Archive for Uncategorized
Making Aid Work?
Abhijit Vinayak Banerjee (2007) Making Aid Work. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. 170pp, £9.95, 978 0 262 02615 4
Abhijit Vinayak Banerjee’s Making Aid Work provides an excellent forum to discuss the problems engulfing international development aid. It argues that the ineffectiveness of foreign development aid is primarily due to “institutional laziness” (p.7). Banerjee argues that international donor agencies, NGOs and multilateral institutions do not pay much attention to the impact and “cost-effectiveness” (p.16) of a program and are often “unclear about what they should be pushing for” (p.21). Building on the drugs evaluation model, Banerjee argues that “randomized trials… are the simplest and best way of assessing the impact of a program” (p.10). Although “randomized trials are not perfect” (p.11), argues Banerjee, they provide “hard evidence” (p.113) and “spur[s] innovation by making it easy to see what works” (p.122).
The problems of foreign aid, as recognized by Banerjee, have been universally agreed upon by several economists and policy makers. However, his arguments on lazy thinking and randomized experiments have received skeptical responses. Many have rejected his accusations that the international donors are not pursuing impact evaluation and cost-benefit analysis. Banerjee’s argument is very limited and ambiguous. His academic training in economics influences much of his thinking on macro level quantitative experimentation, ignoring the dynamics of power relations at the grassroots level. He also fails to explain the idea of randomized experiment in a clear manner. His emphasis on laziness (not filling up a form) that is grounded on a particular example from Pakistan does not really apply to regular NGO functioning. As Mick Moore has rightly argued, development agencies are “staffed and run by expressive intellectuals” who are “skilled in performing the key functions of the contemporary aid business: producing position papers and strategy documents and managing inter-agency coordination meetings” (p.43).
By placing the emphasis on institutions, Banerjee has failed to address the “politics” of development and international aid, which often has created a “culture of dependency” at the grassroots level. Banerjee is also unable to understand that the problem of foreign aid is not primarily due to “institutional laziness” but the result of a rationalized and active institutional effort to depoliticize development and to create what James Ferguson (1990) has called an “anti-politics machine”. Nevertheless, Banerjee’s arguments have generated numerous pertinent issues and discussions related to the aid regime. His concluding essay has brilliantly addressed the machine like character of development policy making. The structure of the book is innovative, although the forum discussions are regrettably brief.
___________________
This review has been published by Sarbeswar Sahoo in Political Studies Review, Vol. 7, No. 1, January 2009
OH THE GREAT AMERICANS! STIR UP YOUR CONSCIENCE!
The history was busy to write your name,
Amongst the nations with the highest fame.
The world was proud of your grace,
Virtue and love were the signs of your face.
From your soil, streams of justice used to flow,
To the vices and wrongs , you were a lethal blow.
You used to inspire a trust in all,
You drew no line between big and small.
The cascade of wisdom from your mind,
Quenched the intellectual thirst of every kind.
To the benighted humanity, you sowed new seed,
The compassion of Jesus (p.b.u.h.) was your creed.
Why suddenly, for you, this turn of fate?
How you emerged as a symbol of hate?
Stir up your conscience,
Look ahead with prescience.
Strain your nerves to see the right,
With a sense of justice, not with might.
Your eyes will perceive a demeaning course,
That made you believe in arms and force.
Delve deep into your soul,
To find out your filthy role.
Each part of the globe was within your reach,
With the Bible in hand; its lesson to preach.
You threw it away with a ruthless shake,
Your hands now possess weapons , for power sake.
The world is now standing aghast,
Why this all has happened so fast?
I know, only a few in your midst,
Spoiled your serenity with a grisly twist,
Sullied your image as a graceful race,
And eclipsed the sedateness of your pace.
Rise up ! purge your glory,
Of the present grim story;
Restore your lost dignity,
With penitential ‘sad’ and ‘sorry’.
Listen to the shrieks and wails,
See the destruction and travails,
Your sons have caused in others’ land,
With the dead falling like heaps of sand.
When the advent of Christ (p.b.u.h.) is too close,
Why you became so hideous, and why you chose,
To smear your face with innocent blood,
To engulf the humanity with your raging flood.
Now is the time for you to repent,
For what you have done, and what you spent,
To bring about fright and fear all around,
Let once again the global ambience reverberate,
Not with threats and piercing cannonade,
But with your soothing sermons, and remorseful sound.
________________________________
@ Written by Dr. Mustafa Kamal Sherwani, President, All India Muslim Forum, Lucknow- India
ON THE ‘RUINS’ OF ‘WHITE HOUSE’
Beware! Beware ! Beware !
