technology into their teaching and learning processes. The industry is expecting lecturers to leverage digital tools and resources so as to maximise their full potential as an educator [14]. Since technology is expanding rapidly, educators‟ development process in relation to the concept of digital competency requires greater attention [15]. A suitable assessment method for evaluating digital competency is through evaluating lecturers‟ Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK). Based on several TPACK approaches, technology component has recently been added as an extra element in the intersections [16, 5]. This approach articulates the relationships between content, pedagogy and technology. There are seven components of assessment: technology knowledge (TK), content knowledge (CK), pedagogy knowledge (PK), pedagogical content knowledge (PCK), technological content knowledge (TCK), technological pedagogical knowledge (TPK) and technological pedagogical content knowledge (TPACK). These components are used as a correlation study to assess educators‟ knowledge for technology integration [6]. While the full technology immersion in education is still dependent on the educator‟s literacy, it is important to study how technology can bring a new approach to the educational practices such as the digitisation of assessments [1]. Effective technology integration in the assessment activities can be a prominent evaluation model in educational technology [17]. Furthermore, the shift from traditional-based evaluation model towards effective use of technology-based evaluation model is highly encouraged in order to fit the current digital age learners [13]. III. RESEARCH METHODS The proposed methodology for this research consists of three phases of data collection which are guided by the three stages of digital literacy development as presented in Figure 1. As the purpose of this study is to develop an eassessment prototype, results from the data collection will be used as the guideline in generating the list of features and requirements to be fulfilled by the prototype. The sample of participants for this study consists of lecturers from School of Communication and Creative Arts in KDU University College, Malaysia. The lecturers mostly specialise in Media Studies, Social Studies and Communication subjects; hence, the assessment content of the prototype focuses on the area that falls under these ICSSABE-21 40 The Development of an E-assessment Prototype by assessing the Three Levels of Digital Literacy among Communication Lecturers courses. The detailed descriptions of the three phases of data collection are described as follows. A. Phase 1: Digital Competence The first phase is to investigate the digital competency of the lecturers from School of Communication and Creative Arts in KDU University College, Malaysia. Lecturers were given sets of questionnaires to be answered. The questionnaires were crafted in the guidance of past surveys which were relevant to the concept of TPACK [5]. In this phase, the quantitative data analysis will be employed to evaluate the extent of lecturers‟ digital skills, approaches and familiarity towards technology practices. B. Phase 2: Digital Usage The second phase is to assess the requirements on lecturers‟ digital usage towards developing a new digitalised approach of electronic assessment practices. 10 lecturers took part in two sessions of focus group discussions where the conversation was guided according to sets of questions created prior to the sessions. In this phase, the qualitative data analysis will be employed to assess lecturers‟ opinion and generate the list of suggested features and requests to be fulfilled in the e-assessment prototype. Table 1. Technology Knowledge (TK) among lecturers No. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Statement Mean I know how to solve my own 3.05 technical problems I can learn technology easily 3.91 I keep up with important new 3.23 technologies I frequently play around the 3.23 technology I know about a lot of different 2.82 technologies I have the technical skills that I 3.32 need in order to use technology Total 3.26 Remark Good Good Good Good Fair Good Good The total mean of the Technology Knowledge (TK) is 3.26 and is classified under the „good‟ category. The only statement which is underperformed with a mean of 2.82 suggests that most lecturers do not have an extensive range of technology comprehension. However, the rest of the scores indicate that the lecturers have good knowledge regarding technology operating devices. Table 2. Content Knowledge (CK) among lecturers C. Phase 3: Digital Transformation The third phase is to propose a digital transformation or new innovation on how the current assessment practices can be digitalised. This is where the findings on the generated features and requirements will be used as a basic guideline to develop the e-assessment prototype. This prototype is expected to assist lecturers for an easy evaluation of students‟ assignment. IV. FINDINGS & DISCUSSIONS The findings and discussions were presented in this section and three areas were covered: results of digital competency via TPACK assessment, digital usage from the focus group discussions and digital transformation of an e-assessment. A. Digital Competency: TPACK Assessment The seven components of assessment, namely technology knowledge (TK), content knowledge (CK), pedagogy knowledge (PK), pedagogical content knowledge (PCK), technological content knowledge (TCK), technological pedagogical knowledge (TPK) and technological pedagogical content knowledge (TPACK) are evaluated via mean scores. The analysis is based on the scores of 1 for poor, 2 for fair, 3 for good, 4 for very good and 5 for excellent. ARDA International Conference The Content Knowledge (CK) among lecturers falls under the „good‟ category with the total mean of 3.59. Among all the studies listed, social studies received the highest average mean, followed by communication and media studies. It implies that lecturers are knowledgeable towards the subject content. Good content knowledge can avoid misrepresenting topics to students [18]. ICSSABE-21 41 The Development of an E-assessment Prototype by assessing the Three Levels of Digital Literacy among Communication Lecturers Table 3. Pedagogical Knowledge (PK) among lecturers The Technological Content Knowledge (TCK) has a total mean score of 3.23, which is in the „good‟ category. This assessment is based on the suitability of selecting technology features that fit the nature of the subject well [5]. This also implies that lecturers possess both good technological and pedagogical skills for the courses. Table 6. Technology Pedagogical Knowledge (TPK) No. Among the previous knowledge assessment, the Pedagogical Knowledge (PK) receives the highest mean score of 4.01 and is classified under the „very good‟ category. This suggests that lecturers have great teaching skills and are able to adapt to students‟ needs. Table 4. Pedagogical Content Knowledge (PCK) No. 1 2 3 Statement I can select effective teaching approaches to guide student thinking and learning in communication studies I can select effective teaching approaches to guide student thinking and learning in social studies I can select effective teaching approaches to guide student thinking and learning in media studies Total Mean Remark 3.45 Good 3.68 Good 3.62 Good 3.59 Good 1 2 3 4 5 The Pedagogical Content Knowledge (PCK) represents lecturers‟ pedagogical skills in teaching subject content [16]. From the table above, the lecturers have a good value in this assessment with a total mean of 3.59. This implies that the lecturers can select effective teaching approaches for communication, social studies and media courses. 6 7 8 Remar k Statement Mean I can choose technologies that enhance the teaching approaches 3.77 for a lesson I can choose technologies that enhance students' learning for a 3.86 lesson I am thinking critically about how 3.68 to use technology in my classroom I can adapt the use of the technologies that I am learning 3.95 about to different teaching activities I can select technologies to use in my classroom that enhance what I 3.77 teach, how I teach and what students learn I can use strategies that combine content, technologies and teaching 3.86 approaches that I learned about in my coursework in my classroom I can provide leadership in helping others to coordinate the use of content, technologies and teaching 3.5 approaches at my school and/or district I can choose technologies that 3.86 enhance the content for a lesson Total 3.63 Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good The Technology Pedagogical Knowledge (TPK) has a total mean of 3.63 which falls under the „good‟ category. This assessment is based on the ability to utilise pedagogical skills with the help of suitable technology platform. As shown in the table above, the lecturers are capable to ARDA International Conference ICSSABE-21 42 The Development of an E-assessment Prototype by assessing the Three Levels of Digital Literacy among Communication Lecturers choose, adapt and provide leadership towards the use of suitable technology in their teaching activities. Table 8. Generated topic on content features discussion Table 7. Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK) No. 1 2 3 Statement Mean I can teach lessons that appropriately combine communication studies, 3.24 technologies and teaching approaches I can teach lessons that appropriately combine social studies, technologies 3.39 and teaching approaches I can teach lessons that appropriately combine media studies, technologies 3.19 and teaching approaches Total 3.27 Remark Good Good Good Good The final assessment is conducted on the Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK) which is the result of each of the 6 intersections from Table 1 to Table 6. The statements measure the final relationship between the knowledge that combines technology, pedagogy and content studies. This knowledge is developed when lecturers are able to utilise the effective and appropriate use of technology to study the subject content and combine it with their teaching activities [19]. Looking at the final mean score of 3.27, TPACK falls under the „good‟ category. This implies that the lecturers possess good practice of using technology to acquire knowledge and teaching skills. All in all, lecturers from the School of Communication and Creative Arts possess a good level of digital competency with an overall mean score of 3.27 for TPACK, followed by the mean scores of 3.26 for TK, 4.01 for PK, 3.59 for CK, 3.63 for TPK, 3.59 for PCK, and 3.23 for TCK. This implies that the lecturers are familiar with using technology and they are more than ready to be introduced to a new technological innovation approach as part of their teaching practices. B. Digital Usage: Requirement & Features Following the good readings of TPACK scores, the next stage is to investigate lecturers‟ preferences towards the digital usage of electronic-based assessment technology. The purpose is to generate a list of features and requirements needed to improve