This study focuses on determining the number of children considered ideal by Pakistani husbands and identifying the factors associated with this, with a special emphasis on family type. A cross-sectional survey was conducted among married males residing in four areas of Khairpur district. An equal number of study participants were selected systematically from each field site to achieve the required sample size of 500. Interviews were conducted by trained fieldworkers using a structured questionnaire to obtain information on background socioeconomic characteristics, (...) family structure and reproductive health knowledge and practices, in particular family planning. Multivariate logistic regression analyses were used to assess the hypothesis that family type has an independent association with husbands opinions regarding ideal number of children can help strengthen population control efforts in Pakistan. (shrink)

There are few moments in human history where the forces of religion, culture and politics converge to produce some of the most significant philosophical ideas in the world. India in the early 20thcentury was one of these moments, where we saw the rise of activist-thinkers like Nehru, Jinnah and Gandhi; individuals who not only liberated human lives but their minds as well. One of most influential members of the group was the poet-philosopher Muhammad Iqbal. Commonly known as the "spiritual (...) father of Pakistan", the philosophical and political ideas of Iqbal not only shaped the face of Indian Muslim nationalism but also shaped the direction of modernist reformist Islam around the world. Bringing together a diverse number of prominent and emerging scholars, from backgrounds in political science, philosophy and religious studies, this book offers novel examinations of the philosophical ideas that laid at the heart of Iqbal's own As such, by producing new developments in research on Iqbal's thought from a diversity of prominent and emerging voices within American and European Islamic studies, this text will offer new and novel examinations of the ideas that lies at the heart of Iqbal's own thought: religion, science, metaphysics, nationalism and religious identity. In our text, the reader will (re)discover many new connections between the "Sage of the Ummah" to the greatest thinkers and ideas of European and Islamic philosophies. (shrink)

This book reflects upon the political philosophy of Muhammad Iqbal, a towering intellectual figure in South Asian history, revered by many for his poetry and his thought. He lived in India in the twilight years of the British Empire and, apart from a short but significant period studying in the West, he remained in Punjab until his death in 1938. The book studies Iqbal's critique of nationalist ideology and his attempts to chart a path for the development of (...) the 'nation' by liberating it from the centralizing and homogenizing tendencies of the modern state structure. Iqbal frequently clashed with his contemporaries over his view of nationalism as 'the greatest enemy of Islam'. He constructed his own particular interpretation of Islam - forged through an interaction with Muslim thinkers and Western intellectual traditions - that was ahead of its time, and since his death both modernists and Islamists have continued to champion his legacy. (shrink)

