Horses or unicorns: can paying for performance make quality competition routine?

The competitive benefits of pay-for-performance (P4P) financial incentives are widely assumed. These incentives can affect health care through several mechanisms, however, not all of which involve competition. This insight has three implications. First, federal antitrust enforcement should continue to scrutinize P4P arrangements. Second, government needs to play a larger role in P4P than through antitrust oversight. Third, widespread enthusiasm for a particular health policy reform does not relieve policy makers of the obligation to understand its theoretical basis.     

Argemone mexicana poisoning: autopsy findings of two cases

Epidemic dropsy, a disease due to Argemone mexicana poisoning, is characterized by pathological accumulation of diluted lymph in body tissues and cavities. Recently, the largest epidemic of the disease in India affected Delhi and its neighboring states during the months of August-September 1998. Over 3000 persons fell ill, and more than 65 died in the state of Delhi alone. Two cases belonging to the same family died, out of the large number of cases admitted in this tertiary care teaching hospital situated in eastern part of Delhi. Autopsy findings of these two cases are presented and discussed here along with the review of toxicity due to this poisoning.     

External Influence and Challenges of State-building in Nepal

This article deals with the role of external actors in the post-2006 state-building process in Nepal. Two issues have dominated the state-building narrative after 2006: the peace-process and the constitutional process. There has been a strong presence of international agencies. Both issues were later usurped by the external agencies and Nepal loses its upper hand in determining politics, policies, and the law and reverted beyond the 1923 situation. Foreign policy, which should have been used to rescue the country from such a dilemma, could not act in the context of a weak centre. Against this background, this article endeavours to explain the degree of external pressure vis-à-vis the state-building process in Nepal. The central argument of this article is that among many other factors, state-building in Nepal suffers both ‘because of and despite’ its geo-strategic locations and it proposes a proactive foreign policy as the balancing force.     

Gender justice: the World Bank's new approach to the poor?

Gender inequality is now widely acknowledged as an important factor in the spread and entrenchment of poverty. This article examines the World Development Report 2000/01 as the World Bank's blueprint for addressing poverty in the twenty-first century, together with several more recent Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs), with a view to analysing the manner in which gender is incorporated into the policy-making process and considering whether it constitutes a new approach to gender and poverty. It is argued that the World Bank's approach to poverty is unlikely to deliver gender justice, because there remain large discrepancies between the economic and social policies that it prescribes. More specifically, the authors contend that the Bank employs an integrationist approach which encapsulates gender issues within existing development paradigms without attempting to transform an overall development agenda whose ultimate objective is economic growth as opposed to equity. Case studies from Cambodia and Vietnam are used to illustrate these arguments.     

The social foundations of global production networks: towards a global political economy of child labour

The resilience of the problem of child labour in the global economy has been amply documented, but, we suggest, the reasons for this situation have not yet been fully captured in the associated debates. Our aim is to advance a way of thinking about those forms of child labour which occur in the context of global production networks (gpns), and to contend that greater attention must be paid to the organisation and functioning of gpns, and the social foundations on which they rest, if we are to grasp more fully the conditions and processes which facilitate the persistence and evolution of child labour. The way of thinking we propose is rooted in the concept of ‘adverse incorporation’ in the global economy, which we develop by drawing together currents in gpn analysis and poverty research to explore the commercial and social dynamics in gpns which give rise to these forms of labour exploitation. We illustrate our arguments with reference to the garments industry in New Delhi, India.     

Frank S Bloch (ed): The Global Clinical Movement: Educating Lawyers for Social Justice

Jindal Global Law Review -     

Ha?sami??hu: ��P��ta?jalayoga is Nonsense��

The ninth chapter of the Ha?savil??sa of the Gujarati ?aiva author Ha?sami??hu (born 1738 ad) argues that P??tañjalayoga, conceived of as a conflation of A?????gayoga and Ha?hayoga, cannot be valid soteriology. P??tañjalayoga is presented as a paradoxical and painful attempt to achieve quiescence by forcibly eliminating karma. Ha?sami??hu, conversely, views ??euphoria?? (ull??sa) as a prerequisite for liberation, and therefore advocates a painless method of R??jayoga. This is taught as a ?aiva form of the R??sal??l?? involving transgressive substances and behaviour. A frame story establishes Ha?sami??hu??s authority to teach such practices by revealing his secret identity as Ha?sa, a favored companion of ?iva who incarnates for a single life to promulgate esoteric teachings. The purity of this R??sal??l?? is defended by challenging the validity of a conventional morality that seeks to portray it as abhorrent.