lecturers‟ current practice in evaluating students‟ work. The following table documents the findings from the focus group discussions with 10 lecturers from the School of Communication and Creative Arts. The generated contents, features and requirements are applied in developing the e-assessment prototype. ARDA International Conference As shown above, there are five generated topics in regards to the discussion of content features. Participants recommended to have a standardised and easy-to-use rubrics, operationalised metric calculation, automatically generated feedback, a video marking recording, and generating report for the e-assessment prototype. All of these proposed features were said to be able to assist lecturers for an easier evaluation of students‟ work and also to minimise unnecessary or repetitiveness of task such as writing similar feedbacks and standardising calculation metric to ensure consistency in all generated marks. The lecturers believe that the usual assessment practice has limitations in efficiency and the utilisation of technology can improve their current practice. If there is a technology-based assessment, I wish for it to be a standardized rubric or perhaps an application that can search for rubrics that is suitable for the assignment (Participant 10) What would be nice is to have an application that can record students‟ work because when it comes to presentation or performance, it is good to be able to record it first and then view and assess it later rather than to mark it while they are presenting. Maybe the technology can help us to formulate the presentation assessment in such a way. (Participant 08) When we are handling big classes, we noticed sometimes we write same comments while assessing their work and our comments become shorter and shorter over time. (Participant 01) For me, if the coursework is out of 50, I will set the rubrics calculation to be out of 50, only then I will manually double it up to be out of 100. Sometimes I have rubrics that calculated up to 40 marks, then I will convert it to out of 20, followed by turning it to out of 100. It is never standardized to 100 marks. (Participant 09) When there‟s a written report submission, for example, there will be a rubric that lists down what is needed to assess the work according to the learning outcome. Then we just print it out and mark manually. It will be nice if we can actually run the marks or generate assessment report digitally. (Participant 03) From the focus group topic discussions, the five generated list of features are required to be implemented in the e-assessment prototype. ICSSABE-21 43 The Development of an E-assessment Prototype by assessing the Three Levels of Digital Literacy among Communication Lecturers Table 9. Generated topic on prototype requirements discussion Table 10. Generated contents for the e-assessment prototype Content features Standardised and easy-to-use rubrics Table 9 shows the generated topic of discussions in regards to the proposed requirements to be fulfilled by the eassessment prototype. Participants‟ recommendation on the proposed requirement consists of the ability of prototype to reduce time in assessing students‟ work, increase productivity and encourage the paperless practice. The lecturers believe that the use of technology is supposed to reduce workload and not to increase it. Only then they will be more efficient in evaluating students‟ work. On top of that, the use of e-assessment should also reduce paper wastage by lessening the practice of printing out hardcopy version of students‟ assignments. When there are more than 100 students in a class, time is the essence. I don‟t have enough time and this will affect productivity. So, technology is supposed to help us in reducing the time and increase productivity by allowing us to manage to assess multiple works without jeopardizing the quality of assessments. (Participant 04) I would like to give feedback to all students individually but because of the large number, I do not have the time to do so. Ideally, it is good to give feedback one by one but it will require a lot of free time which is a luxury that I don‟t have and it will be good if technology can assist with this. (Participant 05) We would like to go paperless and limit our work as much as possible. If we already require doing softcopy, I don‟t see why we need to do it again for hardcopy. If I do not need to do the paperwork, I will just run everything online. (Participant 02 C. Digital Transformation: E-assessment Prototype Following the generated list of features presented in Table 8, an e-assessment prototype called Operational Metric Assessment & Rubrics (OMAR) was created. The core of this prototype is to have the ability to run a metric calculation by operationalising the pre-set rubric assessments. Table 10 presents the description on how the list of generated features is being implemented into the eassessment function of the OMAR prototype. ARDA International Conference Operationalised metric calculation Automatically generated feedback A video marking capture and recording Generating assessment report Functions and descriptions The function of this feature is to have an easy drafting of assignment rubrics with a more standardised metric of marks allocation. The function of this feature is to operationalise the metric calculation by following the set of marks assigned based on different level of performances in the rubrics. The function of this feature is for lecturers to run an auto-generated feedback that has been pre-set prior to assessing students‟ work with an extra option for lecturers to personalise their feedbacks. The function of this feature is for lecturers to record students‟ presentation and have the ability to tap and mark the part where lecturers can view and assess the presentation afterwards. The function of this feature is for lecturers to export assessment report into pdf version for archiving or distribution purposes. In addition to the generated topic in Table 8, there are five generated content features. To implement these features into the e-assessment prototype, it will be carried out according to the specific function that each feature represents. The first feature will be the standardised and easy-to-use rubrics where this will enable lecturers to have a more standardised and digitised version in drafting assignment rubrics. The rubrics will provide marks allocation for the different level of performance such as poor, good or excellent. The second feature is operationalised metric calculation where the function is for lecturers to have the ability to operationalise the metric calculation of the assignment based on the pre-set rubrics. Lecturers only need to select the assigned level and key in marks accordingly and the digital platform will automatically run the metrics calculation of the assessments. The third feature is for lecturers to generate automatic feedback. Right after the lecturers set the assessment rubrics, they can assign a pre-feedback by following the level of performances that can be generated once they have run the metric calculation and have assigned allocated marks. In this way, lecturers can avoid writing the same feedback or comments repetitively. The fourth feature is a video marking capture and recording ability which is designed specifically to assess students‟ presentation. The function provides lecturers the ability to record students‟ presentation and tap to mark the part ICSSABE-21 44 The Development of an E-assessment Prototype by assessing the Three Levels of Digital Literacy among Communication Lecturers where they wish to review and assess later. The final feature is generating assessment report. This function enables lecturers to save and export the assessment report into pdf version for archiving or distribution purposes. The Operational Metric Assessment & Rubrics (OMAR) eassessment prototype was also created by following the requirements as presented in Table 9. These requirements are based on lecturers‟ opinion and view on how the eassessment should be operated to assist their current practice. Table 11 provides description and elaboration on how the OMAR prototype fits the generated requirements. Table 11. Requirements of the e-assessment prototype Requirements Ability to reduce time in assessing students‟ work Ability to increase productivity in assessment activities Ability to encourage the paperless practice Descriptions The prototype can assist in reducing lecturers‟ time by: 1. Reducing time in grading through the operational metric calculation features which runs a mathematical calculation. 2. Providing the option for lecturers to generate automatic feedback which follows the level of performance as set by the rubrics to avoid writing the same feedback on the submission. The prototype can increase lecturers‟ productivity by: 1. Introducing an easier method in grading and calculation of marks through the operationalised metric from the rubrics. 2. Providing a more standardised method of generating rubrics and assessment requirements throughout the whole course. 3. Having an option to add individual comments even with the presence of auto-generated feedback to encourage personalising responses for students. The prototype can encourage the paperless practice by: 1. Assessing the assignments via the application instead of printing hardcopy version of the rubrics as per current practice. 2. Having students to submit a softcopy version of the assignment as hardcopy version is no longer needed. 