Democracy is, everywhere, a work in progress. Like many other countries, India has imposed electoral quotas to improve the political empowerment of women and racial-ethnic minorities &NDAsh; that is, it has a political system that requires women to be elected to certain leadership positions. These rules represent a form of affirmative action, but they also resemble a feature of our own Constitution that reserves space in the Senate for two representatives...

The collapse of the Dubai dream is not without any implications; it may be an indication that the travails of finance capitalism are not over. GLOBAL capitalism is in a phase in which it must deal with the fruits of the overextension during the previous boom, and there is no doubt that this is going to be painful. The financial crisis in the United States and some other developed countries...

Very little is known generally about operational NGOs that work closely with people on a daily basis. WHILE a good many people in the country know that the Central and State governments have a number of plans and projects to bring about development &NDAsh; not all of them either well-conceived or well administered &NDAsh; they are much less aware of the part played in the overall development process by non-governmental...

The industrialized countries are cheating the world. A confidential document of the UN Frame Convention on Climate Change secretariat prepared on December 15 shows, contrary to what the rich nations might claim, even if they come true on their current pledges to reduce emissions the world is headed towards a 3 degree temperature rise by 2050, not two degree Celsius &NDAsh; the tipping point. The document, an authoritative assessment by...

  On a day of long speeches in the plenary and loud protests outside, the Danish president of the UN climate talks here told developing countries that progress on the Kyoto Protocol is unlikely here. There may not be any post-2012 commitment of emission cuts by rich nations under the Protocol coming out of Copenhagen. Outside, protesters and police scuffled as an attempt to break through the barricades of the Bella Centre,...