The subject of human acts has been one of the controversial topics of kalām since the first centuries of Islam. A lot of concerning human acts –from divine attributes to divine decree and destiny, from the issue of good and evil (ḥusn and Qubḥ) to the boundaries of the reasoning, from the accountability with impossible things to the rational accountability, from the topics of substance and accident to causality- has been said and written in the history of Islamic tought. In (...) this study, the subject was discussed especially within the scope of man’s on his own action in connection with the divine knowledge, will, and power. On this issue, the Muʻtazila argues that human beings are independent in doing their good and evil acts with the power that God has given to them because of His will and wisdom, and that the evil actions that they have done cannot be associated with the divine attributes in any way. Sunnī theologians assert that God creates human actions through man’s orginated power. They also arguethat evil acts are not independent of the Divine Creation although human beings are the reason of evil in terms of thier acquisition (kasb) and will (irāda). Nevertheless, the representetives of the Sunnī kalām (Asharites and Māturīdis) differ on their account of acquisition, which expresses man’s agency in his acts. In contrary to the Mātūrīdiya, the Ashʻariya holds that acquisition is a created act of God. On the other hand, the Mashshai (peripatetic) philosophers, who are opposed by teologians on some issues such as divine attributes and the working of activity/acts in nature, consider human’s actions part of the eternal chain of cause-effect that emanate (al fayḍ) from the First Principle. However, according to them, every link of this chain is formed by the divine providence (al-ināyah). They also attribute morally evil acts not to the First Principle which is complete (tām) and full good (hayr), but to agents in the cause-effect chain. In summary, according to both teologians and philosophers, the ultimate source of human acts is the divine will and power. The acts that are morally or religiously evil, are not independent of man’s will. Thus, human beings are accountable for their actions. Philosophers and teologians, who agree on these issues, have explained their views and build their opinions on different concepts and principles. They have shown a very different attitude in their discourse and secondary principles, while all of them basically try to express the same idea. This difference has revealed within the frame of the following questions: Is man’s accountability for his actions because of his created power or will? Can evil actions, which are willed by human beings and therefore created by God, attributed to Him? Does the fact that the world emanates from God, the First Principle, due to His knowledge and essence, necessitate Him to be a willless and ineffective agent, and therefore to be a cause cause that has no effect on man's actions?Although teologians and philosophers have put forward different views in the context of the answers to these questions, they agree on the issues we have mentioned above. As this study shows, there is actually a common purpose in this subject, man’s actions, which causes deep divisions between theologians and philosophers in Islamic history. Primary sources of the study are the basic texts of the schools mentioned above. Additionally, the study were limited to the subject the effect of human on acts. It consists of two parts: the main part and the conclusion part. In the main section, the approaches of schools were examined from two aspects, in in terms of divine attribute and human effectiveness, and in the conclusion section, the common purposes behind the discussions were determined. (shrink)

Hate speech (‘al-jahr bi’-sūʾ min al-qawlin the Qur’anic description) continues to be the subject of contentious debate. Arguably, the notion of “unregulated speech” in the liberal discourse encourages hate speech on the pretext of “defending” the right to freedom of speech. Islam recogniseshuman dignityas the underlying basis of all human rights and freedoms, including the right to freedom of speech. Here arise two core questions. First, is freedom of speech and expression an absolute right or has Islam imposed certainconditionson the (...) human agency while this right is exercised? Second, what do theseconditionsconcerning freedom of speech imply about the regulation of hate speech? I approach these questions by beginning with the introduction ofkaramahprinciple followed by an overview of theoretical conceptualisations of free speech in the Western context. Finally, the Islamic position on the subject is brought forth through the conceptual analysis of relevant Islamic texts. The article draws three conclusions. First, human dignity is the intrinsic condition that surpasses all rights and freedoms. Second, the idea of “unregulated speech” is controversial and has been a reason forharminghuman dignity and making the public discourse inimical to social order. Third, there should be a legal, moral and rational reconciliation between exercising ‘speech limitations’ and ‘free speech’ to ensure sustainable peace and social cohesion. (shrink)

Al-Bassam’s The Al Hamlet Summit (2006), an adaptation of Shakespeare’s Hamlet (1603), presents a cynical comment on the political corruption in the Arab World and it constitutes from a presentist perspective, we argue, an anachronistic critique of some Arab leaders’ lapse into normalisation with the long-standing Other, the Israeli occupation. Al-Bassam captures the political corruption and Arab leaders’ liaison with Israel through the figure of Claudius, who, like Arab leaders, normalises relations with the enemies of his nation, Fortinbras and the (...) Arms Dealer. Many Arab leaders are normalising relations with Israel as a defensive mechanism against their citizens who have been protesting against dictatorial and tyrannical regimes that have conceived rottenness and corruption in the political and spiritual foundations of the states. While the waves of normalisation that have plagued the contemporary Arab scene raise the spectre of Western hegemony over Arabs, being channelled by the Trump Administration, many Arab leaders hurl to the strategy of normalisation ‘pants down’ so as to curb their citizens prospective revolutionary acts. (shrink)