3. Having the ability to save and export the full report of the assessment in pdf version for easy sharing of the report with students. There are three main requirements which include the ability to reduce time, increase productivity and encourage the paperless practice. The OMAR prototype fits the first requirement on the ability to reduce time since it can help ARDA International Conference lecturers to run the operational metric calculations and automatically generated feedback. For the second requirement on the ability to increase productivity during assessments, the prototype can assist lecturers with an easier grading approach, a more standardised rubrics throughout the whole course and an additional option to encourage personalising feedback or comments for students. Lastly, the prototype fits the third requirement on the ability to encourage the paperless practice. It provides lecturers the option to fully assess students‟ work online without having the need to print a hardcopy version of the assignment as softcopy version of assignments will be sufficient. Additionally, the generated feedback and assessment report can be exported to pdf version for archiving or distribution purposes. The prototype comes with a clear flow of assessment activities on how lecturers can run the metric calculation of the assignment rubrics. Figure 2 shows the flow of the OMAR e-assessment prototype Figure 2. Flow of OMAR prototype The flow of activities begins with a page for lecturers to key in the details of assignments such as types of assessments, course name and other key information. Next, the lecturers will either use a ready-made rubrics template or create their own rubrics according to the preferred content, metric calculation of the marks and the level of grading as shown in Figure 3. Each segmented content has specific marks with the calculation metric ICSSABE-21 45 The Development of an E-assessment Prototype by assessing the Three Levels of Digital Literacy among Communication Lecturers As shown in Figure 5, if lecturers operationalise the rubrics on presentation, they can record the presentation and tap on parts where they wish to mark besides having the ability to run a metric calculation. The part that has been tapped can be reviewed later and this enable lecturers to properly assess rather than having to do it while the presentation is carried out. This will provide lecturers the ability to have higher efficiency in assessing students‟ presentation. Figure 3. Pre-set rubrics Once the lecturers have selected the rubrics template or have personally assigned the details of the rubrics, they can edit the pre-set feedbacks by following the level of performances. Similarly, lecturers can use the ready-made feedback template or edit their own feedback by following the grade level for each grade segment. The next step is for lecturers to operationalise the metric calculation on a selected assignment. There will be two versions of assignment available for lecturers to assess in this prototype; written assignment or presentation. As shown in Figure 4, if lecturers operationalise the rubrics on a written assignment, they may assess several parts of the submission and assign the grade by clicking on the level of performance set by the rubrics. The keyed-in marks will be automatically calculated at the end. Figure 6. Assessment report Figure 6 shows the last step where lecturers can generate the assessment report by exporting it to pdf version so that they can either distribute the report to the students or keep it in the archive. This will be the last flow once all the assignments have been assessed and all the rubrics components marks have been keyed in. As the metric calculations will be done automatically, lecturers do not need to calculate students‟ scores or grades manually. The OMAR e-assessment prototype was developed based on the list of features and requirements generated from the findings of the focus group discussion. This is to ensure that this prototype is able to assist lecturers for an easy evaluation of students‟ assignment V.CONCLUSIONS Figure 4. Operationalise metric following the assigned rubrics Figure 5. Video recording and marking capture ARDA International Conference Implementation of technology as part of educational practice is an area that has been covered in many different research. There have been many efforts and inventions created to assist educators in their daily tasks. As for the approach on digitalising assessment activities, there have not been many approaches that operate according to the concept of operationalising the set of assignment rubrics into a metric calculation. Therefore, the Operational Metric Assessment & Rubrics (OMAR) e-assessment prototype is a new innovative technology invention for an easy evaluation of students‟ assignment. In this paper, the authors documented the process of developing OMAR eassessment prototype by using the three level of digital literacy development as a guideline. The first level is to assess lecturers‟ digital competency so as to make sure that ICSSABE-21 46 The Development of an E-assessment Prototype by assessing the Three Levels of Digital Literacy among Communication Lecturers lecturers are familiar with using technology as part of their practice. This has been done by using TPACK as the competency measurement approach. The second level is to investigate lecturer‟s digital usage in order to understand their opinion and perspective on using electronic-based assessment. Findings from the second level are used to generate the list of features and requirements to be implemented into the development of an e-assessment prototype. The third and final level is to propose a digital transformation where a new technology innovation was introduced to enhance the current practice. In this level, the development of Operational Metric Assessment & Rubrics (OMAR) e-assessment prototype was created by following the guidelines of the listed features and requirements generated in the second level. The e-assessment prototype was created to assist lecturers‟ task by reducing the workload, increasing productivity and encouraging the paperless practice. Developing a prototype that can enhance the innovative use of educational technology has always been a beneficial research project and has a great potential in becoming a breakthrough invention in the research world. [6] Hofer, M, N Grandgenett, J B. Harris and K Swan. "Testing a TPACK-Based Technology Integration Observation Instrument Testing a TPACK-Based Technology Integration Observation Instrument." (2011) VI. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS [11] Jones-Kavalier, B and S Flannigan. "Connecting the digital dots: Literacy of the 21st century." Teacher Librarian 35:16. (2008) This work was supported by a research grant from KDU University College (KDURG/2017/1/008). REFERENCES [1] Nicol, D J. and C Milligan. "Rethinking technologysupported assessment in terms of the seven principles of good feedback practice." In C. Bryan and K. Clegg (Eds) (2006) [2] Moersch, C. "Levels of technology implementation (LoTi): A framework for measuring classroom technology use." Learning and leading with technology: 40-40. (1995) [3] Shahadat, M. "Aalborg Universitet A systematic review and development of digital literacy meta-analysis of teachers." (2015) [4] Harris, J, N Grandgenett, and M J. Hofer. "Testing a TPACK-Based Technology Integration Assessment Rubric." (2010) [5] Mishra, P and M J. Koehler. "Technological pedagogical content knowledge: A new framework for teacher knowledge." Teachers College Record. 108(6). (2006) ARDA International Conference [7] Hamid, S, J Waycott, S Kurnia and S Chang. "An empirical study of lecturers ‟ appropriation of social technologies for higher education, 30(3), 295–311." (2014) [8] Guitert, M, T Romeu and M Romero. "Digital competence training proposals in the UOC context : A transforming vision." (2010) [9] Gallardo-echenique, E. "Digital Competence in the Knowledge Society, 11(1), 1–16." (2015) [10] Martin, A and J Grudziecki. "DigEuLit: Concepts and tools for digital literacy development." Innovation in Teaching and Learning in Information and Computer Sciences 5:267. (2006) [12] Martin, A. "Digital literacy and the “digital society.” In M. (Ed. . Lankshear, Colin; Knobel (Ed.), Digital literacies: concepts, policies and practices, pp, 166– 180. (2008) [13] Lee, S H.. "Digital literacy education for the development of digital literacy." International Journal of Digital Literacy and Digital Competence (IJDLDC) .29-43. (2014) [14] Borthwick, A C. and R Hansen. "Digital Literacy in Teacher Education: Are Teacher Educators Competent." (2017) [15] Khalid, M. "A systematic review and meta-analysis of teachers‟ development of digital literacy." (2015) [16] Shulman, L S.. "Those who understand: Knowledge growth in teaching." (1986) [17] Pierson, M and A Borthwick. "Framing the assessment of educational technology professional development in a culture of learning." Journal of Computing in Teacher Education-. (2010) ICSSABE-21 47 The Development of an E-assessment Prototype by assessing the Three Levels of Digital Literacy among Communication Lecturers [18] Ball, D L. and G W. McDiarmid. "The subject matter preparation of teachers." In W. R. Houston (Ed.) (1990) [19] Schmidt, D A., E Baran, A D. Thompson, P Mishra, M J. Koehler and T S. Shin. "Technological pedagogical content knowledge (TPACK) the development and validation of an assessment instrument for preservice teachers." Journal of Research on Technology in Education-. (2009) ARDA International Conference ICSSABE-21 48 India‟s Strategy to Manage the LOC Conflict and Its Relevance to Other Border Conflicts [1] [1][2][3] Susannah Alexander, [2] Aditya Bharadwaj, [3] Tonmoyee Kashyap European Studies, School of Strategic and Global Studies, Universitas Indonesia Abstract--- The Line of Control [LOC] border conflict has been a battle for sovereignty between the nations of India and Pakistan since India became an independent country. With legal agreements, mediators and constitutional amendments bringing no significant resolution to the conflict, the paper identifies the need to highlight the most strategic approaches for conflict resolution in the context of Kashmir. The research findings indicate that majority of the respondents believe constitutional provisions, allowing mediation from peacekeeping organizations and extending diplomatic ties with other countries through policies are the most productive resolution strategies. The findings also reflect a preference for the intervention from concerned nations over the internationalization of the conflict has as an approach to settle the surge of violence. Further, the study found that most respondents believed a singular approach can be commonly and effectively applied to all border disputes. Both army and civilian responses were collected during the research study and response trends show both, a convergence and divergence of their opinions depending upon the nature of the area being questioned. I. AN INTRODUCTION TO BORDER CONFLICTS A boundary dispute may be described as a disagreement over the possession or control of land between two or more territorial entities. Border conflicts can have serious implications for the countries involved in them, not only because of the possibility of armed conflict, but also because of the presence of resources or populations that either country may desire, it is said that, ideally, border disputes should be solved through the use of international law, and according to Article 1 of the Montevideo Convention on the rights and duties of states declares that "a person of international law should possess the following qualifications: (a) a permanent population; (b) a defined territory; (c) government; and (d) capacity to enter into relations with other State" One of the most well-known border conflicts in the Indian subcontinent is the conflict over the lands that belong to the former princely state of Jammu and Kashmir, beginning almost immediately after the independence of India and Pakistan. The line of control was drawn de facto, when both forces reached an impasse in 1947 and later, when the United Nations intervened in 1965. An overview on the existing conflict over the Line of Control: The contestation was birthed closely before the independence of India in 1947 and is still unresolved. The infiltrating armed dissent from the civilians against India, which the latter claims is the influence of the Pakistani supporters of militancy, is the result of territorial conflict between the nations of India and Pakistan. Kashmir was hence granted special status on this account, which India revoked on the 5th of August 2019 which severely strained ties with Pakistan and caused an eruption of opposition from the civilians. Currently, the fight for sovereignty of ARDA International Conference Jammu and Kashmir prevails between the two nations, India; who believes the historical accession and territorial majority binds the land as theirs, while Pakistan who employs the religious majority and people‟s alienation against India to defend their right to sovereignty. The study aims to identify an apt resolution(s) of the LOC border conflict from multiple perspectives. The team further wanted to analyse if the strategies can be applied to the border disparities we share with other neighbouring territories. The team collected findings for the latter by attempting to gain insight on the relationship between the LOC conflict and other border disputes and the possibility of a collective combating strategy if any.