When Maldives briefly became a contentious neighbor of India, it spelled trouble as India has man... more When Maldives briefly became a contentious neighbor of India, it spelled trouble as India has many security concerns in the Indian Ocean region. But now, efforts are on to deepen the economic and security ties, and the new government in India is sending out all the right signals.
अगर सह अस्तित्व के आद्रस्रष्टा भगवान् शंकर को प्रशन्न करना है तो हमें बैर-द्वेष,भेद-भाव, विषमता क... more अगर सह अस्तित्व के आद्रस्रष्टा भगवान् शंकर को प्रशन्न करना है तो हमें बैर-द्वेष,भेद-भाव, विषमता को भूलकर सह-अस्तित्व का पाठ पढ़ाना होगा एवं प्रेम, सद्भाव और समता को अपने जीवन का भूषण बनाना होगा.
While the Indian judiciary is encroaching upon executive and legislative domains in the name of p... more While the Indian judiciary is encroaching upon executive and legislative domains in the name of promoting public interest, it has hardly shown any inclination to address the maladies afflicting the state of justice in India. On the contrary, the judiciary often uses (misuses) its powers concerning the contempt of court to silence any enlightened criticism of its working. The Modi Government should therefore initiate measures to clean up the rot in the Indian judicilary. If this is not done with a sense of devotion and urgency, the judiciary may also fall in public esteem endangering the whole civil society with dangerous consequences for the public good.
While judiciary still commands relatively more respect as compared to executive and legislature f... more While judiciary still commands relatively more respect as compared to executive and legislature for it has maintained, to a considerable extent, its independence and professionalism, 1 the process of institutional decay has nonetheless affected the judiciary and especially the lower judiciary. To say the least, it is indeed depressing and far different from textbook perceptions of justice. Qualities of fairness, efficiency, trust, credibility and service are not evident in the way the system operates. On the contrary, the state of justice in India to-day is characterised interalia by lack of sensitivity to human suffering, open exploitation by intermediaries, huge arrears of pending cases; costly processes and procedures and blind adherence thereto; glaring, if not alarming, variance in the competence and honesty of judges; controversies about appointment and transfers of judges of superior courts; ever-widening and growing tentacles of corruption in the judicial system and the political executive and legislators looking the other way. 2 These ailments cry hoarse suggesting that the entire edifice of Indian judicial system is moth-eaten and its sudden crash imminent.
It would stressing the obvious to state that India won independence through a very long and tortu... more It would stressing the obvious to state that India won independence through a very long and torturous process of struggle for freedom. Three quarters of a century of thought and struggle over defining the Indian nation, over freeing the country from alien occupation, and over the desirable shape of the social and economic order in a future independent India had provided the founding fathers of the Indian Constitution asset of ideas and goals that helped to structure responses to the problems of governing the newly independent country.
Maintenance of peace and security has been one of the most important concerns of human civilizati... more Maintenance of peace and security has been one of the most important concerns of human civilization since time immemorial. This concern has assumed added significance and urgency in the contemporary thermo-nuclear age, when the human beings have acquired the capacity to destroy the world within a minute. Not surprisingly, this issue has attracted the attention of International Relations theorists, who have produced a vast literature in this regard. Surprisingly, however, they have hardly cared to take into account the thoughts of ancient Indian thinkers in this debate. This is despite the fact that Indian seers have delved much deeper into this problem and their thinking has a great relevance for addressing contemporary issues concerning both national and international peace and security. The present paper therefore examines the relevance of traditional Indian wisdom for securing peace and security at national as well as international levels.
In the contemporary interdependent and globalizing world domestic upheaval in one country usually... more In the contemporary interdependent and globalizing world domestic upheaval in one country usually produces side-effects not only on its own security and foreign policy, but also in other countries, especially those which have close geographic, social and historical ties with it. Domestic sources of foreign policy and threat to national security have got added significance in the post-Cold War era. 1 For, while the end of super-power rivalries, which had complicated regional conflicts in the Third World, contributed to a diminution of these conflicts, at the same time, the 'decompression' effect of the end of the Cold War gave a fillip to linguistic, religious and communal tensions, which were dormant and overlaid with Cold War rivalries and the earlier colonial dominance over the Third World. Their release exacerbated domestic conflicts in developing countries deriving from the plethora of ethno-nationalist, socio-economic and communal-religious reasons. This is clear from the enumeration of major conflicts published annually by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) since the Cold War abated; it confirms that intra-state conflicts greatly outnumber inter-state conflicts. The SIPRI Yearbook 2000 on Armaments, Disarmament and International Security, for instance, reports that out of 27 major armed conflicts raged in 25 countries during 1999, only two were inter-state conflicts, namely, Ethiopia, Eritrea, and India-Pakistan over Kashmir.
International Journal of South Asian Studies , 2009
Surely, US-India relations have drastically improved in recent years despites changes of several ... more Surely, US-India relations have drastically improved in recent years despites changes of several guards in both Washington and New Delhi. Most of the scholars and analyst trace this improvement after end of the Cold War in general and since the second Clinton administration in particular. They usually argue that the demise of the Soviet Union enabled both the countries to rediscover their shared democratic values. 1
When Maldives briefly became a contentious neighbor of India, it spelled trouble as India has man... more When Maldives briefly became a contentious neighbor of India, it spelled trouble as India has many security concerns in the Indian Ocean region. But now, efforts are on to deepen the economic and security ties, and the new government in India is sending out all the right signals.
