Cultural and gender comparison of Russia and the US Essay -- essays re

Cultural Comparison of Russia   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Gender roles in Russia have dramatically changed since the fall of the former Soviet Union and the fall of communism. It is hard to look directly at the constitution of Russia seeing as though the drafting and redrafting of their constitution is still underway. However, looking at the constitution of the former Soviet Union, you can see it is clearly stated that: â€Å"Women and men have equal rights.† It is very clear that in the Soviet Union they were trying to make it so that women and men were equal. It is still clear today that those same basic ideals are present in Russia. Women are clearly more equal in their country than in ours. In the workforce as well as in the home, women play a more equal role than in the present day United States. However, for the sake of this paper, let us just look at the infrastructure of Russia, formerly known as the Soviet Union or USSR.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  In terms of employment, the former Soviet Union had the largest percentage of women in the labor force than any other comparative society. This still remains the case in the present day Russia. Unemployed women in Russia will be quickly employed. They have a very high success rate of reemploying women if they were to lose their jobs. â€Å"Compared to Western women, although Russian women have a much higher representation in law, medicine and engineering as well as in the skilled trades, such as metalworking and construction,...

Home Is Where the Heart Is Essay

Some say â€Å"home is where the heart is. † Home can be everything to some. Home is their safe comfort place they have in life. Home determines a sense of one’s identity. One poem called â€Å"The Youngest Daughter† by Cathy Song involves characters experiencing conflicting situations between the demands of their home and identity. One might think that this poem is simply about mothers versus daughters; however, this poem evokes a broader sense meaning that daughters are torn between either pulling away or pulling closer to home. In one sense, the daughter in this poem is frustrated with her current situation and aspires to do more with her life, rather than devote her time doing what her mother thinks she should be doing. Despite this feeling, she knows she should be caring for her sick mother. The role she has in her home has conflicting messages. Using the elements of tone, narrative poem, and word choice, the poem can be explicated to show how it creates and resolves the meaning of conflict between mothers and daughters. â€Å"The Youngest Daughter† utilizes the narrative type poem, which helps create and resolve the conflict in the poem. The main conflict in this poem is that the daughter has to choose between obligations and desires, while finding her own role in her home. A narrative poem tells a story, and this poem tells a story about a daughter taking care of her elderly mother. The poem is about what the daughter’s daily life is like. This shows the â€Å"obligations† part of her life. The first sentence of the poem is â€Å"the sky has been dark for many years. † This implies that everything that has been going on with her taking care of her mother has been going on for many years. Since her mother became ill, it has been the daughter’s obligation to take care of her. This obligation is based on cultural expectations. In many cultures, children are expected to take care of their parents once they age. The poem is organized into stanzas that are associated with a certain part of the story. One stanza describes what has been going on lately. Another is about â€Å"this morning. † The last stanza is about what goes on â€Å"in the afternoons. † Through the narrative type poem, the daughter is able to express the feeling that her identity is basically taking care of her mother. This identity is also her role in the family. This role limits her own self-identity. Because she is busy caring for her mother, she is unable to develop a sense of self. She is torn between two things: growing away from her mother, and pulling closer to her mother. She knows she has to take care of her, so that aspect makes her seem to pull closer to her mother. Contrary to that, this daughter is a grown woman, and she has a very limited and conflicted life. Her life is devoted to the mother. This is seen by the story of the poem. She wants to grow apart from her mother and do things in her life that interest her. The reader can see that the daughter wants to escape this whole situation because towards the end of the poem it says â€Å"She knows I am not to be trusted / even now planning my escape. † The readers learn here that the mother doesn’t trust the daughter, for reasons unknown. The second line of the above quote shows the readers that this is what the daughter is currently doing to make her mother not trust her. The daughter also desires that her mother’s health improve, because in the poem is says â€Å"As I toast to her health. Love and pity toward her aging mother clash with the feelings of resentment and entrapment of herself. â€Å"The Youngest Daughter† uses word choice to show the conflict of mothers versus daughters, and the daughter’s internal conflict of obligations and desires. The daughter uses middle diction to show her emotions. Like noted in a previous paragraph, the first sentence of the poem is â€Å"the sky has been dark for many years. † This shows that the daughter has been dealing with her mother’s illness for quite some time, and she hasn’t been able to see the sun. She hasn’t been able to do what she wants to do because she has been so overwhelmed with taking care of the mother and fulfilling her obligations. When describing the mother, the daughter says â€Å"her breathing was graveled / her