1 Matrimonial Alliances between the royal houses of Tripura and Manipur in the days of monarchy, Memchaton Singha
Manipur and Tripura are two important integral states of North east India with a long glorious history of its own. Both the states maintained cordial relationship from the very early period despite regular intervals of conflicts. Marriage alliances between the royal families of Manipur and Tripura were common phenomena which began from remote antiquity and continued till 20th century. The instance of first marriage alliance occurred during the reign of Tripura king Taidakshin, the 43rd Raja. However, the most notable cases of matrimonial alliances between Manipur and Tripura started towards the end of 18th century. The distinctive feature in the marriages was that the Rajas of Tripura married not only Manipuri princesses but also many Manipuri girls belonging to plebeian family. The marriage alliances not only brought cordial relations between the two kingdoms but also there was cultural assimilation. The tradition of marrying Manipuri girls were even followed by many noblemen of the Tripura royal family. Tripura also witnessed various public welfare works that was contributed by the Manipuri Maharanis. Thus, we find that the Tripura royal house was filled with descendants from the Manipuri queens. This article focuses on providing a chronological historical account of the matrimonial alliances that occurred in the royal families of Manipur and Tripura during the period of monarchies. It also highlights the basic causes behind the arrangement of the marriages and also the cultural amalgamation between the two states. Keywords: Royal families, matrimonial alliances, monarchies, wed-lock, Meitei Queens, inter-dynastic.
2 Colonizing the Heathens: Welsh medical mission in ‘A land of many tribes’, Phoibi Lalniropui Tuolor
This article is an effort to understand how healing of body was used by the Christian missionaries as an important tool for evangelisation with special reference to the Welsh Christian missionaries in North Cachar Hills from 1905 to 1961. The Welsh missionaries opened their mission in this Hill on 1905 with multiple endeavours such as opening schools, churches and dispensaries. North Cachar Hills was a sub division of Cachar district during the colonial period and was inhabited mainly by different indigenous peoples such as the Dimasas, Zeme Nagas, Angami Nagas, old and new Kukis, Khasis, Karbis, etc. The missionaries regarded the local people as ‘heathen’ which means physically and morally ill and their traditional practices of appeasing the evil spirits for their ailments as a primitive act. Moreover the missionaries were not free from euro centrism and regarded their ideas and practices as superior than the traditional beliefs and practices of the natives. It is the intention of the article to highlight the strategy of the colonial administrator as well as the missionaries in operating humanitarian works such as ‘healing the heathens’. This article will also highlight the traditional treatment of illness and the medical measures taken by the colonial government and the responses of the local people on such measures. Keywords: heathens, indigenous treatment, missionaries, Christian medicine, evangelization.
3 Socio-Economic Determinants of Small and Medium Enterprises’ (Smes) Access to Credit from the Barclays Bank in Tamale-Ghana, Fatawu Alhassan, Ahmed Sakara
A review of the literature dealing with financing small and medium-scale enterprises (SMEs) indicates there is a significant gap in knowledge of the determinants of access to finance by the SMEs in Ghana. Therefore, this study examined the socio-economic factors that determine access to bank finance by SMEs in Tamale, Ghana. The population for the study was members of the Association of Small Scale Industries (ASSI), the branch Manager and credit officer of the Barclays bank Tamale, the Regional Manager and Accountant of National Board for Small Scale Industries and a Project Officer of macrofinance and small loan centre (MASLOC) .The results indicated that, the number of employees, experience in credit use, number of fixed assets possessed, attitude towards risk, business size, form of business and sector of business in the economy are the critical success factors in accessing bank finance. The study also identified Management expertise, high default rate and monitoring as the challenges banks faced in giving credit to SMEs. In terms of policy, the findings of this study will provide banks, training institutions and policy makers with new insights on investigation of loan evaluation process, tailoring new training programmes for entrepreneurs and developing relationships with business associations. Key words: Enterprises, Small-scale, Medium-scale, Tamale, Barclays Bank and Entrepreneurs