अगर सह अस्तित्व के आद्रस्रष्टा भगवान् शंकर को प्रशन्न करना है तो हमें बैर-द्वेष,भेद-भाव, विषमता क... more अगर सह अस्तित्व के आद्रस्रष्टा भगवान् शंकर को प्रशन्न करना है तो हमें बैर-द्वेष,भेद-भाव, विषमता को भूलकर सह-अस्तित्व का पाठ पढ़ाना होगा एवं प्रेम, सद्भाव और समता को अपने जीवन का भूषण बनाना होगा.
While the Indian judiciary is encroaching upon executive and legislative domains in the name of p... more While the Indian judiciary is encroaching upon executive and legislative domains in the name of promoting public interest, it has hardly shown any inclination to address the maladies afflicting the state of justice in India. On the contrary, the judiciary often uses (misuses) its powers concerning the contempt of court to silence any enlightened criticism of its working. The Modi Government should therefore initiate measures to clean up the rot in the Indian judicilary. If this is not done with a sense of devotion and urgency, the judiciary may also fall in public esteem endangering the whole civil society with dangerous consequences for the public good.
While judiciary still commands relatively more respect as compared to executive and legislature f... more While judiciary still commands relatively more respect as compared to executive and legislature for it has maintained, to a considerable extent, its independence and professionalism, 1 the process of institutional decay has nonetheless affected the judiciary and especially the lower judiciary. To say the least, it is indeed depressing and far different from textbook perceptions of justice. Qualities of fairness, efficiency, trust, credibility and service are not evident in the way the system operates. On the contrary, the state of justice in India to-day is characterised interalia by lack of sensitivity to human suffering, open exploitation by intermediaries, huge arrears of pending cases; costly processes and procedures and blind adherence thereto; glaring, if not alarming, variance in the competence and honesty of judges; controversies about appointment and transfers of judges of superior courts; ever-widening and growing tentacles of corruption in the judicial system and the political executive and legislators looking the other way. 2 These ailments cry hoarse suggesting that the entire edifice of Indian judicial system is moth-eaten and its sudden crash imminent.
It would stressing the obvious to state that India won independence through a very long and tortu... more It would stressing the obvious to state that India won independence through a very long and torturous process of struggle for freedom. Three quarters of a century of thought and struggle over defining the Indian nation, over freeing the country from alien occupation, and over the desirable shape of the social and economic order in a future independent India had provided the founding fathers of the Indian Constitution asset of ideas and goals that helped to structure responses to the problems of governing the newly independent country.
Maintenance of peace and security has been one of the most important concerns of human civilizati... more Maintenance of peace and security has been one of the most important concerns of human civilization since time immemorial. This concern has assumed added significance and urgency in the contemporary thermo-nuclear age, when the human beings have acquired the capacity to destroy the world within a minute. Not surprisingly, this issue has attracted the attention of International Relations theorists, who have produced a vast literature in this regard. Surprisingly, however, they have hardly cared to take into account the thoughts of ancient Indian thinkers in this debate. This is despite the fact that Indian seers have delved much deeper into this problem and their thinking has a great relevance for addressing contemporary issues concerning both national and international peace and security. The present paper therefore examines the relevance of traditional Indian wisdom for securing peace and security at national as well as international levels.
In the contemporary interdependent and globalizing world domestic upheaval in one country usually... more In the contemporary interdependent and globalizing world domestic upheaval in one country usually produces side-effects not only on its own security and foreign policy, but also in other countries, especially those which have close geographic, social and historical ties with it. Domestic sources of foreign policy and threat to national security have got added significance in the post-Cold War era. 1 For, while the end of super-power rivalries, which had complicated regional conflicts in the Third World, contributed to a diminution of these conflicts, at the same time, the 'decompression' effect of the end of the Cold War gave a fillip to linguistic, religious and communal tensions, which were dormant and overlaid with Cold War rivalries and the earlier colonial dominance over the Third World. Their release exacerbated domestic conflicts in developing countries deriving from the plethora of ethno-nationalist, socio-economic and communal-religious reasons. This is clear from the enumeration of major conflicts published annually by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) since the Cold War abated; it confirms that intra-state conflicts greatly outnumber inter-state conflicts. The SIPRI Yearbook 2000 on Armaments, Disarmament and International Security, for instance, reports that out of 27 major armed conflicts raged in 25 countries during 1999, only two were inter-state conflicts, namely, Ethiopia, Eritrea, and India-Pakistan over Kashmir.
International Journal of South Asian Studies , 2009
Surely, US-India relations have drastically improved in recent years despites changes of several ... more Surely, US-India relations have drastically improved in recent years despites changes of several guards in both Washington and New Delhi. Most of the scholars and analyst trace this improvement after end of the Cold War in general and since the second Clinton administration in particular. They usually argue that the demise of the Soviet Union enabled both the countries to rediscover their shared democratic values. 1
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Papers by Nalini Jha