voice gruff with affection. † The word choice of graveled and gruff is interesting. This demonstrates the effort required to breathe and be affectionate. It’s almost as if the writer of the poem wanted the readers to hear what her breathing and voice sounded like by including those two words in there. This implies in a way that the mother has an opinion with the situation too. These two words make these two lines more effective. The daughter says â€Å"I was almost tender / when I came to the blue bruises. † This shows that the daughter feels sorry for what the mother has to go through. Tender is another interesting word choice. The poem also says â€Å"I soaped her slowly,† meaning that the daughter takes her time when washing her mother, because her life has been accustomed to nothing. Another aspect of obligations is that the daughter says â€Å"I scrubbed them with a sour taste in my mouth. The daughter obviously doesn’t want to scrub the mother, but it is obligation, her duty, so she must. Using the sentence â€Å"We eat in the familiar silence† shows that there is tension between them, because if there was no tension, they would be talking when they are eating. Despite this tension, this still occurs each day, and they continue to follow the same routine. If this line just had said â€Å"We eat in silence,† it would have a much lesser effect on the poem as a whole. By adding the word â€Å"familiar,† it allows the reader to understand that eating that way is a commonality and part of a consistent routine. The words â€Å"familiar silence† contrast each other. Familiar is something that has occurred so often that it becomes accustomed. And what is familiar in this poem? Silence. Silence, though it means quiet, is essentially nothing. Quietness, or nothing, has occurred so much that it is accustomed. The word choice is contrasting obligations with desires. The daughter is obligated to care for her mother. This is evident throughout the entire poem when the daughter describes everything she does for her mother. Despite this, she desires to do something different than just solely care for her mother. This desire is evident when the poem says â€Å"She know I am not to be trusted / even now planning my escape. † The daughter wants to escape, and the mother is aware of it. This contrast between obligations and desires makes the reader of the poem feel that this is an either/or situation. The daughter can either take care of the mother, or she can go off on her own. The last two lines of the poem are very meaningful: â€Å"A thousand cranes curtain the window / fly up in a sudden breeze. These word choices are effective because the words allow the readers to see an ending image. It seems like the cranes flying away is associated with the daughter being set free and escaping her life. It’s ironic how the first line of the poem uses words that talk about the sky, and in the last few lines of the poem the cranes fly into the sky. This line is used as a way for the author of the poem to show that the resolution has occurred. By the end of the poem, the conflict of obligations versus desires is resolved. One of the last lines of the poem says â€Å"As I toast to her health. This shows that the daughter finally realizes that caring for her mother is what’s best for her at this moment. By toasting for her health, she reveals that even though she is sick of caring for her mother, she would rather care for her mother than have her mother be dead. The daughter realizes that there will eventually be a time when the mother dies, and at that time the daughter will be able to do whatever she desires, but right now, her focus needs to be on her mother. The cranes flying into the sky reiterates this fact. When this time comes, even though the daughter will be able to do what she wants, she will be without a mother. She will have no obligations, which in a sense is good for her, because she will be able to do what she wants, yet a part of her life will be missing. Death is always hard to deal with, and even though in the poem she talks about how she wants to escape, in reality she really would miss her mother. The tone is this poem is bittersweet and affectionate; children should care for their aging parents, yet children need to live their own lives. In a way, the tone is also both happy and sad. The way the tone changes correlated with both of the conflicting sides of the poem. It’s happy in the way that the poet shows that there is affection and love between mothers and daughters, yet it is sad in the way that it shows that sometimes conflicts arise between mothers and daughters. This also explains how it is bittersweet. The tone shows that there are moral ties between children and their parents. These moral ties tie in with the obligational part of the conflict. Morally, the daughter feels obliged to care for her mother. The speaker is the youngest daughter of a family, and her duty is to take care of her aging parent. As one can see, looking at a poem through elements can help a reader understand the meaning of it. In â€Å"The Youngest Daughter,† the poem creates the meaning of conflict between mothers and daughters related to the daughter either pulling closer or pulling away from family and having to choose between obligations and desires. The elements of tone, word choice, and narrative poem together effectively create this meaning. In this poem, the home determines one’s identity. The daughter is conflicted between either pulling closer to her home life and her mother, or pulling away from it all and going after her own aspirations. Readers can relate to this poem because many people go through the same predicament in life: taking care of an aging parent. People do it because they love their family. Even though this daughter is having conflicting feelings about taking care of her mother, she does it anyways because family always comes first.

