Left Right And Centre

As India approaches its seventieth year of Independence, its people continue to grapple with multiple discourses: a few from the left, a considerable sum from the right and an impressive lot from the centre. This book brings together diverse views from people across a wide spectrum of life-politicians, activists, administrators, artistes, academicians-who offer their idea of India. With a contextual introduction by Nidhi Razdan, this politically charged, argumentative, candid and humorous book opens a window to our understanding of India that largely remained untold and unknown for a long time.

Enough of the imbalance that is causing the degradation of our environment, the demise of our democracies, and the denigration of ourselves. Enough of the pendulum politics of left and right and paralysis in the political center. We require an unprecedented form of radical renewal. In this book Henry Mintzberg offers a new understanding of the root of our current crisis and a strategy for restoring the balance so vital to the survival of our progeny and our planet. With the collapse of the communist regimes of Eastern Europe, Western pundits declared that capitalism had triumphed. They were wrong—balance triumphed. A healthy society balances a public sector of respected governments, a private sector of responsible businesses, and a plural sector of robust communities. Communism collapsed under the weight of its overbearing public sector. Now the “liberal democracies” are threatened—socially, politically, even economically—by the unchecked excesses of the private sector. Radical renewal will have to begin in the plural sector, which alone has the inclination and the independence to challenge unacceptable practices and develop better ones. Too many governments have been co-opted by the private sector. And corporate social responsibility can't compensate for the corporate social irresponsibility we see around us “They” won't do it. We shall have to do it, each of us and all of us, not as passive “human resources,” but as resourceful human beings. Tom Paine wrote in 1776, “We have it in our power to begin the world over again.” He was right then. Can we be right again now? Can we afford not to be?

Both volumes of Operation 'Market Garden' Then and Now in a presentation slip case.

This book examines the historical trajectory of the growth of the television news and critically analyzes the role of private television news in framing the nature of public discourse in contemporary India. Set in the context of a transformed media landscape, the book attempts to understand and analyze the role of two private national news channels, NDTV 24×7 and Aaj Tak, in producing mediatized narratives that offer a commentary on the various social, political, cultural, religious and economic issues in the public domain. This is achieved by critically examining the process and techniques of production, representation and consumption of current affairs programs such as studio debates, panel discussions, audience talk shows and documentaries aired on both the channels. Highlighting some of the key trends that impinge on the structure and mode of operation of television news media in contemporary India, the book offers a simultaneous examination of how the production, representation and consumption of the mediatized discourses shape the nature of public discourse and have social-political ramifications for the functioning of Indian democracy. The book will be of interest to researchers in sociology, media and communication studies, popular culture and South Asian Studies.

When the western Allies decided to launch a second front in North Africa, they carefully considered the anti-British feeling left in France by the ill-advised attack by the Royal Navy on the French Fleet at Mers el Kébir in July 1940. Consequently, the operation was given an American rather than a British complexion, General Eisenhower was chosen to lead a mostly American force into battle and the major Royal Navy contribution was kept as inconspicuous as possible. This operation marked the first time that American troops fought against German forces during the Second World War. They had a rough baptism of fire in southern Tunisia in February 1943, training, equipment and leadership failed in many instances to meet the requirements of the battlefield, but the US Army was quick to learn and revise army doctrines, particularly with respect to the use of armor. The successful campaign created thousands of seasoned soldiers of all ranks whose experience would prove decisive in subsequent campaigns. The next test was only two months away — the invasion of Sicily. In addition, Operation ‘Torch’ brought the French army back into the war. Most important of all, the Allies had seized the initiative in the West.

How do state parties react to the challenge of peripheral parties demanding political power to be devolved to their culturally distinct territories? Is devolution the best response to these demands? Why do national governments implement devolution given the high risk that devolution will encourage peripheral parties to demand ever more devolved powers? The aim of this book is to answer these questions through a comparative analysis of devolution in four European countries: Belgium, Italy, Spain, and the United Kingdom. The author argues that electoral competition between state and peripheral parties pushes some state parties to prefer devolution at some particular point in time. Devolution is an electoral strategy adopted in order to make it more difficult in the long term for peripheral parties to increase their electoral support by claiming the monopoly of representation of the peripheral territory and the people in it. The strategy of devolution is preferred over short-term tactics of convergence towards the peripheral programmatic agenda because the pro-periphery tactics of state parties in unitary centralised states are not credible in the eyes of voters. The price that state parties pay for making their electoral tactics credible is the 'entrenchment' of the devolution programmatic agenda in the electoral arena. The final implication of this argument is that in democratic systems devolution is not a decision to protect the state from the secessionist threat. It is, instead, a decision by state parties to protect their needed electoral majorities. Comparative Politics is a series for students, teachers, and researchers of political science that deals with contemporary government and politics. Global in scope, books in the series are characterised by a stress on comparative analysis and strong methodological rigour. The series is published in association with the European Consortium for Political Research. For more information visit: www.ecprnet.eu. The Comparative Politics series is edited by Professor David M. Farrell, School of Politics and International Relations, University College Dublin, Kenneth Carty, Professor of Political Science, University of British Columbia, and Professor Dirk Berg-Schlosser, Institute of Political Science, Philipps University, Marburg.

Learning about ICT has all sorts of benefits for young people with SEN but for anyone planning a course, knowing where to start can be difficult. This manual is packed full of practical know-how. It includes: * 36 planned sessions ready to deliver * Which hardware software to get and how best to use it * Time-saving photocopiable and downloadable resources on an accompanying CD

Around the world, parties of the left and center-left have been struggling, losing ground to right-wing parties and various forms of reactionary populism. This book brings together a range of leading academics and experts on social democratic politics and policy to offer an international, comparative view of the changing political landscape. Using case studies from the United Kingdom, Germany, Spain, France, Australia and New Zealand contributors argue that despite different local and specific contexts, the mainstream center-left is beset by a range of common challenges. Analysis focuses on institutional and structural factors, the role of key individuals, and the atrophy of progressive ideas as interconnected reasons for the current struggles of the center-left.