ABSTRACTDuring the second Intifada which started in 2000 and ended sometime in mid 2000s, Palestinian male and female martyrs used video testimonies, records and documents of death, using the first person pronoun so as to articulate their missions and justifications for carrying out their acts of martyrdom. This study, which focuses on Palestinian female martyrs’ video-testimonies, investigates the elusive relationship between martyrdom and witness. I contend that the female martyr is a witness to the Israeli occupation of Palestine and to (...) the oppression and dehumanisation to which Palestinians are subject. Palestinian female martyrs are also witnesses to Arab leaders’ weakness and their inability to defend Palestine. The act of martyrdom is a collective one, involving the martyr, the agent of narration and the audience. The audience, who bears witness to the martyr, is necessary for martyrdom to be recognised and to take place. I argue that the end of the martyr’s speech marks out her silence and her tra... (shrink)

The thesis examines the origins and function of legal theory within the context of the development of early Islamic law. I argue against the depiction of the development of law as a series of compromises between traditionalism and rationalism. Rather, by evading the demands of traditionalism, law evolved into a complex doctrinal entity rooted in the social structures of third-century Abbasid society. This revision of the development of law provides a context to evaluate early works of legal theory. Moreover, in (...) context of my analysis of the development of law, I attempt to explain the emergence of legal theory as an independent discipline and its function within the greater structure of law. (shrink)

In this timely and outstanding contribution, Andreas Lammer tackles central concepts and problems in Avicenna's Physics of the Healing. The analysis provides a wide-ranging but cohesive study of Avicenna's approach and ideas. The philological and philosophical analysis of the historical context of Avicenna's arguments pays dividends. Avicenna's—often radical—reworking of Aristotle's approach in the Physics critically engages a long tradition of Peripatetic and Neoplatonic philosophy in Greek and Arabic. Lammer's contribution, based on his doctoral dissertation, lays fertile ground for future work. (...) Given the limitations of this review, I focus in the following on the results and fruitful questions raised by chapters... (shrink)

_The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam_ is Muhammad Iqbal's major philosophic work: a series of profound reflections on the perennial conflict among science, religion, and philosophy, culminating in new visions of the unity of human knowledge, of the human spirit, and of God. Iqbal's thought contributed significantly to the establishment of Pakistan, to the religious and political ideals of the Iranian Revolution, and to the survival of Muslim identity in parts of the former USSR. It now serves (...) as new bridge between East and West and between Islam and the other Religions of the Book. With a new Introduction by Javed Majeed, this edition of _The Reconstruction_ opens the teachings of Iqbal to the modern, Western reader. It will be essential reading for all those interested in Islamic intellectual history, the renewal of Islam in the modern world, and political theory of Islam's relationship to the West. (shrink)

Background Despite the implementation of codes and declarations of medical research ethics, unethical behavior is still reported among researchers. Most of the medical faculties have included topics related to medical research ethics and developed ethical committees; yet, in some cases, unethical behaviors are still observed, and many obstacles are still conferring to applying these guidelines. Methods This cross-sectional questionnaire-based study was conducted by interviewing randomly selected 331 Lebanese physicians across Lebanon, to assess their awareness, knowledge and attitudes on practice regarding (...) international and national research ethics guidelines and scientific misconduct and misbehaviors. Results Our results revealed that although majority of participants declared familiar with ethical principles governing research that involves human subjects, the overall mean score achieved on their knowledge questions was 46%. Only 27.4% are aware of the presence of the Lebanese National Consultative Committee on Ethics, with only half of them aware of its functions and only 25.7% know about the charter of ethics and guiding principles of scientific research in Lebanon. Significant higher levels of research ethics knowledge were recorded among Ph.D. degree-holding subjects, higher university positions as in professors, research ethics trainings-attendees, and physicians with prior research experience. A significant correlation was observed between knowledge of research ethics principles and positive attitudes toward research ethics principles. Noteworthy, we found that more than one third of participants have reported witnessing scientific misconduct and misbehaviors at some period of their careers. Conclusions The presence of low mean awareness levels regarding research ethical principles among the study population of physicians and high levels of perception of scientific misconduct raises concern on the importance of implementing proper training for physicians on research ethics. (shrink)

Includes an introd. of 49 p. by S. G. Abbas.