[1] II. THE CONCEPT OF TERRITORIAL SOVEREIGNTY: A THEORETICAL AND PHILOSOPHICAL ANALYSIS: Territory is often believed to be a static outcome of a decision-making process but in reality, it is a dynamic factor in its own right. In matters of international law and foreign relations, ownership of territory plays a significant role because sovereignty over land is one of the major factors that help define what constitutes a state. As with any other concept, sovereignty has varying perspectives bound by context, time and the angle of one‟s perception.[2] Theoretically, the factors that determine territorial sovereignty can further be divided into 9 broad categories: 1. Treaty Law: This category covers and is centred on the legal aspects of sovereignty. Treaty laws are similar in function to private contracts where the primary aim is to create legally recognizable definitions that are amicable to all parties involved. 2. Geography: Natural boundaries such as mountains and water bodies often act as de facto borders between two political entities. In these cases, the borders are a natural consequence of geography and, more often than not, ICSSABE-21 49 India‟s Strategy to Manage the LOC Conflict and Its Relevance to Other Border Conflicts they have been traditionally respected for quite some time. 3. Economy: Economic justifications for territorial claims are often presented when the territory in question had high resource concentration or strategic importance 4. Culture: Cultural justifications are especially relevant in the LOC border conflict. These justifications are generally based on the concept of “belonging”, whether it is based on demographic factors like a common language, religion, kinship, etc. 5. Effective Control: Under this category, a group may lay claim to a particular territory on the grounds that the group has “uncontested administration of the land and its resident population”. 6. Uti Possidetis: It is a guideline that has largely been used to define postcolonial national boundaries in Latin America, Asia, and Africa. Under this principle, a free state that has achieved independence from a colonial power acquires the pre-autonomy managerial limits set by the previous colonial power. 7. Elitism: Elitist claims to territory are often based on the idea that a “particular minority has the right or duty to control certain territories”. These claims are often a result of traditional social hierarchies and by definition; they are difficult to fit into a democratic framework. 8. Ideology: Ideological justifications generally assert a “special mission” based on “unique identification with the land” and may have inherent “exclusivist overtones” 9. History: Another factor detrimental to deciding the status of the Line of Control. Historical claims to territory are generally justified by historical priority based on possession or duration of possession. These claims may be based on easily verifiable historical records but are more often than not based on folk traditions and long-standing cultural legends. The philosophical outlook on sovereignty presents one that navigates in a different circumference from the theoretical one mentioned above. Drawing on Thomas Hobbes, Jean Bodin and Carl Schmitt, Wendy Brown has conveniently pointed out that a poststructuralist comprehension of sovereignty's 'irreplaceable characteristics' incorporates 'incomparability (no more powerful), no service time boundaries, (no bondage by or accommodation to law), authority and culmination (sway can't be likely or incomplete), non-adaptability (sway can't be given without dropping itself), and determined purview (territoriality)'. Nasser Hussain advises us that the figure of sway is an antiquated one that was thought to have vanished in the 'rule-bound configuration of a cutting-edge discretionary democracy'. Yet, in conjecturing types of intensity in advancement, Michel Foucault focuses on the part of sovereignty as having a 'verifiable connect' to the 'issue of decisions of government'.[3] III. APPROACHES TO CONFLICT RESOLUTION: The tactic of balancing a conflict ride primarily on the context. The research paper however attempts to discover whether the resolution of border disputes, which is a source of internal conflict within India, can be applied to the ARDA International Conference multitude of disparities our country shares with its neighbours. The two broad categories are the overarching strategies that encompass the four sub-divided distinct categories presented in our questionnaire: 1. Negotiation: which hopes for efficient and amicable agreements, however, for such a strategy to work, both sides have to be willing to make compromises, to ensure that both sides gain from the treaty in question. While this is a relatively good tactic for India in the short term, disputes like the Sino-Indian rivalry may disagree due to the strength of China in the economic sphere and the latter's unwillingness to make compromises may nip this resolution method in the bud. 2. Adjudication: This method is one in which the international Court of Justice settles the matter, it is used based on the assumption that the ICJ is fairer than other individual nations, however its detractors, state that the ICJ is under just as much pressure from powerful nations as individual nations. IV. INTERNATIONALIZATION OF THE CONFLICT: TWO DIFFERING VIEWS: The growing issue has multiple factors that are rooted within contradictory opinions, and the very nature of the issue as growing can be broken down into three phases according to Iffat Malik (author of the book, “Kashmir”). Predating the current scenario is phase 1 or the build-up towards insurgency, delving into the peaking insurgency phase. The third phase which is in its novel stages, is the internationalization of the issue, hinting at intervention as an attempt to battle the failure of insurgency control and the political alienation of the citizens against India.[4] Kashmir as an international conflict has remain unsteady, the formative times saw Nehru describe it as a “world question” with the current irony of India internalizing the matter while discussing it with foreign allies like the US. Historically as well, Intervention from the UN holding motions and talks regarding the two dominions were rampant attempting to foster peace talks even as Nehru stated that even the “UN cannot override” the decision of territorial sovereignty of a part of Kashmir. The very statement was made at a time India confidently intervened in all of South Asia‟s internal matters (including Pakistan) and reversibly allowed the Colombo powers to act as a mediatory body in the China dispute. Internationalization and settlement of disputes beyond boundaries were hence the norm and a practice undertaken by our nation since Nehru‟s times. Islamabad‟s awareness on their military disadvantage and the lack of action after the abrogation of article 370 which was heavily criticized by the citizens, added to their already mounted support to bring the issue to the global front. Diplomatic dissent and constructing narratives being one of the few resorts Pakistan has undertaken to sustain the conflict, the Sino-Indian rivalry is a newer approach appealing to the need to internationalizing Kashmir to Pakistan‟s advantage. With hopes to bring visibility of their concerns to the United States and by improving geo strategic relations with international borders with the aid of China, Pakistan may have an alternative compensatory force to tackle its military ICSSABE-21 50 India‟s Strategy to Manage the LOC Conflict and Its Relevance to Other Border Conflicts shortcomings. India, on the other hand, sees no immediate necessity to give the ideological differences global outreach, especially after the violation of the international human rights standards opposed by the United Nations, August last year.[5] V. NEIGHBOURING BORDER CONFLICTS WITH INDIA Being a small sandwiched nation between two mega nations, Nepal has benefitted from foreign ties with, as well as been a dispute settlement region for India and China. It has been a victim of border disputes, trade, and imperialism. Nepal has significant geostrategic access to Tibet and houses the second largest Tibet community in the world. China has traditionally alleged that international forces are operating against China using the Tibetan refugee load based in Nepal. In this context, China was deeply anxious when six Nepalese Parliamentarians visited Dalai Lama in Dharamsala in February 2009 (Nayak, 2009). Since then, China‟s relations with the Nepalese political parties have been diplomatic. China has always had a strong soft power grip over Nepal (Among various other South Asian countries.) Sources in the Nepalese government say a significant amount of the influence in Nepal is now being exerted through China‟s ambassador to the country, Hou Yanqi. The incentive behind Chinese aid to Nepal is both strategic and political. The collective interests of India and US on Nepal have fuelled China‟s motivation to send aid. The idea of maintaining Nepal‟s neutrality layers China‟s interests in Tibet. “The recent, insensitive unilateral decision made by India caused a lot of disappointment to Nepal. Moreover, Nepal has been seeking a meeting with India over the border dispute since November — the last official request was in January — but New Delhi hasn‟t responded. All of this together has made Kathmandu upset,” said one of the Army respondents during our survey. Nepal is one of the SAARC countries who have supported bilateral & Trilateral over unilateral talks among nations to resolve border disputes LOC and that of J&K. They prefer pragmatic approaches that stem from humanitarian values, to India's border disputes. Pradeep Gyawali, the foreign minister of Nepal recently said this regarding the Kashmir issue in a press conference, “the Nepal government is in favour of regional peace and stability.” Its (Nepal‟s) geopolitical location is strategically much more valuable to China during its expansionism. Since Nepal is located between the two advancing towards superpower positions, Nepal has the potential to become a centre of geopolitical competition between China and a defensive India. Chinese influence in Nepal will increase if Nepal remains unstable, internally vulnerable, and is incapable to resist foreign interference. For stability, China and Nepal should both come forward in the economic development of Nepal by investing in hydro-electricity and tourism. A trilateral cooperation between India, China, and Nepal can be in the interest of the region. Nepal‟s stability can in the long run serve both the security concerns of both its neighbouring countries. (Jaiswal, Pramod, 2010).