Belonging Related Text Essay

George Orwell’s essays – related text ‘Marrakech’ explores the notion of ethnocentricity through a Eurocentric perspective, in which one is isolated at the consequence of differing morels. Orwell succeeds in doing so through various anecdotes â€Å"What does Morocco mean to a Frenchman? An orange-grove or a job in government service. † In essence this displays the failure of a migrant to withhold a deeper connection to the land. Orwell emotively describes the crippled elderly women who â€Å"answered with a shrill wail, almost a scream, which was partly gratitude but mainly surprise†, as a response to the charity he provided her with. The dramatic reaction displays her sense of alienation from her own homeland, at fault of those who are foreign, yet awfully powerful. This is furthered through the description of â€Å"the shy, wide-eyed Negro† where through his ignorance, he â€Å"has been taught that the white race are his masters, and still believes it. † A sense of melancholy pervades this essay through the harsh truth â€Å"How much longer can we go on kidding these people? † displaying the indigenous peoples disconnection to a place that was originally theirs. While ‘Marrakech’ explores the notion that one does not belong to their homeland. This is juxtaposed through ‘Shooting an Elephant’ with Orwell’s alternative experience of belonging. Through Orwell’s ambivalence we see the highly controversial understanding of â€Å"the hollowness.. of the white man’s dominion in the East. † It is ironic that a â€Å"sub-divisional police officer† should feel self-conscious with such authority. Controversially he â€Å"was all for the Burmese† juxtaposed to the grotesque imagery of his deepest desire to â€Å"drive a bayonet into a Buddhist priest’s guts.

The United States and Manifest Destiny essays

The United States and Manifest Destiny essays During the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, the United States saw many problems come and go. Some problems were more important than others. However, all led to the further division of American politics. The most divisive issue in American politics during this time frame was the idea of Manifest Destiny or territorial expansion. Manifest Destiny was the idea that it was the United States' destiny to take over all of North America from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Most of the public was in favor of territorial expansion, though some politicians felt it contradicted the constitution. Strict constructionists were against territorial expansion, while loose constructionists felt expansion was the United States' destiny. Strict constructionists centered their platform around the fact that the constitution never directly states that the federal government has the right to acquire land. Those that view the constitution liberally, or loose constructionists, counter that stand by claiming the right of expansion falls under the government's implied powers. Loose constructionists and strict constructionists are the main divisive factor for the United States political parties: the Democrats and the Whigs. One of the supporters of Manifest Destiny was Democrat, James Polk who served as president from 1844 to 1848. Polk was strongly in favor of expanding the United States to the Pacific. This opinion won him the election of 1844. That year Henry Clay, a well known and loved figure in American politics, ran and was expected to blow, little known, Polk of the charts. The only problem was Clay was nervous about territorial expansion. He did not want with Mexico and was unsure of the constitutionality of expanding. Polk won because the majority of the public believed in Manifest Destiny. Along with influencing presidential elections, Manifest Destiny played a role in the slavery issue. Entering the mid eighteen hundred slavery was a ...