The Einstellung effect occurs when the first idea that comes to mind, triggered by familiar features of a problem, prevents a better solution being found. It has been shown to affect both people facing novel problems and experts within their field of expertise. We show that it works by influencing mechanisms that determine what information is attended to. Having found one solution, expert chess players reported that they were looking for a better one. But their eye movements showed that they (...) continued to look at features of the problem related to the solution they had already thought of. The mechanism which allows the first schema activated by familiar aspects of a problem to control the subsequent direction of attention may contribute to a wide range of biases both in everyday and expert thought - from confirmation bias in hypothesis testing to the tendency of scientists to ignore results that do not fit their favoured theories. (shrink)

Despite the severe social, health, political and economic impacts of the outbreak of Covid-19 on Palestinians, we contend that one positive aspect of this pandemic is that it has revealed the perils and shortcomings of the teacher-centered, traditional education which colonizes students’ minds, compromises their analytical abilities and, paradoxically, places them in a system of oppression which audits their ideas, limits their freedoms, and curtails their creativity. While Israeli occupation has proven to be an obstacle in the face of the (...) Palestinian government’s attempt to combat and contain the Corona crisis, on-line education, the sole arena that escapes this colonial system, has forced many instructors to give up their domination over the process of education and to create a more collaborative atmosphere of education that is based on dialogue, research and flexibility of the curriculum content. This study is designed to gauge English literature students’ responses to this mode of digital learning. We interviewed a hundred students from six English literature programs between March and August, 2020. Thus, through critically examining students’ answers, and by drawing on Freire’s concepts of banking education, consciousness and dialogue, we propose that online education is an important step towards the decolonization of education and a call for a paradigm shift on the account that the existing paradigm of traditional education is stifling students’ creativity and critical thinking. (shrink)

Business Ethics: A European Review, EarlyView.

Nowadays, mobile telephony interruptions in our daily life activities are common because of the inappropriate ringing notifications of incoming phone calls in different contexts. Such interruptions may impact on the work attention not only for the mobile phone owners, but also for the surrounding people. Decision tree is the most popular machine-learning classification technique that is used in existing context-aware mobile intelligent interruption management model to overcome such issues. However, a single-decision tree-based context-aware model may cause over-fitting problem and thus (...) decrease the prediction accuracy of the inferred model. Therefore, in this paper, we propose an ensemble machine-learning-based context-aware mobile telephony model for the purpose of intelligent interruption management by taking into account multi-dimensional contexts and name it “E-MIIM”. The experimental results on individuals’ real-life mobile telephony data sets show that our E-MIIM model is more effective and outperforms existing MIIM model for predicting and managing individual’s mobile telephony interruptions based on their relevant contextual information. (shrink)

Insight problems are likely to trigger an initial, inappropriate mental representation, which needs to be restructured in order to find the solution. Despite the widespread theoretical assumption t...

Insight problems are difficult because the initially activated knowledge hinders successful solving. The crucial information needed for a solution is often so far removed that gaining access to it through restructuring leads to the subjective experience of “Aha!”. Although this assumption is shared by most insight theories, there is little empirical evidence for the connection between the necessity of restructuring an incorrect problem representation and the Aha! experience. Here, we demonstrate a rare case where previous knowledge facilitates the solving of (...) insight problems but reduces the accompanying Aha! experience. Chess players were more successful than non‐chess players at solving the mutilated checkerboard insight problem, which requires retrieval of chess‐related information about the color of the squares. Their success came at a price, since they reported a diminished Aha! experience compared to controls. Chess players’ problem‐solving ability was confined to that particular problem, since they struggled to a similar degree to non‐chess players to solve another insight problem (the eight‐coin problem), which does not require chess‐related information for a solution. Here, chess players and non‐chess players experienced the same degree of insight. (shrink)

