October 13, 2007

The One-Child policy was introduced in China in the year 1979 by Deng Xiaoping with the ambition that it will help in strengthening the economic policies introduced by him. He believed that economic policies would help in making China a stronger nation. Enough has been written and debated over the positives and the negatives of this policy from almost all the perspectives that are available. But the primary focus of this paper is to look into the generation ‘one-child’ of China.
The (…)

[(Book Review)]
The Shades of Great Game: The Untold Story of India’s Partition by Narendra Singh Sarila; Harper Collins Publishers India, New Delhi; pp. 116; Rs 500.
How did India’s partition come about? This question has bothered many an Indian and political leader. The matter is so complex, the characters involved were so important and the forces at work were so diverse and powerful that so far no one has been able to answer this controversial question convincingly. Narendra Singh (…)

On October 5, 2007, the US ambassador to the UN, Zalmay Khalilzad, pushed for UN sanctions against Myanmar, while Western representatives were circulating a draft statement for a UN resolution. This brings up the question of the available means to pressurise the Burmese junta towards democracy, as well as that of the efficiency of sanctions.
A Long History of Sanctions
In reaction to the recent bloody repression, the European Union and the United States have pushed towards UN sanctions (…)

The Burmese social and political structure, based on paternalistic authority, is inconsistent with democracy’s reliance on equality of opportunity, freedom of speech and assembly, and representative institutions. With its emphasis on hierarchy and status, the Burmese political culture is not conducive to democracy. For almost all of its history, Burma has been ruled by autocratic monarchs and military leaders. Burma’s only experience with democracy was a short period under the 1947 (…)