Decades have passed; generations have changed,
Nature’s fury over the tyrant remains unabated;
He and his men are under grievous chastisement,
Their names are still amongst the most hated.
When released from the unearthly veils,
Their disembodied groans are hard to bear;
As bleeding lumps, often as balls of fire,
Their sight fills the visitors with fear.
———— ——— ——— ——— ——— -
THESE RUINS are the remnants of a grand palace,
That was the mightiest citadel of power and glory;
The like of which, the world never heard and saw,
Save in the fairy tales and Solomon’s story.
The people of this land were good and affable,
Their superb genius was the envy of human race;
Alas! Their ineffable grandeur made them blind,
To the Eternal Truth and the Lasting Grace.
The dawn of the century, twenty first,
Sowed the seeds of their doom;
They chose a tyrant as their head,
Who brought them down from their bloom.
Like his father, he too was evil incarnate,
‘Bastard’ his ‘title’, ‘Bush’ his name;
His devilish deeds did’nt take much long ,
To make him reach the heights of notorious fame.
Under the garb of the sacred Christian faith,
Like a ‘Satan’, using Christ as a ploy;
The goal of his life was Islam’s ruin,
To spill the blood of Muslims was his joy.
Cheny, his deputy, like a chimp issuing threats,
Like a cobra, his secretary Conloleeza Rice;
Spreading his venom through her fangs,
The trio had changed every virtue into a vice.
To achieve his mission, and get ecstatic pleasure,
Across the world, his army plundered Muslim land;
The bodies of men, women and children,
Lying on the streets like heaps of sand.
Russia became like a rat , France like a frog ,
The great empires were quivering before his might;
China like a chameleon , changing hues,
Britain, braying behind him day and night.
All, but glorious Persia, were lying prostrate.
Also in the custody of this tyrant king,
Was the custodian of the House of Guardian Lord,
Their conscience and scruples gave them no sting.
The tyrant was ignorant, could’nt foresee,
The martyrs’ blood was taking ferocious form;
To shake and destroy his impregnable fortress,
It was approaching him as a violent storm.
The sobs and cries of those innocent girls,
His brutish army had raped with beastly force;
Were running like tremors through Heavens,
To bring the scourge to its destined course.
Every drop of the blood of those great warriors,
Who, for their honour, blew themselves apart;
Whom the cowards of the time had sent to ‘Hell’,
Would emerge from the soil as a piercing dart.
Accompanied by the deafening sounds of raped women,
The surging streams of the martyrs’ blood;
One night arose from the Persian Gulf,
And invaded the ‘White House’ with red flood.
Flabbergasted and bewildered, the tyrant and his men,
Used his dreaded weapons in air, land and sea;
When all in vain, with their gloating faces blanched,
They made a desperate attempt to flee.
Boiling with rage and revenge, the columns of blood,
Battered and buffeted them from every side;
Their agonised grief, grim faces and remorseful cries,
Were seen and heard with awe far and wide.
Like Pharaoh and his army in the river Nile,
Like the enemies of Noah in the Flood;
This tyrant and his men were damned to perdition,
With the torrents, not of water, but of blood.
This blood pulverised the delusions of their grandeur,
Convulsed, tottered and razed to the ground;
The insurmountable barriers of their castle,
Only their shrieks are heard, and this debris found.
———— ——— ——— ——— ——— -
Dr. Mustafa Kamal Sherwani, LL.D.
Former President, All India Muslim Forum
3,Sherwani Nagar, Sitapur Road, Lucknow,U.P. India
Presently: Dean, Faculty of Law and Shariah
Zanzibar University, Zanzibar
Republic of Tanzania- East Africa
Email: sherwanimk@yahoo. com
Mobile:+255- 777-420360
———— ——— ——— ———
First Few Feelings in Denmark
On 15 February, looking through the windows of Turkish Airlines, I was overwhelmed to see the scenic beauty of the city of Copenhagen sorrounded by deep blue water. It was truely rare and I regreted sitting beside the aile, since I could not capture the moment in my Camera. Believe me, I am a camera crazy person and feel sorry if could not capture some of the memerising moments. Some of my good old friends thats why complain against me that I always take pictures and do not enjoy the moment, which sometimes could be true.
Anyway, the experience began with a smile. The smile turned into a laughter when I got off the flight and came out of the Airport to see the afternoon sun waiting outside with its bright golden rays to welcome me to this amazing city. My first feeling was happiness. Wah !! What a bright day? My fear of cold and cloudy days faded away and the scary imagination of expecting dark gray days seemed like day dreams. I spoke to myself, it will not be hard to survive here.!!