Expert chess players, specialized in different openings, recalled positions and solved problems within and outside their area of specialization. While their general expertise was at a similar level, players performed better with stimuli from their area of specialization. The effect of specialization on both recall and problem solving was strong enough to override general expertise—players remembering positions and solving problems from their area of specialization performed at around the level of players 1 standard deviation (SD) above them in general skill. (...) Their problem‐solving strategy also changed depending on whether the problem was within their area of specialization. When it was, they searched more in depth and less in breadth; with problems outside their area of specialization, the reverse. The knowledge that comes from familiarity with a problem area is more important than general purpose strategies in determining how an expert will tackle it. These results demonstrate the link in experts between problem solving and memory of specific experiences and indicate that the search for context‐independent general purpose problem‐solving strategies to teach to future experts is unlikely to be successful. (shrink)

Drawing on Levinasian concepts of sleep, insomnia, and the il y a, this paper examines the liminal states of insomnia and sleep within the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Sleep and insomnia, being proximates of death as well as displacement and anonymous existence successively, are topics that have not, to the best of our knowledge, received any critical commentary within (post)colonial studies. This paper argues that the Israeli military occupation deprives Palestinians from sleep, casting them into the horror and anonymous existence of insomnia (...) which, like the Israeli occupation, signifies impervious dialogue and is a catalyst for both psychic and physical displacement. As the Israeli occupation deprives Palestinians of place and sleep, two terms in the words of Levinas recognised as intertwined, it is the ethical responsibility of Palestinians and Palestinian leaders to arm themselves with wakefulness so as to secure their homeland (place) and to fortify themselves against displacement and the horror of the night. Sleep reveals an ethical dimension when examined closely within the Israeli-Palestinian conflict due to its subtle proximity to death. Hence, we contend that falling asleep on the part of Palestinians is unethical due to its direct adverse effects, namely, displacement and death. (shrink)

The online mode of education has created a space for a decolonial pedagogy that allows student liberation from in-class education which perpetuates students’ passivity. Drawing on Freire’s concepts...

This essay analyzes a silent short film portraying an urban canoeist. The film suggests that it is possible to make conscious choices about one’s means of conveyance through the city. Using a critical theoretical framework to unpack the implications of the film, this paper argues for the need to imagine unconventional modes of transportation and examine the power structures of automotive hegemony.

The need to make young scientists aware of their social responsibilities is widely acknowledged, although the question of how to actually do it has so far gained limited attention. A 2-day workshop entitled “Prepared for social responsibility?” attended by doctoral students from multiple disciplines in climate science, was targeted at the perceived needs of the participants and employed a format that took them through three stages of ethics education: sensitization, information and empowerment. The workshop aimed at preparing doctoral students to (...) manage ethical dilemmas that emerge when climate science meets the public sphere (e.g., to identify and balance legitimate perspectives on particular types of geo-engineering), and is an example of how to include social responsibility in doctoral education. The paper describes the workshop from the three different perspectives of the authors: the course teacher, the head of the graduate school, and a graduate student. The elements that contributed to the success of the workshop, and thus make it an example to follow, are (1) the involvement of participating students, (2) the introduction of external expertise and role models in climate science, and (3) a workshop design that focused on ethical analyses of examples from the climate sciences. (shrink)

This book deals with two important branches of mathematics, namely, logic and set theory. Logic and set theory are closely related and play very crucial roles in the foundation of mathematics, and together produce several results in all of mathematics. The topics of logic and set theory are required in many areas of physical sciences, engineering, and technology. The book offers solved examples and exercises, and provides reasonable details to each topic discussed, for easy understanding. The book is designed for (...) readers from various disciplines where mathematical logic and set theory play a crucial role. The book will be of interested to students and instructors in engineering, mathematics, computer science, and technology. (shrink)

In lattice theory the two well known equational class of lattices are the distributive lattices and the modular lattices. All distributive lattices are modular however a modular lattice in general is not distributive. In this book, new classes of lattices called supermodular lattices and semi-supermodular lattices are introduced and characterized.

