Some Good News about Public Governance
November 29, 2010 4 min. read

Amid a spate of corruption scandals in India, glimmers of political change may have shone forth last week from what until a few years ago was the most unlikeliest of places.

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Despite Austerity Measures E.U. Promises to Deliver Climate Change Adaptation Fund
November 25, 2010 2 min. read

Given all this budget slashing, all that bail-outing, leaders of the European Union have promised Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina that funds pledged to Bangladesh for the European Union Climate Change Adaptation Fund would be delivered. Bangladesh is something of a case study for devising policy and infrastructure to combat the consequences of global cliamte change; […]

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Khaleda Zia Endorses Post-Election Protests, Promises to Bring Down Government
November 23, 2010 2 min. read

Whilst Khaleda Zia has been trying to gin up support for her country-wide protest movement to ring out against the sitting Awami League government, ostensibly for leading the country toward ruin, she has been chucked out of her house.  In her stead, the Prime Minister, Sheikh Hasina has used any availing opportunity to shame her near-life […]

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Simple Solutions for Pakistan
November 23, 2010 6 min. read

    “The greatest challenge to any thinker is stating the problem in a way that will allow a solution.” Bertrand Russell A careful examination of contemporary Pakistan presents a bleak picture and objective analysts have been sounding alarms about Pakistan’s overall economic, social and political health for a while, but now, it seems that the […]

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As India's Micro Finance Institutions (MFI's) Face Catastrophe, MFI's in Bangladesh at Risk of Failing
November 22, 2010 3 min. read

The recent news that India’s microcredit industry is in dire straits should trouble Bangladeshi policy makers.  Through a combination of credit-overreach and political demagoguery, Indian banks are facing the prospect of a wave of microcredit loan defaults. Given the nearly $4 billion risk exposure that banks have undertaken in entering into the recently booming microcredit […]

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Economic Promise and Peril
November 21, 2010 4 min. read

The past few days have brought mixed news regarding India’s economic future.

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Christian Woman Sentenced To Death For Blaspheming the Prophet
November 20, 2010 4 min. read

There are grounds on which we accept moral doctrines that vary from those we profess.  We might say that we have not experienced the history that other people in other places have experienced; we might say that there mores that have not entered our lexicon, for our social arrangements are different. We might call all […]

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Peak Oil and Sino-U.S. Competition
November 19, 2010 7 min. read

Hat Tip to Vincent Wade… Lately, there has been much attention paid to China’s growing control over precious finite resources, with the focus being on China’s punitive export embargo on “rare earth” minerals against Japan as outlined here: Without naming China, 37 leading companies and business groups from the U.S., the European Union, Japan, South […]

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India's Illicit Financial Woes
November 19, 2010 4 min. read

The timing could not have been more perfect. A new report by Global Financial Integrity about Illicit Financial Flows from India comes as the perfect topping on the 2G spectrum scam, the Adarsh Housing Scam and the Commonwealth Games. According to the report, India lost approximately $213 billion in illicit financial flows from the country […]

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How to solve Pakistan’s Problems
November 18, 2010 4 min. read

We all know Pakistan is facing serious challenges and regretfully, there are no simple solutions for these problems. So far, repeated experiments with democracy and dictatorships in the country have yielded nothing, but more failures and even more misery. When Benazir returned to Pakistan to help steer the country in the right direction, she was […]

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The Politics of Housing Eviction in Bangladesh: The Case of the Battling Begums
November 16, 2010 2 min. read

The fight over forced homelessness of one by the other has gone beyond personal and political rivalry between Sheikh Hasina and Begum Zia. BNP supporters have called a strike this weekend and took to the streets to protest Khaleda Zia’s eviction from her cantonment home; police have beat back party activists, and failing to do […]

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Pakistan's Human Development Index 2010: Marginal Improvement, Dismal Prospects for Human Development in Near Future.
November 15, 2010 3 min. read

The 2010 UNDP Human Development Report offers some muted good news for those concerned with the reach of socially structured human welfare and development in Pakistan.  However, given the way the good news is structured, recent events in Pakistan suggest that the prospects of Pakistan’s human development look strikingly bleak  for the coming few years. […]

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