Marijuana and its Legalization

The legality of marijuana has been a hot topic debated upon for years. However, upon close inspection of studies and articles, it is clear that it is in the better interest of the government to lift the ban on marijuana. The first thing I learned from the inquiry into this issue was that prohibition fails to control the use and production of marijuana. On the contrary, the illegal aspect tickles the curiosity of teenagers, resulting in opportunists seizing this chance to sell marijuana to them.The marijuana is distributed in schools by student dealers who learn to make easy money, and these students may be lead into the crime industries. The problem exists in the ubiquitous nature of marijuana and it not being the highest priority of the police. The distribution is not being controlled and neither are sources of the marijuana, which misses the reason of existence for prohibition.In fact, through legalizing marijuana usage, the government can earn a plethora of money through taxing, t he price can be controlled to be of proper value instead of the underground pricing, and the number of illegal dealers would decrease due to marijuana not being as profitable. In a survey conducted by the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University, they reported that â€Å"teens could more readily access pot than beer or prescription drugs. What makes alcohol different from marijuana is that alcohol is legal, regulated through age restrictions, and taught in public education about its awareness. For instance, in high school, there are no such things as alcohol dealers or tobacco dealers, which leads to the need of a middle-man who is of age to buy such products. That middle man is often an older student who has to go out of his way to buy alcohol or tobacco which is a great hassle, whereas marijuana is easily found within the student population.People may argue that it is the pure danger of marijuana that led to its prohibition, but contrary to popular belief, it is said that marijuana was made illegal in the US for population control of Mexicans and Black people. Harry J. Anslinger, the director of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics remarked that the reason for the ban of marijuana was â€Å"its effect on the degenerate races. † There is no scientific evidence that such known side effects as schizophrenia, heart attacks or cancer are actually caused by marijuana and therefore the danger of the drug cannot be the reason being illegal.However, due to marijuana smokers being disoriented and having loss of coordination and logical thought, it would be more reasonable to make certain activities or actions illegal when influenced by marijuana instead, similarly to alcohol. Lastly, the research showed that keeping marijuana illegal is more expensive than lobbying it. Apparently the government’s â€Å"War on Drugs† results in millions of dollars in losses when locking people related to marijuana in prison, paying for th eir food, housing, health care, attorney fees, and court costs.All this is paid by taxpayer money which are meant for and could be used for other things concerning the country. Also, as stated in the above, the government is missing out on tax opportunities that could be in turn used for more effective drug education programs. If marijuana were legal the government would have much more money to spend on important problems. Even in our neighbourhoods, hundreds of students are smoking cannabis. Instead of having a large portion of our population having to smoke illegally, it would be more advisable to free the ban and profit from the perks of legalizing marijuana.

