Reverse Inclusion: Black Francophones in the Interface between Anti‐Black Racism and Linguicism

In this article, I contend that first generation of Black African Francophone immigrants in Canada regress through the three phases of immigration, which are settlement, adaptation, and integration. This plight occurs while immigrants ought to be progressing from a phase of immigration to a succeeding one. It is generated by linguicism and anti‐Black racism that afflict Black Francophones. Settlement is largely successful, adaption is largely a failure, while integration is completely a failure. This critical analysis problematizes a quandary about Canada and paves the way for implementing mechanism to improve the inclusion of Black Francophones.     

Measurement of social development: an international comparison

PQLI and HDI are the two most popular measures of development, besides per capita income. Over the years, PQLI appears to be not much in use for regional comparisons, especially after the introduction of HDI. While PQLI considers only the physical variables—adult literacy, life expectancy at birth and infant survival rate, HDI has life expectancy at birth, educational attainment and real GDP per capita (PPP$). PQLI and HDI are similar, the main difference between the two being the inclusion of income in HDI and exclusion of the same from PQLI. In a sense, HDI represents both physical and financial attributes of development and PQLI has only the physical aspects of life. The present author took the lines of PQLI to express development in terms of physical variables and considering development as a multidimensional phenomenon, Ray (1989) [Ray, A. K. (1989). On the measurement of certain aspects of social development, Social Indicators Research (Vol. 21, pp. 35–92). The Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Publishers.] included as many as 13 physical variables to represent social development across 40 countries; no financial variable was included in the construction of composite index, termed as the Social Development Index, SDI. Incidentally, like PQLI, SDI was introduced before HDI. Unlike PQLI and HDI, SDI considers (i) a large number of indicators representing various concern areas and (ii) a set of objective methods for combining the development indicators as a composite index. Ray (1989) has been restated and updated in this article with newer cross-country information. In the present study, SDI has been constructed for over 102 countries, including 21 OECD countries, using 10 development indicators, instead of 13 indicators in the past. Apart from presenting objective methods for combining indicators into SDI, the present study asserts that SDI works better than HDI as a measure of development for an international comparison. The views expressed in the article are those of the author and not of the institution he serves.     

On the measurement of certain aspects of social development

An attempt has been made in this paper to measure social development. There has been some limited use of per capita national income as a measure of development. A number of social indicators from various societal areas may, alternatively, better represent social development of a region. A composite index of selected social indicators has been proposed as a measure of social development. Certain existing methods of construction of composite indexes have been examined and new methods proposed using the variance-covariance matrix and intercorrelation matrix of the indicators and the concept of (Euclidean) distance. Two examples of intertemporal and international comparisons have been presented to illustrate the proposed methods.The author is grateful to Prof. M. Mukherjee under whose supervision and guidance this work was carried out. However, the views expressed in this paper are those of the author and not of the institution to which he belongs.     

Reading the Other Women,Feminism, and Islam

This essay focuses on the complex gendered particularities of the Arab region (including Iran). The debate between Islamic feminists and secular feminists is explored. Islamic feminists claim that liberation for men and women lies in following the Islamic faith and it is Islam that provides the best protection for women. Secular feminists argue for the separation of religion from civil society and the State. The essay explores the inextricable link between masculinity and the nation, and the impact of postcolonial relations on subjectivity.     

Bayes Estimation of Weibull Distribution Parameters Using Ranked Set Sampling

Estimation of the parameters of Weibull distribution is considered using different methods of estimation based on different sampling schemes namely, Simple Random Sample (SRS), Ranked Set Sample (RSS), and Modified Ranked Set Sample (MRSS). Methods of estimation used are Maximum Likelihood (ML), Method of moments (Mom), and Bayes. Comparison between estimators is made through simulation via their Biases, Relative Efficiency (RE), and Pitman Nearness Probability (PN). Estimators based on RSS and MRSS have many advantages over those that are based on SRS.     

Saddlepoint Approximations for Stopped-Sum Distributions

One of the common used classes of distributions is the stopped-sum class. This class includes Hermite distribution, Polya–Aeppli distribution, Poisson-Gamma distribution, and Neyman type A. This article introduces the saddlepoint approximations to the stopped-sum class in continuous and discrete settings. We discuss approximations for mass/density and cumulative distribution functions of stopped-sum distributions. Examples of continuous and discrete distributions from the Poisson stopped-sum class are presented. Comparisons between saddlepoint approximations and the exact calculations show the great accuracy of the saddlepoint methods.