The world is awakened to a series of events and phenomena of far-reaching consequences. While global recession and efforts at overcoming its consequences remain at the centre of contemporary international relations, international community is also preoccupied with a series of other challenges emanating from factors as diverse as intra- and inter-state conflicts, climate change and environmental degradation, trade and investment, terrorism and crime, cross-border migration and a host of others.
The volume represents a range of themes covering a myriad of issues and problems facing South Asian Nations. The essay address issues from clash of ideologies focusing on secularism and non-secular nationalism, to rationale for regional cooperation with an ideological thrust, to developing a sustainable framework for making policies of a new nation, to civil society’s proactive role in searching a common ground for consensus building, to threat perceptions emanating from ideological, socio-political and historical causes adversely affecting intra-regional relations, to efforts having a positive outcome to globalism with different implications for sovereignty and citizenship.
The Seven Sisters of India-Assam, Nagaland, Tripura, Meghalaya, Manipur, Mizoram and Arunachal Pradesh-are relatively unexplored and secluded entities, which for many years were closed to foreigners. Seldom visited by foreigners, the people of this area continue a way of life of their own, a culture different from the rest of India. Also known as the North Eastern region, the area borders China, Bhutan, Bangladesh, and Myanmar.
Archer Blood, the United States’ consul general in Dacca, was a gentlemanly diplomat raised in Virginia, a World War II navy veteran in the upswing of a promising Foreign Service career after several tours overseas. He was earnest and precise, known to some of his more unruly subordinates at the U.S. consulate as a good, conventional man. He had come to like his posting to this impoverished, green, and swampy land. But outside of the consulate's grimy offices, in the steamy heat, the city was dying. Night after night, Blood heard the gunshots. On the night of March 25, 1971, the Pakistan army had begun a relentless crackdown on Bengalis, all across what was then East Pakistan and is today an independent Bangladesh. Untold thousands of people were shot, bombed, or burned to death in Dacca alone. Blood had spent that grim night on the roof of his official residence, watching as tracer bullets lit up the sky, listening to clattering machine guns and thumping tank guns. There were fires across the ramshackle city. He knew the people in the deathly darkness below. He liked them. Many of the civilians facing the bullets were professional colleagues; some were his friends.
The Silent Witness by a General by Maj General Moinul Hussain Choudhury (rtd) is a reminiscence. This is a book about historic-political document also . The author has been focused on the post-Liberation dramatic events, especially socio-economic political perspectives and turmoil. According to author- “I wish to put into writing many dramatic events of the post-Liberation days…to strips away the false veneer of lies and expose the facts in their stark nakedness. I wish to related facts that none has perhaps related before with such directness. There are many who tend to colour the past and turn falsehood into truth in their interest, while truth is consigned to the trash-can of memory.”
The Communist Manifesto, which was originally titled as Manifesto of the Communist Party, is an influential political manuscript that lays out the Communist League’s aims and program. The Manifesto presents an analytical insight into the class struggle of the historical and contemporary era. The book also highlights the problems of capitalism. The Communist Manifesto is divided into 4 sections. The first part is Bourgeois and Proletarians. It focuses on the Communist theory of the history and relation between the Bourgeois and the Proletarians. The next section, Proletarians and Communists, attempts to understand the relationship between Proletarians and Communists. The third part discusses the Socialist and Communist Literature and their flaws. The final part discusses the position of the Communists and its relation to the other opposition parties.
Manufacturing Consent is geared towards enlightening the readers on the practices in news media. The authors explain that editorial distortion is worsened due to the reliance of news media on governmental sources of news. They also tell the readers that a magazine or any form of media may be prevented from gaining information if they publish any information that attracts negative reactions from the government. This results in the news media organization losing their grip over their viewers or readers, which in turn decreases their advertisers. Keeping these dire consequences in mind, the editorial boards of news media businesses twist their reports to favor the government, with the sole objective of sustaining themselves in the market. Through the course of this book, the readers are provided with insights into five editorially distorting filers that are utilized in news reporting these days.
The relentless rise of Communism was the most momentous political development of the first half of the twentieth century. No political change has been more fundamental than its demise in Europe and its decline elsewhere. In this hugely acclaimed book Archie Brown provides an indispensable history that examines the origins of the ideology, its development in different countries, its collapse in many states following the Soviet perestroika, and its current incarnations around the globe.\n\nThe Rise and Fall of Communism explains how and why Communists came to power; how they were able, in a variety of countries on different continents to hold on to power for so long; and what brought about the downfall of so many Communist systems. A groundbreaking work from an internationally renowned specialist, this is the definitive study of the most remarkable political and human story of our times.