It was not difficult to find my way to the Roskilde University. People were very warm, nice and welcoming. I joined the line to buy my train ticket and an one way ticket from Copenhagen Airport to Roskilde University, which is not more than 30 minutes ride, cost me DKK 90 (SGD 26). My reaction was, what an expensive city?? Though I knew it is one of the expensive cities in Europe, I had no idea that it would be so expensive.
The train travelled through lands that looked deserted. I could not see any houses around or city centres. It looked like as if I am passing through a desert in winter. The stations and sorroundings looked scary, since there were only one or two people getting into or getting off the train at the stations. It was scary for me because of my experience in Indian train stations, which were crowded with populations fighting to get into the train to find a space to accomodate at least their two legs to reach their destination or the experience in Singapore, which may not be as disorganised as the Indian experience is, but people lining up for getting into the train. In comparison to those experiences, Denmark was a unique anomaly. But it was interesting.
I got off at the Trekroner Station, which is just 8 minutes walk from the University. I found myself in the middle of the station almost alone. The station, as usual, looked like a desert and as if I am standing in the middle of it. I was wondering how to go to the University from the station and found no one to ask to. After few minutes, to my happiness, found someone, perhaps looked Asian (I dont remember correctly the face now – no racist intention), who directed me the way to the University. It was freaking cold and my hands were freezing. I dragged my luggage trolley and on my way I saw pretty Danish girls and handsome guys making their way back from the University towards the station at around 2.30 pm, since the University closes at 3 pm on fridays.
The University seemed to be situated in the middle of an Industrial Complex. It looked isolated and lifeless. Close to the University, there is a nice small lake, where I saw swans and some other birds. But the water in the lake looked stagnant. When I went to touch the water, It was hard and had turned into ice.
The campus looked nice though, with its dark gray leafless trees. It was not hard to find my destination. I went to the Department of International Development Studies and Dora and Inge were there to welcome me. They were very nice and welcoming. Dora assisted me finding my house. She is a very nice smiling face. To her, I brought the bright sun with me to Roskilde, since this was the first bright day. So nice of her. I checked into Korallen Students’ Dorm. its a nice place but isolated and boring. My first encounter was with its unclean communal kitchens. But, the rooms looked nice. It is not like the hostels in Indian Universities which are always (extra)lively and crowded. It is a very clam and quiet place filled with International students from various parts of the globe.
I met Reason from Zimbabwe, who is studying in South Africa. I also met Gonzallo from Cloumbia studying at LSE and Elisa from Italy working on Tanzania. These were the Guest PhD students like me. I also met some other exchange students at the Master level. The dinner was bought for me by Gonzallo and Reason, but they did not have the idea that I am a Vegetarian. Elisa was so sweet to cook some Pasta for me. We had a wonderful evening together. A warm eveneing at Korallen welcomed me with colourful, and diverse smiling faces around the world. Let this smile be continued….Thats all for now.
____________
See also: www.bapisahoo.blogspot.com
Games Historians Play
In terms of physical development, I have little doubt that Pakistan has benefited from Partition. In physical infrastructure as well as social, political and intellectual development, the areas that constituted Pakistan on August 14, 1947, were some of the most backward in the subcontinent.
Since then, the country has seen considerable progress. Roads, hospitals, universities and schools have been built. Muslim entrepreneurs who migrated to the new state brought capital and business skills, and have created banks, mills and factories. And in a semi-arid country, new farming techniques have created a green revolution. For me, the transplantation of mango varieties is the most welcome aspect of this development.
In fact, had it not been for Pakistan’s inexorable population growth, we would all be much better off today, with fewer people demanding their share of the small but growing cake.
Of course, it can be argued that most of these changes would have occurred in an undivided India. But given our neighbour’s slow economic progress in the first three decades of Independence, I doubt that enough resources would have gone to the periphery.
Also, no Partition would have meant that no mass migration would have taken place. This in turn means that most of the skills and capital that crossed the new border in 1947 would not have been available to this part of the subcontinent.
Factors that led to Pakistan’s relatively rapid progress in the fifties and sixties include liberal economic policies, as well as our pro-western stance. This gave us access to capital and modern technology. Meanwhile, India was being governed under the Congress party’s socialist vision that included a tightly regulated economy that yielded what is now known as the ‘Hindu rate of growth’.
So all in all, my guess is that in economic terms, Pakistan has benefited from Partition. It is in the non-physical areas that our growth has remained stunted. Had the subcontinent not been divided into two (and later three) components, we would not all have squandered such vast resources on defence.
With the trillions that have gone into the black hole of military budgets, the government could have doubled and tripled the expenditure on health, education, culture and sports.
