Issues of Ethnic Diversity and Just Development in Pakistan with a Special Focus on the Seraiki Ethnic Group

Ethnicity implies the sense of belonging together as the cultural group in a given society. It is a complex combination of racial, cultural and historical characteristics by which people differentiate themselves from other groups. This research envisages the genesis and the evolution of ethnicity as a political concept, the problems of ethnicity in a heterogeneous, multicultural state and the phenomenon of ethno-nationalism in its historical and analytical perspective in the federation of Pakistan with special reference to the status of Seraiki ethnic group. In fact ethnic expressions exist in all multicultural states and distinct ethnic groups evaluate themselves through communal prism. The less privileged groups develop abhorrence against the over – privileged groups due to the persistence of socioeconomic injustices. Factors like the gap between core and periphery, asymmetrical modernization and authoritarian trends lead towards ethnic disruption. Same is the case with Pakistan, a multilingual, multiracial and multiethnic state with federating units reflecting various diversities. The analysis of ethno-nationalism in Pakistan highlights factors, like regional cultural identity, relative deprivation among regions, centralized state structure, denial of accepting regional language as national language, and the absence of democratic values as being the root causes of the Bengali separatism. The assimilationist policies of the government do not acknowledge the regional/ethnic aspirations. Denial of pluralistic approach has been thwarting the demand for provincial autonomy. The nature of ethnic consciousness in the Seraiki belt, analyzed in this article, is found to be nurtured by the perceived socio-economic injustice at intra-provincial level—between the regions of South Punjab and Central and Northern Punjab put together

On Mode-Matching Investigation of Two Dimensional Acoustic Waveguide Structures

On Mode-Matching Investigation of Two Dimensional Acoustic Waveguide Structures Scattering characteristics of wave phenomenon are important topics while dealing with the study of water waves, electromagnetic waves and acoustic waves. This thesis aims to investigate acoustic wave scattering problems of two-dimensional waveguide structures. Multiple canonical structures are considered so as to determine sound characteristics due to change in material properties and abrupt changes in height. These structures are extended by involving more complexities in terms of cavity and then the effect of metamaterials within a waveguide structure. The underlying structures have very much relevance to the study of heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems, modified silencers, exhausting systems and rainbow trapping. The mathematical formulation of such problems is governed by the Helmholtz equation subject to planar and non-planar boundary conditions. This together categorizes the underlying problems as Sturm-Liouville eigenvalue problems and non-Sturm-Liouville eigenvalue problems, respectively. The solutions to the class of boundary value problems addresses in this thesis involve the use of well-known mode-matching technique and Fourier transforms, just in case. In the process, the scattered amplitudes are determined resulting expressions for power distribution in different duct regions. The power distribution is then illustrated graphically subject to different parameters of interest. We observe that the results are well supporting the boundary value problems both mathematically and physically. In case of waveguide problem with a tapered metamaterial cavity, the results demonstrate that huge amount of acoustic wave energy can be damped by a tapered array over a broad range of frequencies. This signifies that the metamaterial cavity is an extremely effective broad banded absorber.