Natwar Singh joined the Indian Foreign Service and served as a bureaucrat for 31 years. He joined the Congress Party in 1984, and became a Minister of State in the then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi’s council with the portfolios of steel, agriculture, and coal and mines in 1985. In this much-awaited autobiography, the former cabinet minister talks justly about his experiences and services in various ministries. Singh has played a significant role in Indian politics for more than twenty years and has been a part of some of the most epochal events of independent India, including Indo-China talks and the formation of Bangladesh. In 2002, when the Congress party came back to power, Natwar Singh was appointed as the Minister for External Affairs. But his eventful career saw its end with the Volcker Report in the year 2005. His name appearing in the Iraqi food-for-oil scam forced him to resign from the cabinet and eventually from the Congress party. Singh talks about all these events and the ups and downs of the Congress party in One Life Is Not Enough, an account of an insider. His association with the party allowed him to observe some of the historical events closely, and he talks about Pakistan in the 1980s, under the rule of President Zia-ul-Haq, Indo-Chinese and Indo-USSR relations among other sensitive developments.
While primary responsibility for refugee security rests with the host government, it has been repeatedly stressed that the problem of security should be an issue for which a multiplicity of actors share responsibility—refugees themselves, local populations, country of origin, the host country, donor states, regional organizations, the UNHCR its operational partners. For a resolution of the problems faced by the stateless Rohingya refugees, a multi-faceted approach is required. In fact, it is important to materialize a collaborative effort between the government and civil society to contain the social and economic impact of the protracted refugee situation. The international community needs to approach the stateless cum refugee issue in the context of broader development agenda and international law. The commitment of all stakeholders, including the government, humanitarian agencies, local communities, and donors, is required. Cooperative and combined effort can assist in alleviating problems and assist refugees to participate to the fullest extent possible in their life in Bangladesh and following their return in Myanmar.
This is a book written by a head of state and head of government when in office and first published in 1967. It is at once an autobiography of former President Mohammad Ayub Khan of Pakistan, and also a description of the major events in the history of Pakistan in which the author participated, and of the problems which the country continue to faces. President Ayub describes his village upbringing in the northwest of undivided India, his years at Aligarh University and Sandhurst in England, and his service in the British-Indian army before and during the Second World War.
The book presents an assessment of the politics pursued in Bangladesh during its initial years and argues that the crisis Bangladesh faces today is the result of the socio-economic and political measures taken by the Awami League government and Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. In the course of his assessment he has examined the political compulsion and contradictions which led the regime to go for a one-party rule. The ruling party’s treatment of the freedom fighters, the so-called collaborators and the army as an institution are seen as examples which had bleeding effect on the body politic of the newly achieved country.
The analytical contents of most of the studies tend to ignore the substantive fact that the civil servants operate in a given environment and to the extent that the environment is less than congenial, the expected outcome is bound to be less than satisfactory. Little or no attention was paid in the research efforts to take a holistic view in terms of conditions that make the civil service professionally effective for desirable policy outcomes in governance.
This book is based on my PhD work. In conducting the research I acknowledge gratefully the cooperation of a number of individuals. First I express my debt of gratitude to Professor Emajuddin Ahamed, former Vice-Chancellor of Dhaka University, who offered me his kind guidance. My indebtedness is due to my colleagues at Jahangirnagar University for their sincere cooperation and valuable suggestions. I am also appreciative of the help of Professor Abu Taher Mojumder. I am thankful to Jahangirnagar University for granting me permission to pursue my research.
Non-dogmatic historians are always uncomfortable with the issue of how it all began - the defined hour of beginning. This is understandable, for beginning can only invite trouble in comprehension. But my argument here has been that it serves political history little by avoiding the moment of beginning. By eschewing the complications we forego the task of grappling with the phenomenon itself. The task is to delve into it and show that beginning had all that was to appear later, in fact what was considered as origin was actually the structure, visible as only origin, where the elements were arranged in a way as to appear collectively as beginning.
In the meantime, other changes need to be taken into cognizance. One is that the dichotomy between traditional and non-traditional security issues has become blurred to a large extent. What we see today is a continuum, with nontraditional and traditional issues forming two ends on a spectrum, and the transition from one to the other is indeed subtle. More noticeable is the second change, that is, the irrelevance of traditional tools of conflict management and resolution like third party mediation and problem solving approaches. Although we are talking about a new world order and cooperative security,
This book is a detailed study to establish Bengali Language Movement which awakened the identity and distinction of the people of the then East Bengal/Pakistan. This movement, as most people know, ultimately resulted in the crystallization of Bengali nationalism, and finally the struggle for freedom of the Eastern part of Pakistan. The book substantiates the various aspects of the themes illustrating the indomitable will of the Bengalis for an independent home of their own. The author has examined the ebb and flow of the movement and connected it to the general dynamics of Pakistan's politics along with its consequent impact on national integration. He has finally shown how the language movement and the war of liberation became an indivisible part of a single evolutionary movement. One of the unique features of the study is the biographical sketches of some of the eminent activists/actors of the language movement and the war of liberation. A list such as this can hardly be found together anywhere else. The names of these champions would have otherwise fallen victim to the inexorable processes of time and lost in the oblivion.