As a confederating unit of India, the area today known as Pakistan would not have suffered from the identity crisis that has seen it position itself as an adjunct to the Middle East. This, and the exclusion of the army from political life, would have reduced the religious fervour that has brought the Taliban wolf to our door.
Indeed, one of the factors fuelling the rise of extremism in Pakistan has been the perception of the existential threat that (Hindu) India poses to us.
This has been matched by the rise of the Hindutva religious nationalism in India reflected by the Shiv Sena and the BJP. These organisations use the (Muslim) Pakistan threat to drum up support, in the same way governments and religious and right-wing parties play the India card here.
Living under a secular constitution would have made life a lot easier for our minorities. They would not have to live in fear under the Damocles sword of our iniquitous blasphemy laws, and would be equal citizens. Women, too, would have benefited, and not been subject to random prosecution as under Ziaul Haq’s infamous Hudood Ordinances.
In the international arena, an undivided India would have long been a powerhouse. With around 1.5 billion people, it would have provided an even larger market for imported and locally produced goods.
Culturally, we would have benefited from much greater diversity than we have now. Pakistan is a monochromatic society where women have not been allowed to play their true role in society. By contrast, they are highly visible in all Indian cities. And with more exposure to literature and the arts, our cultural life would have been that much richer.
In sports, too, a combined population of 1.5 billion would have produced world-beating teams: imagine a cricket team representing the entire subcontinent!
There is a perception that had Partition not taken place, Muslims would have been oppressed by the Hindu majority. But half a billion Muslims are not a small minority that can be kicked around. As it is, about 160 million Muslims still live in India.Similar numbers in the areas that constitute Bangladesh and Pakistan today would have ensured that Muslims carried substantial political clout. And had Indian Muslims not faced the kind of isolation caused by Partition, they would not be the marginalised community they are now.
Politically, we would not have been subjugated by the army as we are today. As a result, parliament and the judiciary would have been functioning with far greater freedom than they have done here over the last six decades. Indeed, we would be a far freer people than we are.
At the end of the day, there are going to be winners and losers. Through Partition, many people gained, while others lost out. Many fortunes were made as a direct result of the scams arising out of the purchase of property claims submitted by refugees. Thousands of well-off people, caught up in the stampede created by the riots of 1947, were made destitute. Other migrants prospered due to the lack of competition in the new state.
Of course, all these are highly speculative projections, and if I have offended readers on either side of the Great Divide, let me remind them that this is just a game. And everybody can play.
An Evening with Prof. Bhat
Prof. Chandrasekhar Bhat teaches Indian Diaspora at University of Hyderabad, from where I received my Masters of Arts degree in Sociology. I spent a wonderfully memerable evening with Prof. Bhat and his wife in Sentosa Island. He was visiting Kuala Lumpur for the Indian Diaspora Conference organised by GOPIO. He found some time to visit Singapore, where Amit ji and Rashmi ji gave me the opportunity to meet them and discuss about my time and experience in Hyderabad.
University Ranking 2007
The increasing internationalization of universities is one of the emerging themes of recent years, through strategic global partnerships, joint teaching and research initiatives and increased international student recruitment activities. The THES-QS World University Rankings 2007 reflects the internationalization of higher education around the world, with 27 universities from 14 different countries entering the top 200 for the first time.
Top 10: The UK and USA still dominate – Harvard University, Cambridge, Oxford and Yale retain the top four positions for the second year. University College London and Chicago join the top 10 for the first time.
Top 50: The addition of the Netherlands sees 12 countries featured in the top 50 compared to 11 in 2006. New entrants include; Brown University, Bristol, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Osaka, Boston, Amsterdam.
Top 100: The top 100 sees the number of Asian universities increase to 13 (12 in 2006) but the number of European Universities dropped to 35 (41 in 2006). North America strengthened to 43 Universities (37 in 2006).
Top 200: Universities from 28 different countries represented in the top 200.
Increases in International Faculty: 143 of the top 200 Universities reported an increase in their percentage of international faculty to total faculty.
Increases in International Students: 137 of the top 200 Universities reported an increase in their percentage of international students to total students.
Impossible is Nothing !!
Impossible Is Just a Big Word
Thrown Around By Small Men
Who Find It Easier
To Live In a World
They Have Been Given
Than To Explore the Power
They Have To Change It.
Impossible Is Not A Fact.
It Is An Opinion.
Impossible Is Not A Declaration.
It Is A Dare.
Impossible Is Potential.
Impossible Is Temporary.
Welcome Myself
Hello Everyone
I welcome myself to the domain of virtuality, advertisement and connectedness. Web blog is something that makes private public and introduce the self into society. Hope this would be a wonderful experience for myself and those who come accross this page.
Thanks
