The Tamil people's right to self-determination

This article provides an overview of the crisis in Sri Lanka and states why an armed conflict has developed in the northern and eastern parts (north-east) of the country. The Tamils' accusations—of discrimination, denial of the right to self-determination, abrogated agreements and violations of international human rights and humanitarian law amounting to genocide by successive Sri Lankan governments—are supported by specific evidence given by international human rights and legal experts, international human rights non-governmental organizations and other relevant entities. The democratic parliamentary efforts and the non-violent resistance struggle of the Tamil people prior to the outbreak of war are traced over several decades. The article includes an outline of social and law and order achievements in the north-east under the de facto administration of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and concludes with some current international dimensions of the situation.     

The global struggle for the right to a place to live

The problem of inadequate housing and living conditions facing one quarter of the world's population is situated in this article within the frameworkof human rights, and of international recognition of the basic rights to a place to live, and to gain and sustain an adequate standard of living. The nature and scale of the housing crisis points to a failure of governance that leads to exclusion, dispossession, and violence becoming endemic in societies: the institutionalisation of insecure and inadequate housing and living conditions. The author draws on the experience of Habitat International Coalition (HIC) in developing and supporting a comprehensive range of actions at local, national, regional, and international levels; and suggests some of the elements required if changes are not only to be promoted and campaigned for, but also sustained.     

Monitoring and evaluating advocacy: lessons from Oxfam GB's Climate Change campaign

This article examines Oxfam GB's learning from its attempts to improve monitoring and evaluation (M&E) processes within a global advocacy campaign. It outlines the Climate Change campaign team's practical experience of piloting different approaches to M&E, and the lessons emerging from the process. The experience suggests that while some ‘traditional’ elements of M&E are helpful in advocacy work, a greater focus on light, real-time monitoring systems is necessary. The findings highlight the organisational as well as methodological challenges of integrating M&E into advocacy campaigns: without a culture that rewards reflection and learning, improvements in staff capacities or data-collection systems will not be sustained. Indeed, the process of improving M&E practice mirrors that of an advocacy campaign itself, requiring analysis of power relations, opportunities, and constraints; monitoring of progress; and adapting plans on the basis of on-going learning. Finally, the article suggests possible ways forward, based on experience.     

Electoral coordination in India: The role of costly campaign communication

This article views electoral campaigns as a means of communication in the process of electoral coordination. Well-manned and well-funded district campaigns facilitate voters’ learning about the policies of competing parties; if the funds and the activist support are supplied by local constituencies, campaigning also informs voters about the relative support of competing parties in the district. Using district-level data from the 2009 general election in India, as well as the measures of the affluence of district residents obtained from the Indian Human Development Survey, 2005, an estimation was made of the effect of the affluence of electoral constituencies on the intra-district coordination. The analysis also includes the known determinants of strategic voting as control variables.     

The right to broadcast: towards a broadcasting charter for South Africa

SUMMARY

In this article Michael Markovitz, chairman of the Broadcasting Commission of the Film and Allied Workers Organisation (FAWO) argues:

• that present broadcasting statutes restrict access to the technological means of communication in South African society which prevails now;

• that broadcasting is an issue of national and constitutional importance;

• that the deregulation of broadcasting, with protection or non-profit broadcast services, could benefit the negotiation process;

• that private sector domination of both the broadcasting and print media sectors would be incompatible with the extension of freedom of expression in South Africa;

• that prevailing broadcasting legislation effectively prohibits community broadcasting; and

• that the right to broadcast and broadcast freedom should be entrenched in a Bill of Rights.

     

The Decline of the Indian Parliament

Indian Parliament had a very promising start and worked well during the1950s-1960s. During the 1970s Parliament was squeezed by a great extra-parliamentary mass movement against authoritarianism and corruption and partial but crippling subversion of parliamentary-federal Constitution during the national emergency. Democracy was restored following the 1977 general elections. But the general decline of Parliament that set in the post-Nehru era has not yet been reversed. Major indicators of this decline are shortening sessions, time lost due to disruptions in proceedings by the opposition and violation of norms and precedents by the government, rampant absenteeism, actual hours of sitting as a percentage of available hours, phenomenon of weak legislative federalism via Rajya Sabha in the overall setting of parliamentary-federalism, challenges of new extra-parliamentary mass movements, and judicial activism. The new committee system introduced since 1993 is a welcome development. However, the parliamentary reforms recommended by the constitutional review commission (2002) remain unimplemented.     

The right to self-determination and the indigenous people of Western Sahara

This paper discusses the right to self-determination of the indigenous people of Western Sahara. It studies their post-colonial struggle for self-determination, which has been denied owing to Morocco's occupation and forcible annexation of their territory in 1975. It also looks into the process by which the right of the Sahrawi people to self-determination has been institutionalized within the United Nations (UN) system as well as the ongoing UN peace efforts to implement this right and the prospects to which they may lead. Overall, the paper seeks to demonstrate that the continuation of the conflict in Western Sahara is a strong reminder of an enduring violation of a fundamental norm of international law, and the responsibility of the UN and the international community as a whole to redress this aberrant situation.     

