March 2009

Two decisions taken last week have ensured that Bangladesh’s tryst with democracy continues. One was taken on February 25, within hours of the bloody mutiny by the Bangladesh Rifles (BDR) erupting on the streets of Dhaka and leaving more than 70 senior Army officers dead. The country’s new civilian government decided to intervene and politically negotiate with the mutineering BDR soldiers who had taken control of the head-quarters and held senior officers hostage.
Barely two months (…)

The Council for Social Development and the India International Centre (IIC), both of New Delhi, jointly sponsored an International Seminar on “Social Development and the Human Civilisation in the 21st Century”, on February 12-14, 2009 at the IIC on the occasion of the centenary of Hind Swaraj. Other collaborating organisations were three well-known Universities of Delhi and some other Universities of Brazil, Peru, the USA and South Africa. It was reported that a couple of delegates from (…)

Growing Regional Disparities in Development
Regional disparities in development have been growing in India, especially in the post-reform period. For example, according to the Eleventh Plan, the per capita Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP) of Bihar—the poorest State in the country —which had steadily declined to a little over 30 per cent of the per capita GSDP of the richest State by 1993-94, dropped further to 20 per cent in 2004-05. (GOI, 2008) What is true of rising inter-State (…)

Problems of unemployment and poverty are inter-related and both these problems have continued to be acute in rural India. In order to overcome these problems, there have been a number of employment schemes in the past—the Employment Assurance Scheme (EAS), National Rural Employment Programme (NREP), Jawahar Rojgar Yojana (JRY) and Sampoorna Gramin Rojgar Yojana (SGRY). However, most of them have not yielded the desired results and brought security to people’s lives. Under such a situation, (…)

The following is the text of the P.N. Haksar Memorial Lecture delivered by Vyacheslav I. Trubnikov, Ambassador of the Russian Federation to India, at the Centre for Research in Rural and Industrial Development, Chandigarh, on November 29, 2008.
It is a pleasure and honour for me to be here among friends and colleagues to deliver the Haksar Memorial Lecture. Today, I will try to look into the changing global scenario in the light of Russia’s growing political and economic role and in (…)

From Washington to Dacca, the changes in scenario are indicative of the new temper that has been overtaking politics all over the world.
The forces hostile to peace and independence cannot come on top; at the same time, they have not yet been eliminated, not even brought under control. The decisive element in the international politics is the power of socialism and anti-imperialism, but the power of mischief of imperialism has not yet been neutralised.
The US Administration (…)

President Karimov of Uzbekistan is once again taking steps to align his country with the West in general and the US in particular. By initiating moves to build strong ties with the new US Administration he is seeking to come under Washington’s protective umbrella. Tashkent is simultaneously engaged in blackmailing Moscow: Uzbekistan is threatening Russia by projecting the possibility of the Central Asian state’s withdrawal from such regional organisations as, for example, the EuroAsian (…)

In the violent, lethal environment in which he lived and survived to eventually lead Beijing’s march towards socialism with Chinese characteristics, Deng Xiaoping had great reasons to be cautious. In regard to China’s international approach, Deng had this to say: “Observe calmly; secure our position; cope with affairs calmly; hide our capacities and bide our time; be good at maintaining a low profile; and never claim leadership.”
Thus, China never spoke its mind on the Afghan (…)

A democratic polity involves the decentra-lisation or deconcentration of power in a way that the affairs of the local people are managed by means of their positive participation. It implies the extension of democracy at the grass-root level in view of the fact that the people’s participation signifies the constitution of a democratic government not merely at the top but also at the foundation level of the political system. Thus, democratic decentralisation or Panchayati Raj aims at making (…)

Addressing the national conference on ‘Save the Girl Child’, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh took up the challenge of curbing the menace of female foeticide. Being a proud father of three daughters, the PM highlighting the alarming picture of gender imbalance is highly significant. It indicates the concern of the government to check the declining sex ratio in our country. Among all the States, Punjab bears the shame of having a low sex ratio. The reason for this huge gap in male-female ratio (…)