The growing number of divorces and separations induces the frequency of single mothers facing challenges in the mainstream socio-economic realities in Bangladesh. Past studies focused on structural aspects, economic hardship, and psychological issues of single mothers, mainly in the urban context. Nevertheless, the challenges in rural settings vary from urban single motherhood, and this aspect remains understudied. This qualitative narrative aims to analyse the challenges of single mothers in rural settings in Bangladesh. Twenty-eight in-depth interviews and ten key informant interviews were conducted using semi-structured interview guidelines. Thematic analysis identified four major themes of the rural single mothers’ challenges, social, economic, cultural, and psychological, leading a single mother to become dependent on other family members or relatives. The underlying factor of the challenges was the deprivation of property, patriarchal social structure, and social stigma. Rural single mothers face more complex challenges than urban ones because of the lack of income opportunities, insecurity, and self-dependencies. Findings will contribute to recommending and formulating a policy for the single mother considering the local realities of the rural single mothers in Bangladesh.

The Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) region of Bangladesh represents the close combination of the settlements of several indigenous communities, and the communities have the specific socio-economic tradition; the influence of colonial administration, national bureaucratic domination, neo-liberal promise, and frequent policy regulations in the issues relating to their right to the ownership of land. Considering the historical conflicts and reality, the area is composed of various voluntary and profit-based organizations that aim to provide livelihood and capacity enhancement support to the co-existing indigenous peoples. From the ground of the structural development initiatives and learning, the study examines the pattern of ongoing grassroots organizations led by indigenous people in the CHT, their limitations, and the initiatives taken by them. The paper aims to analyze the role of micro-organizational development in addressing the socio-political emphasis in the CHT during the study period (June 2018 to December 2019).Although the studied organizations are concerned with particular social needs and most of them are in the legal framework, the internal network has several concerns, including rights of land, language, empowerment, poverty, and gender, religion, and settlement issues in the CHT Adivasi context. The study was conducted in three CHT districts-Rangamati, Bandarban, and Khagrachhari-taking two upazilas (subdistricts) from each district. The study follows qualitative analysis; the grassroots organizations have been categorized on a sector-wise basis to explain the needs and functions of the organizations. Moreover, the study proposes the possible alternatives in the cohesion to the formation of inter-ethnic identity by analyzing the activities of the small-scale indigenous organizations in the CHT.

The enduring problems of economic mobility of Khasi people through "access-condition imperatives" have reflected in the discussion from the cultural, ecological perspective. The study illustrates that the traditional culture of Khasi people has regulated stratified access to natural resources. The modernize effort of the community towards coping with environmental limitations is typically inducing actor-oriented rather than community-based absorption of adaptation practice. The process of sustainable development requires holistic consideration of change from the socio-cultural encompasses of natural resources. The research works on the limited understanding of adaptation in the context of the co-existing reality of a small scale society with a dominant socio-cultural environment. Finding the cultivation as the reduced practice for the indigenous Khasi, relatively it was in the tradition, the theoretical stand of Neo-Marxist philosophy has followed at this point. The idealized and judgmental practice of specified social relation of Khasi cultivation has an address here with cultural principles, elaborating the pattern of capital intensive changes generating in the access-conditions of "land" use. The implication of modern heterogeneous society requires the necessity to ensure the reproduction and sustainability of a changing social system. The ecological cost-benefit understanding should emphasize positive feedback, concentration on ethno-political and cultural flow trends, and a purposive modification of social value. The purposive change does not mean the closure of traditional practice but promotes the practice where it found an ecological rationale for community interest.