浅析印度经济增长的动力

中印是全球经济增长最快的两个发展中大国,但其增长模式却差异很大。印度的经济增长更具潜力和动力,因为推动印度经济增长的因素是:以信息产业为核心的服务业:低投入、高效率的增长模式和强有实力的私营企业。     

Indian Strategic Thinking About the Indian Ocean: Striving Towards Strategic Leadership

It is sometimes claimed that India has ambitions to become the leading power in the Indian Ocean. This article examines the different streams of Indian strategic thinking about the Indian Ocean and how they will likely contribute to future Indian strategic behavior. It argues that although many among its elite aspire for India to eventually become the leading power in the Indian Ocean, there is little conceptualization as to what India needs to do to achieve this. For several reasons, including an attachment to ideas of non-alignment and strategic autonomy, Indian strategic behavior in the Indian Ocean will likely continue to be relatively reactive and constrained.     

Eurodad's campaign on multilateral debt: The 1996 HIPC debt initiative and beyond

'Multilateral debt is not a widespread problem for Severely Indebted Low Income Countries' wrote the World Bank in September 1994. Two years later, the International Financial Institutions-the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund-agreed to a proposal to bring the debt of Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPCs) to sustainable levels. While imperfect, the proposal went some way to meeting the demands of NGOs which, with progressive forces both within the World Bank and among creditor countries, have played a crucial role in this process. While the multilateral debt problem is now too great to ignore, the authors maintain that it has been the persistent pressure of these players that has been responsible for the enormous progress made by the IFIs.     

以史为镜,可以知兴替--读《拉丁美洲:从印第安文明到现代化》

新千年伊始 ,人类社会正满怀希望地迈入经济全球化加速发展、信息技术日新月异的新时代。谋求 2 1世纪崛起的中国正进入实现现代化的关键时期。“让中国走向世界 ,让世界进入中国”,成为时代的呼声和历史的趋势。增进国际间的了解与交往 ,总结和借鉴外国现代化的经验与教训 ,是谋求发展的中国所需、是立志现代化的中国所求。上海社会科学院发展研究中心副研究员张家哲先生撰写的《拉丁美洲 :从印第安文明到现代化》( 1 999年 6月中国青年出版社出版 )一书 ,向人们展示了一幅拉丁美洲国家孜孜不倦地谋求发展、致力于现代化的风景图。它对于人…     

The contested capacity of the Indian state

State capacity is often seen as simply the resources and capabilities of state organizations to perform those functions that are seen as essential to monopolizing coercion, maintaining legitimacy, and providing key public and social goods. As such, it is often conceptualized as value-neutral and comparable across national contexts. By contrast, this article posits that in the Indian context, state capacity is a politically contested concept, because there is deep and enduring political conflict in India over the appropriate roles and related capabilities of state power. This conflict is grounded in disagreements between those who wish to use the state as a tool to transform society and those who see it as a means to preserve and protect social relations. As a result of this conflict, the state in India is not weak or captured but internally divided and thus disarticulated. This article demonstrates these dynamics through an examination of state intervention in the statist and post-liberalization political economy of India.     

Invading Europe: The British army and its preparations for the Normandy campaign, 1942-44

Some scholars claim that collective security always fails. This article analyses a case where it succeeded. When Belgians rebelled against Dutch rule in the early 1830s, all five great powers agreed no fewer than four times to threaten or to use force against one or both sides. Why? Drawing extensively on diplomatic correspondence from Austrian, German and Russian archives, I show that the Concert of Europe functioned as a security regime, helping the powers to agree. Great power consensus broke down when Britain and France imposed a peace settlement on the Dutch in 1832. Yet the Belgian case—like Iraq's 1991 expulsion from Kuwait—shows that collective security can sometimes succeed against cross-border aggression.     

Fundamental Redesign of Financial Law: The Indian Approach

India is at the cusp of important financial sector regulatory reform. The reform aims at deeper changes in financial sector laws and regulatory architecture. While many incremental reforms were undertaken in the last two decades, the pace of change has slowed down owing to the constraints posed by the underlying legal framework. The key problems in the financial sector include: lack of financial inclusion, a glacial pace of innovation, the growth of an unregulated shadow financial system, numerous ponzi schemes, high inflation, and barriers to capital flows. In the last decade, there have been many efforts in rethinking financial sector regulation to address these problems. A group of expert committees created a consensus around a strategy for change, which has led to a draft law proposed by the Financial Sector Legislative Reforms Commission set up by the Ministry of Finance of the Government of India.     

印度微型金融运作模式及其启示分析

起源于20世纪70年代的微型金融研究对于各国农村经济的发展有着重要的促进作用。鉴于中、印两国农村经济发展水平等方面的相似性,本文以印度微型金融为鉴,通过对印度微型金融的运作模式、特点以及所引致的社会效益的分析,得出印度微型金融运作模式有效地缓解了农村资金不足,农业发展缓慢的矛盾,并有效地缩小了农村地区间的差异。在此基础上,提出适合我国农村金融发展的启示及其可以借鉴的地方,从而更好、更快地促进我国农村经济的发展。