[6] ARDA International Conference Facilitating bilateral talks and securing relations with neighbouring countries: On the other end of conflict resolution strategies from war, is peaceful settlement of issues. Bilateral talks settle under the wing of peaceful means of resolution. It is imperative for countries to choose their policies, exchanges and strategies with international relations, internal disparities and the nation itself in mind. There is a need to promote an overarching strategic stability regime and put a stop to aggressive security forces to reduce the possibility of another conflict 1. The problems of terrorism and violence need to be addressed through institutionalized mechanisms as this is far more effective 2. Negotiations should be the easiest method of peaceful settlement of both the parties. Article 40 of the United Nations Charter also focuses on this aspect before taking any help from the Security Council. 3. Economic trade and co-operation should be facilitated to develop interest in each other and maintain a minimum connection. 4. A third party playing the role as a mediator can help resolve dispute between two parties, The mediation can be done either by a person or an institution. These tactics may foster a discharge of the intra-regional build up after the abrogation of articles 370 and 35A to resolution; bring more visibility to inter-regional obstacles thereby securing an understanding between borders and may secure national interests crucial to catalyse growth and expansion. VI. OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY: The research team aimed to answer the general research question by diverging it into a category of objectives mentioned below: A. What stance and policies can India adopt to the two issues to secure the following? 1. Better relations with the neighbouring countries 2. Prevent growing internationalization, increasing support for Pakistan in the subcontinent and more bilateral over unilateral decisions after abrogation of article 370 3. Manage the surge in intra-regional conflict after the abrogation of article 370 and 35A B. Can a one size fit all approach be applied effectively to all border disputes India is battling? C. Can the internationalization of the border conflict work favourably towards India in a globalised world? E. Identifying relevant domestic policies that can ensure the security of Kashmir amidst growing cross border tensions (Nepal, China and Pakistan, hence looking at the issue holistically) F. What factors are powerful enough in determining territorial sovereignty? G. Can identifying co existing perspectives help bring clarity to an effective strategy: Taking into account army officer‟s statements V statements of the people. ICSSABE-21 51 India‟s Strategy to Manage the LOC Conflict and Its Relevance to Other Border Conflicts VII. METHODOLOGY Overview: The following segment deals with the method of study, tools used, sample selection, data collection methods and approaches to transcribing, analysing and interpreting the data collected. Steps in forming a research question: The group collectively decided on dealing with a national border conflict and singled out the Kashmir conflict since it was disputed for a relatively extended period of time. The lack of adequate resolutions even after creation of a ceasefire line and subsequent interventions from peace organizations made the issue a relevant topic for a strategic mediation. After multiple readings, the internal conflicts, international interventions, neighbouring border conflicts that have gained momentum recently and the whole aspect of territorial sovereignty stood as supportive concepts to the broader research question.[7] VIII. STUDY SAMPLING: The sample selection in this study involved including a representative group of people from the larger population for the acquisition of relevant data. The group used the “purposive sampling technique” a type of non-probability sampling which involves deliberately choosing a target sample due to relevant qualities they possess for the research. The group aimed at selecting a sample that involved the following characteristics: Age: No specifics, any age group with a general knowledge on the issue was acceptable Occupation: We received respondents with a range of occupations. We additionally targeted military officials, lawyers, public policy makers and Jammu and Kashmir civilians to give us a solid understanding of the possible strategies and experiences with the prevailing surge of the conflict. The team had circulated the questionnaire on Google forms. The total sample population that answered the questionnaire comprised 86 people. We had initially sent the forms to a larger population but some of the participants were unwilling to answer the questionnaire, tallying the revised sample to 86 respondents. The study was conducted in complete confidentiality of the respondents and the participants agreed to provide relevant information on the promise of anonymity. The highlighted respondents of our sample were army officials and Jammu and Kashmir civilians and the number of each are represented in the table below. Number of army men 11 Number of Jammu and Kashmir civilians 5 We attempted to collect as close a ratio of the two categories as possible to get a fair distribution of data. The team did experience difficulties in acquiring a higher number of civilians that were willing to partake in the study and hence the apparent difference. ARDA International Conference IX. ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION OF THE DATA: The purpose of the study is to find out strategic approaches to the LOC border conflict and to assess if the application of the same to neighbouring conflicts is effective. The study consisted of a sample of 86 respondents with miscellaneous occupations. Out of the 86, 5 were civilians of Jammu and Kashmir and 11 were military officials. The data collected were of qualitative and quantitative nature. The section below represents the data collected for each question in a statistical form. Quantitative and questions with options: These types of questions are represented in percentages. The difference in responses is displayed statistically as pie charts. Qualitative data: For longer and descriptive responses, the team mapped the data into themes and categorized the same in order to statistically tally them in a tabular format.[8] Location analysis: Hometown Assam Kerala Karnataka Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh Andhra Pradesh Tamil Nadu Maharashtra Delhi Gujarat Uttar Pradesh Bihar Outside Indian territory Did not prefer to say Total Number of responses- The above location analysis was done to determine the percentage of respondents that who were proximal to the area(s) concerned; Jammu, Kashmir, Ladakh, Nepal, China. The following states are relatively proximal to the concerned areas: Close to Nepal border: 1. Assam: 12(13.9%) respondents 2. Uttar Pradesh: 11(12.7%) respondents 3. Bihar: 10(11.6%) respondents Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh: 5(5.8%). Hence, a total of 38(44.1%) respondents lived closer to the concerned borders. The team ensured to get participants closer to the borders so that answers could be derived from experiences of living closer to the conflicted zones. Presentation and analysis of the responses: Collection of primary data was done by formulating and distributing a questionnaire built by the team. The questions were formed in a manner relevant to the broader research question and its objectives. The following questions were distributed to the 86 respondents: ICSSABE-21 52 India‟s Strategy to Manage the LOC Conflict and Its Relevance to Other Border Conflicts Analysis and presentation of responses for individual questions: 1. For the question “Are you aware of India‟s border conflicts with Kashmir, China and Nepal?” the following options were given: “Yes”, “No” and “I have a general overview of it”. Awareness of the border conflicts Yes No I have a general overview of it Table 1.1 Number of respondents 61 0 25 Percentage of respondents 70.9% 0% 29.1% Graph 1.2: Table 1.1 and graph 1.2 indicates that 61(70.9%) respondents were aware of the border conflicts, 25(29.1%) had a general understanding of them and 0(0%) were unaware of the conflict. Interpretation: The majority of our responses were given from a well-grounded understanding of the conflict and the remaining had a general overview on it. The reliability of the responses was hence increased since there were no respondents without knowledge of the issue. 2. For the question “The militancy in Kashmir is a fight for territorial sovereignty. What factors from below do you think really helps determine which nation exerts true sovereignty over a territory?” the options “Religious, linguistic and ethnic majority”, “Political majority”, “Constitutional provisions” and “Geographical majority” was provided. 2.1 Factors that determine sovereignty Religious, linguistic and ethnic majority Political majority Constitutional provisions Geographical majority Number of responses 27 Percentage respondents 31.4% 9 40 10.5% 46.5% 10 11.6% 2.2 ARDA International Conference of Table 2.1 and graph 2.2 indicate that 40(46.5%) respondents said constitutional provisions, 27(31.4%) said religious, linguistic and ethnic majority, 9(10.5%) said political majority and 10(11.6%) said geographical majority are superior determinants of sovereignty over a region. Interpretation: The majority of our respondents said constitutional provisions help determine exertion of true sovereignty and the least number of respondents said a political majority is a determining factor. India moved from encouraging self determination to overshadowing it with nationalistic autonomy. The supreme court of India clearly stated that the jurisdiction of J&K fall under the constitution of India before the separate constitution of J&K. Citizens, similarly, according to constitutional provisions belong to the Union of India without distinct citizenship provisions. The sovereignty of J&K hence, does not apply beyond the constitution of India and the responses reiterate that the legality and historical contexts bound within the constitution of India is an overarching factor in deciding the disputed territorial claims. 3(a). For the question “Border relations of India with neighbouring South Asian countries are currently strained, and it is important to value these to further regional investments and exert political legitimacy especially during China‟s expansionism. 