Parle Essays

Parle Essays Parle Essay Parle Essay the company has definitely come a very long way since its inception. Many of the Parle products biscuits or confectioneries, are market leaders in their category and have won acclaim at the Monde Selection, since 1971. With a 40% share of the total biscuit market and a 15% share of the total confectionary market in India , Parle has grown to become a multi-million dollar company. While to consumers its a beacon of faith and trust, competitors look upon Parle as an example of marketing brilliance. Parle-G Every nation dreams of a better tomorrow. And every nation’s tomorrow lies in the hands of its children; children who make the nation proud in every aspect; the young geniuses who shape the future of the nation. So it’s important to nourish these young minds, for after all it’s a question of the nation’s future. Filled with the goodness of milk and wheat, Parle G is a source of strength for both body and mind. Treat yourself to a packet of Parle-G to experience what has nurtured and strengthened the minds of millions of genius Indians for over 65 years. It’s more than just a biscuit. A meal substitute for some, a tasty and healthy snack for many others. Consumed by some for the value it offers, and many others for it’s taste. Little wonder that it’s the Largest selling Biscuit Brand in the world. Ingredients : Wheat Flour, Sugar, Partially Hydrogenated Edible Vegetable Oils, Invert Syrup*, Leavening Agents [ 503 ( ii ), 500 ( ii ) ], Salt, Milk Solids, Emulsifiers [ 322 or 471 481 ( i ) ] and Dough Conditioners [ 223 ]. Contains Added Flavours (Artificial). * (d Glucose, Levulose) Pack Sizes available: 16. 5G, 38. 5G, 60. 5G, 82. 5G, 99G, 209G, 313. 5G, 418G, 825G Parle G largest selling biscuit brand in world If you thought that a typical family run Indian company cannot top the worldwide charts, think again. The homegrown biscuit brand, Parle G, has proved the belief wrong by becoming the largest selling biscuit brand in the world. Ajay Chauhan, executive director of Parle Products, told Business Standard: The more than 50-year-old brand, Parle G, has been rated as the largest selling glucose biscuit brand in the whole world in terms of volumes. This came as a surprise to us when we were made to understand that we have topped the worldwide charts of the global biscuits industry. This was recently revealed by the US based Bakery Manufacturers Association. The other global biscuit brands include Oreo from Nabisco and McVities from UK-based United Biscuits among others. According to ORG-MARG reports, Parle G commands a good 65 per cent market share in the domestic biscuit market. The glucose biscuits category in India is estimated at Rs 15 billion. The Parle G brand faces competition from Britannias Tiger brand of biscuits. The companys flagship brand, Parle G, contributes more than 50 per cent to the companys total turnover. The other biscuits in the Parle Products basket includes Monaco, Krack Jack, Marie, Hide n Seek, Cheeslings, Jeffs, Sixer and Fun Centre. Said Chauhan: The core brands of the company in the biscuit category will include only Parle G, Monaco and Krack Jack. The other brands will not be aggressively supported by us in the market. This is because these three brands contribute substantially to our topline, Chauhan added. The confectionery business, which is the other division of Parle Products, currently contributes only 15 per cent to the companys total turnover. Interestingly, the company started operations with the confectionery business in 1929. Chauhan elucidated: The confectionery business has now taken a backseat and has become a smaller part of our business because in India biscuits have a larger market. The company commands a 40 per cent marketshare in the Rs 35 billion biscuit market in India. In the confectionery segment, the company enjoys a mere 15 per cent marketshare. The companys confectionery portfolio comprises brands like Melody 2 in 1, MangoBite, Poppins, Rol-a-cola, Kismi, Rosemint, Peppermint, Orange candy, Fruit Drops, Pick n Pack and Tangy. Chauhan has picked up three core brands from this category as well, they being Melody 2 in 1, Poppins and MangoBite. Its a brand that has held its price line at Rs 4 for 25 years now the price was last raised in 1994 by 25 paise. So, its not for nothing that Parle-G is the worlds largest-selling biscuit by volumes. Not that the company didnt try to raise prices to offset the overall hike in costs. Three years ago it did so, but quickly rolled it back after volumes fell sharply and consumers wrote to lodge their protest. We want to cater to the masses and have consciously tried not to increase the price. Parle-G is available for Rs 50 a kg. There are very few food items that are available for Rs 50-60 a kg, says Pravin Kulkarni, general manager (marketing), Parle