A personalized recommender system is broadly accepted as a helpful tool to handle the information overload issue while recommending a related piece of information. This work proposes a hybrid personalized recommender system based on affinity propagation, namely, APHPRS. Affinity propagation is a semisupervised machine learning algorithm used to cluster items based on similarities among them. In our approach, we first calculate the cluster quality and density and then combine their outputs to generate a new ranking score among clusters for the (...) personalized recommendation. In the first phase, user preferences are collected and normalized as items rating matrix. This generated matrix is then clustered offline using affinity propagation and kept in a database for future recommendations. In the second phase, online recommendations are generated by applying the offline model. Negative Euclidian similarity and the quality of clusters are used together to select the best clusters for recommendations. The proposed APHPRS system alleviates problems such as sparsity and cold-start problems. The use of affinity propagation and the hybrid recommendation technique used in the proposed approach helps in improving results against sparsity. Experiments reveal that the proposed APHPRS performs better than most of the existing recommender systems. (shrink)

The Islamic Republic of Pakistan has been a mere victim of climate change in recent years. The country needs emergency measures at every level to mitigate environmental dilapidation. The role of enterprises in the country’s environmental efforts is critical. In this regard, the hotel sector is known for its outsized carbon footprint. Knowing this, the current study aims to improve a hotel enterprise’s environmental performance as an outcome of corporate social responsibility. The study also considers the mediating role of pro-environmental (...) behavior of employees and the moderating role of altruistic values. A hypothesized model was developed, which was validated by employing the structural equation modeling technique. The empirical results confirmed that CSR, directly and indirectly, positively induces the ENP of a hotel enterprise. Whereas the conditional indirect role of ALT was also found significant. The study offers different implications for theory and practice, among which one important takeaway for the hotel sector is to realize the importance of employees to spur ENP of a hotel enterprise through their eco-friendly behavior. At the same time, the current work also advances the theory by highlighting the moderating role of ALT between the indirect relationship of CSR and ENP. (shrink)

Research suggests that ethical leadership influences employees’ behavior and organizational functioning. Thus, the purpose of this study is to investigate the role of ethical leadership in the improvement of employees’ innovative performance. Specifically, this research developed and tested a framework about the intermediating mechanism of social capital in the relationship between ethical leadership and employees’ innovative performance. The current study integrated assumptions of social learning and social exchange theories, which postulate that the leadership has a direct effect on the employees’ (...) conduct, principally through role modeling and the reciprocal landscape. Data were collected through in-person administered questionnaire-based survey from 297 employees working in the manufacturing sectors of Pakistan. The conceptual model of our research was analyzed applying Structural Equation Modeling (SEM). The results exhibited that the ethical leadership plays an important role in fostering employees’ innovative performance. The present study also found that social capital plays an intermediating role between the ethical leadership and employees’ innovative performance relationship. The current study contributed to the leadership and innovation literature and provided insights in examining the ethical leadership-employees’ innovative performance relationship through the intermediating mechanism of social capital. (shrink)

The study is based on validating and exploring the effects of a mega project plan on infrastructure development and Sustainable Project Management. The CPEC has great importance to infrastructure development and economy-boosting. The current study's primary aim is to deal with environmental protection, economic boost up, international relations influencing to the Project's success. The paper also addressed project management as a moderator between environmental protection, economic boost up, international relations, and the CPEC project's success. The primary data has been gathered (...) by using questionnaires, and PLS-SEM has been employed for the analysis. The results revealed that environmental protection, economy boost up, and international relations have a positive association with the success of CPEC. The outcomes also exposed that project management moderating among the nexus of economy boosts up the international relations and success of CPEC. The present study results guided how Pakistan and China make the CPEC project stronger with the efficient implementation of practices required for protecting the environment, with the economic growth and boost up, and good strong relations with foreign countries. This study was an attempt to validate the different factors to check their association with each other in a new environment, resulting in a leading edge for the success of mega projects that influence project management. (shrink)