3. A) What factors play a more strategic role in combating threats and sustaining harmonious relations with immediacy? [MILITARY LEVEL STRATEGIES LIKE THE GALWAN VALLEY DISENGAGEMENT] the options “Confidence building between militaries”, “Tackling collusive threats (contingency II) non-violently”, “Partnering with peacekeeping organizations to spread humanitarian ties between countries and “Peace intervention is forceful; let conflict follow its natural course till exhaustion” was given. 5.1 Military level strategies Confidence building between militaries Tackling collusive threats (contingency II) non violently Partnering with peacekeeping organizations to spread humanitarian ties between countries ICSSABE-21 Number of responses 16 Percentage of responses 18.6% 21 24.4% 41 47.7% 53 India‟s Strategy to Manage the LOC Conflict and Its Relevance to Other Border Conflicts Peace intervention is forceful; let conflict follow its natural course till exhaustion 8 3(b).1 Foreign and domestic policies Restoration of Jammu and Kashmir‟s special status Securing multifaceted ties by high level visits across disputed territories Integrating liberal and democratic nations to counter authoritarian forces Resolve pending disputes with neighbouring south Asian countries 3(b).2 9.3% 5.2 Table 3.1 and graph 3.2 indicate that 16(18.6%) respondents said confidence building between militaries, 21(24.4%) said tackling collusive threats non- violently, 41(47.7%) said partnering with peacekeeping organizations and 8(9.3%) said peace intervention is forceful; let conflict follow its natural course till exhaustion. Interpretation: Part A focused on military strategies to combat tensions and sustain peaceful relations with neighbours. A majority (47.7%) respondents said “Partnering with peacekeeping organizations”. The very inception of the ceasefire line in 1949 was a mediatory decision by the UN Security Council. The failure of international mediation in the past due to a distinct political yet weakly legal advancement made India distrustful and more transparent towards bilateral talks. The Pakistani government‟s attempts to bring a mediatory character and India‟s reluctance to it are another disputed matter within the larger dispute. The above responses clearly indicate that respondents disagree with the government‟s ripened decision to handle the negotiations bilaterally, which has clearly reaped negligible benefits. The respondents display the need for India‟s restoration of faith with the involvement of a third party, which may require peacekeeping councils to highlight a legal solution by overtly engaging the role of significant documents like the instrument of accession. The lowest number of respondents selected war (let violence follow its natural course) as an approach, denoting that the citizens of the country want conflict to be avoided.[9] 3(b). For the question “What factors play a more strategic role in combating threats and sustaining harmonious relations with immediacy? [FOREIGN AND DOMESTIC POLICY IMPLEMENTATION BY THE GOVERNMENT]” the options “Restoration of Jammu and Kashmir‟s special status”, “Securing multifaceted ties by high level visits across disputed territories”, “Integrating liberal and democratic nations to counter authoritarian forces “and “Resolve pending disputes with neighbouring south Asian countries”. ARDA International Conference Number of responses 10 Percentage of responses 11.6% 27 31.4% 20 23.3% 29 33.7% Table 3(b).1 and 3(b).2 indicate that 10(11.6%) said “Restoration of Jammu and Kashmir‟s special status”, 27(31.4%) said “Securing multifaceted ties by high level visits across disputed territories”, 20(23.3%) said “Integrating liberal and democratic nations to counter authoritarian forces “and 29(33.7%) said “Resolve pending disputes with neighbouring south Asian countries”. Interpretation: The highest number of respondents said “Resolve pending disputes with neighbouring south Asian countries” which underlines the awareness of the importance of diplomacy and interdependence of international relations in the contemporary globalised world. With boundaries coming closer with the advancement of relations, conflicts and disagreements are rarely independent. Inter boundary relations in the Kashmir conflict is especially unavoidable since China controls around twenty percent of Kashmir. The participation and increasing involvement of super powers, neighbour ring bodies and the concerned parties in conflict itself points to the influence of settling prevalent disputes and suspended negotiations in shaping coexisting conflicts that a nation bears. The least number of respondents supported the restoration of Jammu and Kashmir‟s special status, which could either indicate that the majority of respondents supported the abrogation or the majority of them did not see the restoration as an integral part of conflict resolution or both. It is undeniably apparent though, that a higher percentage of respondents agreed to the impact of neighbouring countries on the Kashmir border dispute. 4(a). For the question “With Pakistan‟s attempts to bring the LOC conflict to the global platforms and India‟s counter efforts to internalize the matter; Do you think internationalization of the issue can actually work in favour ICSSABE-21 54 India‟s Strategy to Manage the LOC Conflict and Its Relevance to Other Border Conflicts of India amidst rising accusation of Pakistan‟s terrorism on global platforms?”, the options “Yes” or “No” was given. 4(a).1 Internationalization can work in favour of India Yes No Number of responses 40 46 Percentage of responses 46.5% 53.5% 4(a) 2. Table 4(a) 1 and graph 4(a) 2 indicate that 40(46.5%) respondents said “Yes” and 46(53.5%) said “No” for the possibility of internationalization of the Kashmir conflict working in favour of India. Interpretation: A majority of the individuals (53.5%) said internationalization of the issue would not work in our favour. The difference of opinion had a range of 7%. 4(b). For the question “Can intervention over interference by other nations in a world where boundaries become irrelevant help resolve the conflict?” the options “Yes” or “No” was given. 4(b).1. Intervention can resolve the conflict Yes No Number of responses 50 36 Percentage 58.1% 41.9% 4(b).2. Table 4(b).1 and graph 4(b)2. Indicate that 50(58.1%) respondents said intervention can resolve the conflict while 36(41.9%) said conflict cannot be resolved with other nation‟s‟ intervention. Interpretation: While majority of the respondents disagreed to internationalizing the issue in question 4(a), 58.1% individuals agreed that the intervention from other countries as a strategy of resolution can be successful. ARDA International Conference 4(c) For the question “If not, is there a strategic way to counter Pakistan‟s efforts to do so?” the answers received were qualitative in nature. The following distinct themes were mapped out for the purpose of data analysis from the respondents: 4(c) 1 Methods of countering efforts strategically No strategic way possible Yes, but unaware of it Increasing global visibility Bilateral talks and peacebuilding Compulsory jurisdiction of the ICJ/tripartite agreement Countering terrorism Military intervention by force Accepting LC as the international de facto border Use Pakistan‟s weaknesses against them (economic, military) Strategic policy building Total Total Number of responses 7 Number of military respondents Percentage of total responses 1 12.5% 8 0 14.2% 2 0 3.6% 14 2 25% 3 0 5.3% 1 1 1.7% 9 2 16.1% 3 1 5.3% 6 1 10.7% 3 0 5.3% 56 100% The question was intended at targeting responses from the people who disagreed to question 4(b). Based on 4(b) 1 and 4(b) 2 the total number of responses for the question 4(c) should have been (86-36) =50. Some of the respondents that agreed that intervention from other nations were effective (out of the 50) provided additional responses for question 4(c) 1. Hence, the total tally added up to 56 respondents. The responses were divided into the categories displayed above. The respondents were further analysed by dividing it into the number of responses from military officials since they had first-hand experience with strategic countering efforts. 7 respondents (12.5%) out of which 1 was a military response said there was no strategic way possible. 8(14.2%) and Nil military responses said a strategic method was possible but they were unaware of it. 2 ICSSABE-21 55 India‟s Strategy to Manage the LOC Conflict and Its Relevance to Other Border Conflicts respondents(3.6%) said increasing global visibility, 14(25%) and 2 military respondents said Bilateral and peace-building talks, 3(5.3%) and Nil military respondents said compulsory jurisdiction of the ICJ, 1(1.7%) ,a military response said countering terrorism, 9(16.1%) out of which 2 were military responses said Military intervention by force, 3(5.3%) out of which 1 was a military response said accepting Line of Control(LC) as the de facto border, 6(10.7%) out of which 1 was a military response said Using Pakistan‟s weaknesses against them and 3(5.3%) with Nil military responses said strategic policy building were effective strategic methods to counter Pakistan‟s efforts of harnessing external interventions into the matter. Interpretation: The data indicates that a majority of respondents (25%) said that bilateral talks and peacebuilding was an effective method to counter Pakistan‟s efforts to internationalize the conflict. This was followed by Military intervention by force (16.1%). The least number of respondents (1.7%) said countering terrorism could help prevent Pakistan‟s intentions to internationalize the issue. The highest number of military responses was received for Bilateral talks and peace-building (2) and Military intervention by force (2) as well. Nil military officials mentioned strategic policy building and increasing global visibility as a strategic method.[10] Notable quotations: “Intervention is not only the norm, but it is also the consequence of the desire for world peace manifest in the multilateral world organizations that manage geopolitics. However, the solution to any conflict would be the responsibility of the primary contestants. Boundaries‟ being irrelevant is an idea ahead of time: the contemporary world order architecture is mainly built on boundaries. Expressing a willingness to accept the LC (Line of Control) as the defacto international border is a strategic option. The potential of such a solution is heavily dependent on the statesmanship of the leadership of both the countries and other regional and world players.” -Lieutenant General, JP Mathew (Indian Army), deployed in Kashmir. 