The Local Government System of Pakistan: Participation, Representation and Empowerment of Women

Politics is the field where women have been ignored since ancient times, due to the political notions determined by ideological beliefs and cultural norms. Among the United Nations’ measures remove gender inequalities, includes recommendation for reserving 30 per cent seats for women in legislatures. In Pakistan, this remarkable change was effected in 2000, as it reserved 33 percent seats for women at the local government and 17 per cent at the Provincial/National Assemblies and the Senate level, so about 40,000 women entered in local bodies throughout the country in 2000-01, and almost 55,000 women contested local government in 2005. Despite these developments, women are still facing challenges that deter the full realization of their roles as active interlocutors of policy-making. Keeping in view these aspects, this paper has analyzed the local government, focusing on women, exploring whether the increasing number of women in legislatures is merely a numerical strength, or is empowering them, too, Whether they are the ‘subjects of change’ or the ‘agents of change.’ It is calculated that administrative structures of local government is male-dominated, whereas women are trying to ensure their position, however, gendered barriers remain unbroken

Monitoring Municipal Solid Waste Leachate Mobility Through Soil and Compost

Municipal solid waste produces leachate that contains huge amount of organic carbon, metals, and nutrients. These contaminants deteriorate receiving environment. The harmful a ect of waste can only be reduced by keeping the leachate emissions in control. We checked the feasibility of a bioretention media (compost) that could be used to underline the waste to reduce the contaminant leaching from waste. Two experiments were conducted to analyze compost as an adsorbent that can be used as a soil amendment to reduce the contaminant discharge from the waste. In therst experiment, leachate from three organic streams was characterized, followed by two leaching experiments with an objective of evaluating compost, and amended compost as a retention media. Leachate generated by the organic streams of municipal solid waste contained many times higher contaminant levels than the environmental quality standards. The results from compost leaching experiments showed that compost may not be used directly as an adsorption media because compost itself produced substantial amount of contaminants. The contaminant concentrations remained high through out the experimental period, which is equal to aux of 144 m. The biochar amendment did not improve the contaminant mobility from the compost, instead the biochar amendment increased the particulate and dissolved organic carbon concentrations. Sand + compost remained the most e cient mixture among all the amendments for the retention of contaminants.