Products. Parle is, of course, not doing it for charity. Soaring input prices meant it opted for reducing the weight of the biscuit than increasing the price first from 100 gm to 92. gm in January 2008, and then to 88 gm in January this year in line with other biscuit-makers and FMCG players. Regular customers would have noticed the number of biscuits in a pack come down from 16 to 15 even as each biscuit became lighter, but they seemed to understand the cost pressures on the firm. The gamble paid off: Parle was able to sustain its volumes. Strict cost control at every point in its supply chain also helped Parle ent ered into forward contracts with suppliers, outsourced production, increased the number of manufacturing locations to 60 and consolidated buying. Raw material costs account for 60 per cent of the total costs in this segment and packaging costs (plastic films) account for 20-25 per cent of this. Nirmalaya Kumar, professor of marketing at London [ Images ] Business School, feels its a very smart strategy. At this price point, price becomes more important than the weight of the biscuit. Its very interesting and similar to the dollar stores in the US, he says. But price is not its only USP. What makes the Parle G brand tick is also that it has been positioned on the health platform (a single pack of biscuit offers 450 calories). Its earlier punchline was Parle-G: swadh bhare, shakti bhare (full of taste and energy). Currently, the brand uses two punchlines. Parle-G: G for Genius and Hindustan ki Taakat (the countrys strength). The brand, says Kulkarni, meets different needs of customers: calories (energy), nutrition and value-for-money enough reasons why Parle-G enjoys close to 70 per cent market share in the glucose biscuit category and probably has the deepest reach. It reaches 2. 5 million outlets, including villages with a population of 500 people, on a par with Unilevers Lifebuoy, ITCs cigarettes or mobile pre-paid cards. Its also one of the few FMCG brands in the country, whose customers straddle across income segments. The brand is estimated to be worth over Rs 2,000 crore (Rs 20 billion), and contributes more than 50 per cent of the companys turnover (Parle Products is an unlisted company and its executives are not comfortable disclosing exact numbers). Last fiscal, Parle had sales of Rs 3,500 crore (Rs 35 billion). Competition has, of course, been trying to wean away customers from Parle. Britannia [ Get Quote ] relaunched its Glucose-D biscuit as Tiger in 1995 and boasts of 17-18 per cent share, while ITCs Sunfeast glucose has captured 8-9 per cent, according to industry sources. Even Levers had forayed into this segment in 2003 and launched a glucose biscuit branded as Modern, after it acquired the bakery business of Modern. There are strong regional brands, including Priya Gold (west), Cremica (north) and Anmol (east). But they still have their work cut out. Nirmalaya Kumar feels the Parle-G story is so fascinating that it deserves to be a case study. What would be interesting to see is whether it will be able to retain its leadership in the coming years as income grows in the hinterlands and consumers upgrade and develop new tastes. The popular Parle-G, glucose biscuits from Parle Products, have witnessed a price hike after a gap of nine years. The company’s marketing manager Pravin Kulkarni said that over these years Parle-G’s price has not increased even as inflation has resulted in a increase in the cost of other products. The price hike, which was decided just before the Budget and was implemented about 10 days ago, has taken up the price of a 100 gm Parle-G pack from Rs four to Rs 4. 0, while that of the 50 gm pack from Rs two to Rs 2. 50. An analyst with a leading brokerage firm in Mumbai said that the move, not exactly related to the Budget, is good for the company and is expected to go down well with the consumers. Arch rival, Britannia Industries, is likely to adopt a wait-and-watch policy for some time, be fore increasing the prices of its glucose biscuit brand, Tiger. Mr Kulkarni said that till now there has been no impact on sales, even as it is too early to observe any further effect. He added that the consumers also understand the need for a price hike after so many years. The company does not have plans at the moment for price increases in any other brands. The organised biscuit market in India is estimated to be over Rs 3000 crore. Britannia, the market leader, is said to have about 45 per cent market share, with Parle close behind at about 30-35 per cent. Another major brand is Priya Gold from Surya Foods, while the smaller brands include Sunfeast from ITC and Champion. The unorganised market comprising very small regional brands and unbranded biscuits and naankhataai, is showing a declining trend over the years, according to analysts.