5. For the question, “The surge of tension between India's topographically different borders is an expression of unresolved differences with its neighbours. Do you believe border tensions of India with Nepal, Pakistan and China are more interconnected than portrayed by the media currently?” The question was divided two folds, Part A and B. Part A was as follows: “5.A Are there any domestic policies or moves to collectively combat these tensions? If What actions from below are most effective to be applied to all the border disputes?” for which the following options were given: “Joint agreement to set up a zone of intermediary contention (A neutral zone i.e., a peaceful, shared common boundary between two countries)”, “Redrawing and demarcating boundaries through agreements”, “Complete abolishment of borders allowing free flow”, and “Maintaining the status quo”. ARDA International Conference Table 5.1 Domestic Policies Joint agreement to set up a zone of intermediary contention (A neutral zone i.e., a peaceful, shared common boundary between two countries) Redrawing and demarcating boundaries through agreements Complete abolishment of borders allowing free flow Maintaining the status quo Number of Respondents 44 Percentage of respondents 51% 22 26% 19 22% 1 1% 86 responses Table 5.1 and Graph 5.2 indicates that 44 (51%) respondents supported the idea of a Joint agreement to set up a zone of intermediary contention (A neutral zone i.e., a peaceful, shared common boundary between two countries), 22 (26%) on redrawing and demarcating boundaries through agreements, 19 (22%) said maintaining the status quo, and 1 (1%) supported complete abolishment of borders allowing free flow. For sub question 5.B, “Can individual strategic policies help in combating all these border tensions simultaneously? If so, what actions from below are most effective in combating each border conflict?” the following were the options: “Joint agreement to set up a zone of intermediary contention (A neutral zone i.e., a peaceful, shared common boundary between two countries)”, “Redrawing and demarcating boundaries through agreements”, “Complete abolishment of borders allowing free flow”, and “Maintaining the status quo”. Given below is the tabular and graph representation of the responses. ICSSABE-21 56 India‟s Strategy to Manage the LOC Conflict and Its Relevance to Other Border Conflicts Table 5.3 Domestic Policies Joint agreement to set up a zone of intermediary contention (A neutral zone i.e., a peaceful, shared common boundary between two countries) Redrawing and demarcating boundaries through agreements Complete abolishment of borders allowing free flow Maintaining the status quo Number of Respondents 40 28 Percentage of respondents 47% 33% 2 2% 16 19% 86 responses Table 5.3 and Graph 5.4 indicates that 40 (47%) respondents supported the idea of a Joint agreement to set up a zone of intermediary contention (A neutral zone i.e., a peaceful, shared common boundary between two countries), 28 (33%) on redrawing and demarcating boundaries through agreements, 16 (19%) said maintaining the status quo, and 2 (2%) supported complete abolishment of borders allowing free flow. Interpretation of data: The majority of responses for both collective and individual strategies (51% and 47% respectively) said setting up a neutral and agreed zone of intermediary contention may be effective in combating the border conflict. The figures indicate that the majority did not differ based on collective policies applied for all border disputes and policies applied exclusively for the LOC conflict. Hence, a similar strategy can be applied for all border conflicts according to the responses received. 6. The following question was exclusively given to military officials and civilians of Jammu and Kashmir. The target population was chosen to collect subjective perspectives from two different experiences and outlooks. The question “As an army officer/civilian, what are your experiences and opinions on; A) The militancy in Kashmir and handling the violent protest B) Responses and managing of the conflict by political figures C) Abrogation of article 370 and 35A D) The impact of neighbouring contested borders on the line of control” the following responses were mapped: ARDA International Conference A) The following table presents the number for each theme mapped and the number of civilian respondents for the same. Handling of Number Number of militancy in of military Kashmir responses officials‟ responses Military is working effectively Both Military and political parties are handling it effectively Army is effective, political parties are curbing army‟s decisions Both military and political parties are contributing to militancy of responses military and 4 4 Number of Jammu and Kashmir civilian responses Nil 2 1 1 1 1 Nil 4 Nil 4 The above data indicates that a total of 4 respondents said the “Military is working effectively” and all the 4 respondents were military officials. 2 respondents (one military official and one civilian) said “Both military and political parties” are handling the militancy effectively, 1 military official said “The army is effective, political parties are curbing army‟s decisions” and 4 respondents (4 civilians) said Both military and political parties are contributing to the militancy. Interpretation: The highest number of respondents said “Military is working effectively” and “Both military and political parties are contributing to the militancy”. “Military is working effectively” received the highest number of military official responses while “Both military and political parties contributing to militancy” received the highest number of civilian responses. The two categories contradict each other and they equally share a high response load from the two groups of people targeted. This highlights the conflicting existing perspectives that exist within and about the disputed boundaries.[11] Mapping army and civilian responses: “The aspirations of the people, especially as a result of the protracted civil unrest, need to be resolved by the government through imaginative dialogue and reforms. The meddling by Pakistani government and non-state actors, and the sustained insertion of terrorists for waging proxy war and religious jihad, requires credible counter action at the national level.” -Lieutenant General, JP Mathew (Indian Army), deployed in Kashmir. “As a civilian I have seen innocent kids picking guns because of oppression by Indian army, there are army and ICSSABE-21 57 India‟s Strategy to Manage the LOC Conflict and Its Relevance to Other Border Conflicts Crpf camps everywhere in Kashmir and whenever protests happen even if peaceful ones use of tear gases, pepper gases, pellets are very common. What I believe is that they are not army they are “RSS sangis” with ak47 and snipers” -Anonymous civilian B) Managing the conflict by political figures Politicians creating policies for their own benefit and agenda Decisions of the politicians must emerge from the people Politicians are limiting decisions made my armed forces Politicians are incapable of handling the crisis Politicians are being pragmatic Total Number of responses Number of military official responses 4 1 Number of Jammu and Kashmir civilian responses 3 2 1 1 1 1 Nil 2 2 Nil 1 1 The above data indicates that 4 respondents( 1 military official and 3 civilians) said “Politicians are creating agendas for self-benefit”, 2(1 military official and 1 civilian) said “Decisions of the politician must emerge from the people” , 1(1 military official) said “Politicians are limiting decisions made by the armed forces” , 2(2military officials) said politicians are incapable of handling the crisis and 1(1 civilian) said “Politicians are being pragmatic” towards handling the current border crisis. Interpretation: The highest number of total respondents said politicians are creating policies for themselves and not the people. The highest number of military officials said Politicians are incapable of handling the crisis and the highest number of civilians said politicians are creating policies for themselves and not the people. This indicates that the highest number of responses from both categories displayed negative opinions towards the work of politicians. Mapping army and civilian responses: “The solution to any conflict finally comes from the people - leaders need to emerge from the population. The union government has to nurture the local leadership, and enable them to give the people a chance for reconciliation.” ARDA International Conference -Lieutenant General, JP Mathew (Indian Army), deployed in Kashmir. I believe each political party is forming an agenda for their own benefits rather than the citizens or for the country. It's a political mastermind game, and the real news is obviously hidden from the citizens.”  Anonymous civilian. C) Views on Number of Number of Number abrogation responses army of officers civilians Abrogation was 7 4 3 the only solution to the conflict Abrogation was 2 Nil 2 unfortunate The above data indicates that 7 respondents (4 army officials and 3 civilians) said abrogation was the only solution to the conflict while 2(Nil army officers and 2 civilians) said the abrogation of the articles was unfortunate. Interpretation: A majority of respondents said abrogation was the only solution to the conflict. The highest number of army officers and civilians said abrogation was the only solution. Hence, most of the respondents believed that the abrogation of the articles was a positive move. Mapping army and civilian responses: “Special provisions even after almost a three quarter of a century of becoming an independent sovereign republic is an absurd idea, to say the least. One country, one constitution, has to be the guiding principle.” -Lieutenant General, JP Mathew (Indian Army), deployed in Kashmir. “Abrogation article 370 and 35 is a route for India to follow footsteps of Israel and start a settler colonization project in Kashmir but that would be difficult for now especially in valley as I don't believe many people in India can handle slow internet closed school pepper gas and tear gas inside their houses.”  Anonymous civilian. D) Impact of Total Number Number of neighbouring number of of army Jammu and contested borders responses responses Kashmir on the Line of civilian Control responses They merely add 4 2 2 to the existing burden Neighbouring 2 Nil 2 borders should hold a plebiscite and intervene Identify mutual 2 1 1 geopolitical interests of Pak and China as an important factor ICSSABE-21 58 India‟s Strategy to Manage the LOC Conflict and Its Relevance to Other Border Conflicts For the above question, 4 respondents (2 army and 2 civilians) said the neighbouring border conflicts had a negative impact and added to the burden, 2 civilians suggested holding a plebiscite where inter connecting all border issues may be fruitful, 2(1 army officer and 1 civilian) said identifying mutual geopolitical interests of neighbours (such as China) plays an essential role in the conflict.[12] Interpretation: The highest number of respondents said neighbouring border conflicts had a negative impact, the highest number of army responses also said neighbouring border conflicts had a negative impact on the Line of control. The highest number of civilian responses indicated that neighbouring conflicts had a negative impact and must be allowed to intervene by holding a plebiscite. Hence, the major percentage of respondents believed neighbouring conflicts added to the existing LOC burden rather than using it to the advantage of the latter. Mapping army and civilian responses: “The direct military intervention by China in a conflict with Pakistan is a low probability event. However, the geopolitical interests of both these countries are intertwined, and their mutual support is a factor that India can ill afford to ignore.” -Lieutenant General, JP Mathew (Indian Army), deployed in Kashmir. “All the neighbouring borders should hold plebiscite that is India side Kashmir and Pakistan side Kashmir and people of Kashmir should decide whether they should be with India, Pakistan or independent.”  