The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam (1930) is Muhammad Iqbal's major philosophic work: a series of profound reflections on the perennial conflict among science, religion, and philosophy, culminating in new visions of the unity of human knowledge, of the human spirit, and of God. Iqbal's thought contributed significantly to the establishment of Pakistan, to the religious and political ideals of the Iranian Revolution, and to the survival of Muslim identity in parts of the former USSR. It now (...) serves as new bridge between East and West and between Islam and the other Religions of the Book. With a new Introduction by Javed Majeed, this edition of The Reconstruction opens the teachings of Iqbal to the modern, Western reader. It will be essential reading for all those interested in Islamic intellectual history, the renewal of Islam in the modern world, and political theory of Islam's relationship to the West. (shrink)

Linhares and Brum (2007) argue that they provide evidence for analogy as the main principle behind experts’ acquisition of perceptual knowledge. However, the methodology they used—asking players to pair positions using abstract similarity—raises the possibility that the task reflects more the effect of directional instructions than the principles underlying the acquisition of knowledge. Here we replicate and extend Linhares and Brum’s experiment and show that the matching task they used is inadequate for drawing any conclusions about the nature of experts’ (...) perception. When expert chess players were instructed to match problems based on similarities at the abstract level (analogy), they produced more abstract pairs than pairs based on concrete similarity. However, the same experts produced more concrete pairs than abstract ones when instructed to match the problems based on concrete similarity. Asking experts to match problems using explicit instructions is not an appropriate way to show the importance of either analogy or similarity in the acquisition of expert knowledge. Experts simply do what they are told to do. (shrink)

Interrogations are a very specific component of any criminal investigation. The answers gained through interrogative process provides information that are considered as direct evidences. In contemporary criminal procedure, the court is not absolved from gaining other evidences, even in cases when the defendant confesses his/her guiltiness. This is a mechanism for excluding the inquisitorial approach for extracting compulsory confessions. The modern procedure uses a variety of mechanisms to guarantee that the defendant will not be compelled to confess guilt. Those mechanisms (...) are part of most important international conventions as International Convention for Civil and Political Rights, the European Convention on Human Rights, the American Convention on Human Rights, the Statutes of International Tribunals and part of different constitutional and legal acts of modern states. A very interesting “highlight” remains the right to silence which guarantees that the defendant might remain silent and it will not be interpreted against him. The defendant, even in cases with direct evidences, can remain silent and cannot be forced to answer given questions. Another “highlight” is that one that appears from the privilege against self-incrimination that allows the defendant to not answer a question, if by answering, he/she may confess guilt or incriminate him/herself. How deep is this privilege? Are there, maybe questions, that he/she are obliged to answer The article will focus in interrogations and the right to silence by most important international acts and domestic acts of different countries and upcoming specifics in the relation interrogations vs. remaining silent. (shrink)

Child Labour in Kashmiri Society: A Socio-human Rights Study The Constitution of India guarantees fundamental rights and the full freedom to enjoy childhood. In spite of that millions of children are being put to arduous work for short and narrow gains. By 1989, the standards concerning children were brought together in a single legal instrument agreed to by the international community. It unambiguously spelt out the rights to which every child is entitled, regardless of place of birth, descent, sex, religion, (...) or social origin. A number of aspects, such as gender, family background, cultural acceptance, issues of health and recreation, the legal aspect and so on, have been covered. The life worlds of working children, legal protection to children from exploitation and the human rights perspective of child labour is the main focus of this article. (shrink)

Howard's (2005) claim that male dominance in chess is 'consistent with the evolutionary psychology view that males predominate at high achievement levels at least partly because of ability differences' (p. 378) is based on the premise that top level chess skill depends on a high level of IQ and visuospatial abilities. This premise is not supported by empirical evidence. In 1927 Djakow et al. first showed that world-class chess players do not have exceptional intellectual abilities. This finding has subsequently been (...) confirmed many times. Different participation rates, or differences in the amount of practice, motivation and interest for chess in male and female chess players, may provide a better explanation for gender differences in chess performance. (shrink)