Building Innovation into Outsourcing Relationship Case Study

Building Innovation into Outsourcing Relationship - Case Study Example Therefore, after identifying the innovation process to be implemented, AlphaCorp must understand how the innovation will be incorporated into the intended operation and or processes (Babin & Schuster, 2012). In other words, it is only through understanding the scope of the innovation that costs and services required to initiate and implement such innovations can be determined and analyzed. Â  AlphaCorp and B&B must distinguish between innovation and continuous improvement in the projects they are running or intend to run towards improving their productivity (Babin & Schuster, 2012). They must ever consider or regard all projects or programs that they have never been working on and are intended to be initiated into their systems as a mean of improving their service deliveries and operations as innovative programs or projective. However, there are some programs and projects that have been operating within the system, but they need to be adjusted on for better results (In Hirschheim et al., 2014). The systematic progress on processes that are already existing programs and projects is known as continuous improvement. Notably, well-intended and drafted projects and programs must give room or ways through which continuous improvement will be conducted on them. Â  Finally, AlphaCorp and B&B must know that innovation must always be carried on already existing productions but not new productions or areas (Babin & Schuster, 2012). In some cases, innovations often fail and if such failures are experienced in new production or areas, it will be highly challenging restore the destroyed image of the product or of the company in the new areas it failed due to failed innovation.

Perspectives on International Trade and Finance Assignment

Perspectives on International Trade and Finance - Assignment Example Joining WTO posed a vital influence on the political as well as economic reforms of China which were learnt to be influencing the telecom sector as well. Xiaolingtong is a mobile network which was developed in the year 1999, before China joined WTO and was controlled by the Ministry of Information Industry (MII) which was considered to be the backbone of the fixed line service providers. Later on, significant developments were made with regard to Xiaolingtong which assisted in capturing a significant share in the foreign market. The government provided full support towards the development of Xiaolingtong but those developments were not regarded as vital in comparison to the mobile or cellular service providers. There were also few issues which existed in relation to the adoption or implementation of the 3G service in China’s telecommunication services which required the involvement of different services and technologies. Discussion Key Issues or Options or Alternatives There a re few issues which are known to prevail or subsist in the telecommunication system of China and these issues are believed to be preventing the overall development of the system. The telecom market in China was characterized with arbitrary pricing as well as promotion policies. The main focus was to gain a significant market share instead of increasing its market size by providing new and valued services. The telecom market or the sector was observed to provide increased focus on deploying various services without being much concerned regarding the underlying quality with respect to the value added services for creating differentiation or competitive advantage for their products in the international market. There was an existence of high regulatory framework which created uncertainty as well as risk for the 3G mobile services. China’s telecom policies lacked a proper implementation of the relevant laws as well as regulations. It was found in this respect that MII played a maj or role in regulating the policies for the telecom system in China as the policies were not considered to be transparent which led to uncertainties. It was identified that to develop an efficient as well as effective competition in the telecom market, the existence of an ‘Independent Telecom Regulatory Authority’ was highly required. When China joined WTO, it should have then established an ‘Independent Telecom Regulatory Authority’ for the purpose of developing its telecom industry, but failed to do as MII used to formulate plans and policies as along with managing the telecom service providers (International Trade Administration, 2010). The telecom industry of China needed to conduct its business in partnership with some other international telecom services to compete in the international market. The firms formed out of Chinese partnerships with the foreign associates usually remained stated owned and lacked adequate experience in terms of competing in th e international market. The telecom equipment requires qualifying through various certifications as well as testing prior to their implementation and installation. A certain degree of limitation is imposed in China with regard to the aspect of foreign investment which restricts foreign companies to exercise control over the management of the Chinese telecom industry. A WTO obligation