Anonymous civilian. 7. For the question “Do you think the demarcation of the border can be best determined by India, Pakistan or the people of the states?” The following categories were mapped Parties determining the demarcation of the border. Number of responses Percentage Governments of India and Pakistan together 15 20.8% India 9 12.5% Pakistan 0 0% People of the states 24 33.3% International Third Party 8 11.1% No new demarcation should be made 5 6.9% No Comments 5 6.9% Jammu & Kashmir 1 1.3% Both the Nations and the People of the states together through debates and dialogues 5 6.9% ARDA International Conference Above is the tabular representation of which party should determine the demarcation of the border according to our sample population. Interpretation:  The data above shows that the majority of the population, i.e., 24 out of all the 72 respondents believed that the demarcation should be determined by the “people of the states”.  On the other hand, 15(20.8%) respondents believe that both the governments should be involved while determining the demarcation of the borders,  12.5% of the sample population, i.e., 9 out of 72 respondents believed that India should be the sole authority in determining the demarcation of the border, whereas, 0% trusts the Pakistani authorities with demarcation. Some responses received: “The people will always have varied perceptions of the problems and differences in the justness of the solution. Politicians represent the people, and the government is formed by the elected representatives of the people. Therefore, by inference the demarcation of the border can be best determined by Indian and Pakistani governments.” --Lieutenant General, JP Mathew (Indian Army), deployed in Kashmir. “People of the states. They are the ones who should choose their identity which is closely tied to the country they belong to.” -Anonymous civilian X. FINDINGS AND CONCLUSION: The current section aims to present the findings collected by the research team. The findings are based on the objectives enlisted by the team and are based on the primary data collected. Findings concerning the factors determining territorial sovereignty: One of the study‟s objectives was to discover the factor superior in determining territorial sovereignty. Constitutional provisions as an adequate determinant of territorial sovereignty got a strong response. It was additionally found that a smaller number of people preferred political strength and party leanings as a determiner of territorial sovereignty. Findings concerning bettering relations with neighbouring countries and managing surge in violence: Military level tactics: The team aimed to find the best possible strategies considering the current strained relations, in managing the conflict driven environment and sustaining diplomacy. Most respondents preferred the intervention from peacekeeping organizations as a mediatory body in resolving conflicts. This was followed by the second strongest response for nonviolent tackling of collusive threats. The least number of respondents chose war as an option, indicating a larger popularity in opinion for peaceful military methods. ICSSABE-21 59 India‟s Strategy to Manage the LOC Conflict and Its Relevance to Other Border Conflicts Policy implementation: The team additionally wanted to see the influence of implementing selective policies to diminish the surge of intra and inter regional conflict. The majority of respondents indicated resolving existing conflict between borders and facilitating high level visits across borders to secure ties.[13] Findings concerning the internationalization of the conflict: 1. Most of the respondents believed that internationalizing the issue may not work in our favour, even though there is an opportunity to bring Pakistan‟s furthering and funding of terrorism linked allegation on the global front. 2. Most respondents however, believed that other nations intervening in a globalised era can help in conflict resolution. 3. Most respondents, who disagreed with the intervention from other countries, said bilateral talks and peace building can prevent Pakistan‟s efforts to centralize the issue on global platforms. The highest number of military officials thought both bilateral talks and military intervention by force were strategic methods. The fewest respondents said countering terrorist operations in Pakistan could directly impact attempts to internationalize the dispute. Findings relating to applying a one size fit all approach to all border conflicts: The responses for both combating individual conflict and multiple conflicts were to set up a joint zone of intermediary contention, by a majority of respondents. Hence, a majority of the respondents believed that a single approach can be effectively applied to multiple border conflicts.[14] Findings concerning the subjective statements and existence of multiple perspectives: A. The categories that received the highest number of responses; Military is working effectively and Military and Politicians are contributing to militancy were contradictory categories. The former category received the highest number of military officials supporting it, while the highest number of civilians responded to the latter. The two conflicted perspectives came from groups that experienced different ends of the same conflict. B. Majority of the civilian‟s said politicians are creating policies for their own agendas while military said the politicians were failing at handling the crisis. The responses from both the categories had similar opinions on the negative impact of politicians on the issue. C. Both majority of civilians and military officials had similar views that abrogation of article 370 and 35A was the solution to the conflict D. Civilian and army responses on the influence of neighbouring border conflicts had both a similar and a differing perspective. The highest number of army ARDA International Conference officials and civilians said neighbouring conflicts added to the existing burden. An equally high number of civilians additionally believed neighbouring countries should hold a plebiscite and intervene. Findings concerning the determinants of border demarcation on the LOC issue: The maximum number of respondents said the people of the states could best decide the border demarcation fairly. XI. CONCLUSIONS: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. The research project has shown that constitutional provisions were a preferred determinant of sovereignty Peace keeping methods from intervening bodies was the most common response for conflict resolution. Policies aimed at resolving existing border tensions and allowing high level visits across boundaries to secure ties were the preferred policy implementation tactics for conflict resolution Internationalization of the matter may not be helpful for India, but allowing concerned nations to intervene may be advantageous. Bilateral and peace talks can prevent Pakistan‟s efforts to increase global visibility on the issue. A single approach (setting up a joint zone of intermediary contention) can be applied to the Kashmir as well as coexisting border conflicts Military and civilian statements contradicted in the following areas: -Role of military in the LOC border conflict - The resolution of other border conflicts by allowing neighbouring countries to hold a plebiscite and intervene into India‟s internal matters. Military and civilian statements were similar in the following areas:  Abrogation of article 370(both supported it)  Negative impact of existing neighbouring border conflicts on the LOC issue. 7. Majority of the respondents believed people of the states were the best determinants of border demarcation. XII. STUDY LIMITATIONS The research team did face certain limitations while conducting the study. The army civilian ratio was not equal, since the team found it difficult to collect more civilian responses. A larger sample would have been relatively more representative, especially since the questions involved a prevailing conflict. The short answer questionnaire consisted of options; hence the responses were limited to those options and this possibly paved way for bias. The team had to provide options for a more accurate method of data analysis. ICSSABE-21 60 India‟s Strategy to Manage the LOC Conflict and Its Relevance to Other Border Conflicts REFERENCES [1] Aggarwal, Ravina. 2004. Beyond Lines of Control. Durhan: Duke University Press. [2] Ali, Nosheen. 2019. Delusional States: Feeling Rule and Development in Pakistan’s Northern Frontier. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. [3] Bhattarai, Rajan. 2005, „Geopolitics of Nepal and Internal response to conflict Transformation, Kathmandu‟: FFP publications. [4] Ganguly, Meenakshi. 2019. „India wants to avoid international intervention, but needs to address human rights in Kashmir.‟ The Wire, Aug 17. https://www.hrw.org/news/2019/08/17/india-wantsavoid-international-intervention-needs-addresshuman-rights-kashmir. Accessed on October 10th, 2020. [5] Kanjwal, Hafsa. 2018. „Reflections on the PostPartition Period: Life Narratives of Kashmiri Muslims in Contemporary Kashmir‟. Himalaya 38(2): 40-60. [6] Mushtaq, Samreen. 2019. „The Violent Misogyny that Partners India‟s Stripping of Kashmiri Autonomy.‟ TRTWorld. [7] Nayak, Nihar 2009, „Involvement of major powers in Nepal since the 1990s: Implications of India,‟ Strategic Analysis, 33 (1) [8] Noorani, AG. 2019. „Is Kashmir a Domestic or International Issue?‟. The Wire. Sept 16. https://thewire.in/history/kashmir-domesticinternational-history. Accessed on Oct 4th, 2020. [9] Philpott, Dan. 2020. „Sovereignty‟. Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy. [10] Pramanik, Roy. 2015. „Neutrosophic Game Theoretic Approach to Indo-Pak Conflict over JammuKashmir’: Researchgate publications. [11] Puri, Balraj. 2001. „Sovereignty, Territorial Integrity and Right of Self-Determination‟. Economic and Political Weekly, Jan 27. https://www.epw.in/journal/2001/04/commentary/sov ereignty-territorial-integrity-and-right-selfdetermination.html. Accessed on Oct 5th, 2020. [12] Roychowdhury, Adrija.2016 „Here Is a History of India-Pakistan Conflict‟. The Indian Express, Sept 29. https://indianexpress.com/article/research/here-is-ahistory-of-india-pakistan-conflict. Accessed on Oct 4th, 2020. [13] Subbiah, Sumathi. 2000. „Security Council mediation and the Kashmir dispute: Reflections on its failures and possibilities for renewal‟. Students Publications. [14] Thapar, Karan. 2019. „Internationalising the Kashmir issue‟. The Hindu, October 31. https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/oped/internationalising-the-kashmirissue/article-.ece. Accessed on Oct 6th, 2020. 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