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[1] From: Sukla Sen <suklasen@yahoo.com> Date: Thu May 4, 2006 Subject: The Failed States Index http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story_id=3420&page=1 The Failed States Index The Failed States Index Rankings Page 2 of 10 The columns highlight the 12 political, economic, military, and social indicators of instability. For each indicator, the higher scores (greater instability) are in black; lower scores (less instability) are in white. People Pressure Last year was not kind to several giants in the developing world. It's no surprise that enormous states face serious challenges from demographic change, vast economic inequality, and religious and ethnic divides. But, as the index finds, equally important is how governments respond when trouble hits. Pakistan, with a population of more than 160 million, dropped a full 13 points in the index. The October 2005 earthquake centered in Pakistan-administered Kashmir displaced tens of thousands and created a humanitarian disaster that the government struggled to address. It wasn't just acts of God that slashed Pakistan's score. Simmering ethnic tensions and the government's inability to effectively police tribal areas near the Afghan border contributed as well. Pakistan's troubles are well chronicled. More surprising is China's slide in the index. With its economy booming, few analysts would classify China as a vulnerable state, and yet its index score dropped 10 points from last year. Why? China witnessed more than 87,000 peasant strikes and protests over land seizures last year, as well as mounting corruption and unemployment. China's cities have mushroomed in size, and those left behind have suffered as government services dry up and hungry developers grab land. Party officials must find new ways to mollify the masses while keeping the country's economic engine in high gear. Africa's most populous state, Nigeria, also took a tumble. Despite some steps toward economic reform and improved human rights, the country's regional and religious fissures keep it on the edge. The government estimates that 3 million people have been displaced since 1999. Tensions have erupted in the oil-rich Niger Delta. So explosive are questions of identity that the government delayed a long-overdue national census several times. Large-scale unrest would not only rattle world oil markets, it might also create a humanitarian nightmare beyond any government's ability to respond. There were some winners in this year's index, particularly in the Western Hemisphere. Although President Hugo Ch?vez's economic policies may not have benefited the majority of Venezuelans, his scalding anti-American rhetoric combined with high oil prices have helped him solidify power and stabilize the country, at least in the short term. Guatemala and the Dominican Republic also improved significantly over last year's index. And, in the Balkans, the pull of the European Union helped speed Bosnia and Herzegovina on its path to recovery. ------------------ [2] From: "Dalits; The Seeds of India .." <india4dalits@gmail.com> Date: Thu May 4, 2006 Subject: A Dalit straddles the financial world india *A Dalit straddles the financial world * http://www.indiatogether.org/2005/dec/ivw-jadhav.htm http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Mahajanapada/messages ---------------------- [3] From: Sukla Sen <suklasen@yahoo.com> Date: Thu May 4, 2006 Subject: Bipan Chandra on Gandhi, Marx and Indian History http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1514583.cms Q&A: 'Gandhi is more relevant than Marx today' Avijit Ghosh Historian Bipan Chandra, 77, is well known for his writings on Indian national movement and communalism. He has recently co-edited, along with fellow historians Mridula Mukherjee and Aditya Mukherjee, a 10-volume series on Modern Indian History, published by Sage. Chandra talks to Avijit Ghosh: What are these 10 volumes all about? They are thoroughly resear-ched works on different facets of modern Indian history. For instance, Salil Mishra, who writes on politics in UP from 1937-39, explains how and why Muslim League grew from a liberal, communal organisation to one espousing the two-nation theory from 1937 onwards. Often we come across the view that if Congress had formed a coalition government with Muslim League in UP, Partition wouldn't have happened. We have tried to answer this question too. Rakesh Batabyal's book deals with communalism in Bengal from 1943 to 47. Without soft-peddling the issue, he shows how Gandhi tried to tackle the problem in Noahkhali. Similarly, Sucheta Mahajan discusses why Gandhi did not start a movement against Partition. These books raise nagging questions and also try to answer them. Is there a specific idea behind publishing these volumes? Overall this series shows that the Indian national movement needs to be studied as a mass movement. The colonial view is that it was a movement of the elites. The subalterns say that the people's movement was different from the national movement. Our understanding is that the national movement accommo-dated different points of view. Warts and all, it was a broad-based, mass movement with many ideological strands. How-ever, these strands also occasionally clashed with each other. Through this series, we have tried to understand modern India: how we are what we are today. We wanted to create a series outside the stream of colonial writing and post-modernist writing. To this end, we started out with manuscripts already available. Nine volumes are out and the tenth will be published shortly. Probably, at a later date, we will come out with 10 more volumes. You have written on modern India: on communalism, on Nehru. What next? I am working on two books. I want to write a biography of Bhagat Singh and on the relevance of Gandhi today. I believe that Marx was the greatest thin-ker of modern times. Because he was able to analyse the weakness of capitalist society: economi-cally, socially, politically and culturally. But the big question is: how to change the society. Gandhi was able to evolve a way of organising and mobilising people for change. He is a theoretician on how to bring about social change. That is why Gandhi is more relevant than Marx today. ---------------------- [4] Global Warming Fastest For 20,000 Years By Steve Connor http://www.countercurrents.org/cc-connor050406.htm Global warming is made worse by man-made pollution and the scale of the problem is unprecedented in at least 20,000 years, according to a draft report by the world's leading climate scientists ------------------ |
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| << May04, 2006 - [India Thinkers Net]Mahajan,New problem,Narmada |
May06, 2006 - [India Thinkers Net]Re-Kashmir,re-internet censorship,uranium mine,FSI >> |
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