Poem

The poem mess it's about a town sunken in floods, when it says â€Å"deserted room through which a river passes/dragging along the stones†. It also says â€Å"l arrive full of mud and death† and â€Å"corpses are sleeping† which shows significant amount of deaths that would occur during a natural disaster. Also, emotions such as fear and sadness have been conveyed through lines such as â€Å"menacing gestures†, â€Å"a terrifying deserted dining room† and â€Å"l am sad†. â€Å"Melancholy inside families† is a visual experience In the form of words, depicting a disaster struck environment.Furthermore, it can be Imagined hat the 1st person narration Is coming from some form of matter other than humans. 2. Record two examples of Juxtaposition In the poem. â€Å"A dining room where roses arrive/a dining room deserted† and â€Å"a grocery store â€Å"a dining room deserted as a fish bone†- simile. â€Å"a ray of moonlight t ied down†-metaphor. 4. It only takes a moment for everything to fall apart, tomorrow is not going to be what it is today. PART B 5. Describe Nurse's inspirations.During his beginning years, Nurse's inspiration was his mentor Gabriele Mistral, who gave him encouragement; this is clearly visible in his first poem titled enthusiasm and perseverance†. Once he had established himself in the publishing industry, his inspirations were drawn from social and political beliefs, especially communism and Marxism. A great example for this is his work during the Spanish civil war and revolution which resulted in the loss of his friend Garcia Loran. This difficult time inspired his work â€Å"Spain in our hearts†.As pragmatic his political views were, his romantic side was equally notable. Nearer went through many failed relationships before he met his wife, these heart-breaking experiences inspired any of his romantic works, and the top of the list would be his work â€Å"20 p oems of love and 1 song of desperation†. Needless to say, almost every experience in his life has inspired him. For example, when he was forced into exile by his own countrymen, he came up with his work â€Å"The Grapes and the wind†.In his final years, his inspiration was his wife; his love for her inspired him to write â€Å"100 Sonnets of Love†. 6. Other than poetry, in what activities was Nearer involved? Other than poetry, Nearer had an eye for political reforms such as promoting communism and Marxism In both Chile and Spain. He was also responsible for keeping up diplomatic relations for the countries he represented (Chile and Spain). 7. In your own words, describe Nurse's poetic philosophy. Nurse's poetry is not imaginary or larger than life, it is based on real life experiences of the past, present and coming future.Nurse's idea was not satisfy his thirst for writing poems but to entertain people by constantly experimenting with his poetry, similar to how Picasso experimented with his paintings. Just like Picasso, Nurse's works were also drawn from war, misery, pain sufferings and love. It is understood Nearer was a one who believed pen is mightier Han sword, because no matter how difficult his situations were, he responded through his poetry about his life also managing to woo women with his romantic works. In my opinion, Nurse's philosophy was to help people understand what was happening around them.Nearer possibly felt that people were living in an environment where their vision was being clouded and he felt it was important to they have a beautiful and prosperous country to live but they are not getting full advantage of it, this is of course with reference to his work inspired from politics. However, in terms of his love poems, he wanted to help readers relate the poem to heir lives, since he has had experiences which his readers also might have had, such as failed marriage, relationships and falling in love. PART C 8. Day drea mer So often I drown†¦ To this thick white puddle. I do not recall its foundations.It never found me in sleep, for my eyes were never shuttered when it struck. It struck in silence so it never occurred, until the teacher's apple struck with vengeance. Reel of images stop abrupt, eyes crowding on me from every needle. My soul lost, hardly found way back inside. I did not stop it, now way But face it. Wrapped around me like load not, like a girl who held my face and let stare. I was living double lives and climbing cliffs. Often climbing halfway, breaking into portals, Nearly reaching summits that let fly buttoned, yet unbuttoned shirts. And often I see Rum's field, beyond right and wrong.Should I Jump, should I survive? I Jump, for I was immortal to the subconscious. So l, the attention deficit, flinching at my immortality, divinity, hunger to imagine, comparing myself to the creator, for I nurtured a world where I was, just me. 9. Write a love poem to Mario to Beatrice. Be sure to include metaphor. Perch © by Shun Moon perch ©? I the brave onlooker, loud but shy, fisherman yet weak, y boat will sink at when your waves of gaze taunt me. Perch © ? I the Play full lime, Riding along the eclipse of Sun, sea and cliff. Absent and careless, present And dreaming.I will pedal for you till the End of top, through hairpins To heaven and fall to the end of bottom. Perch ©? I the speechless owl, Drifting raft with a leaking drum, Blood and sweat, rush and drain, Drenching me when you near, This isn't fear, its hard labor, Trying to handle your ignorance As you gush past. Don't look away, I'm No prince, I'm no Jester, I'm no gold. I'm me, I'm strong, I'll play with you, Laugh with you, I'll cry With you, I swear on thee I'll flee before sun rise, In search of metaphors and Come suffer with me, I'll return For you when sun shay away, with bread, butter and love.Perch ©? I the awful poet, Looking for words to claim Your heart, I may fail now, but this birth I shall spend gathering courage to say I love you. 10. Identify three aspects of Nurse's real life used in the film. What facts have been changed? A) Nearer fled his country into exile due to political pressure. B) Nearer was admired by females. C) Nearer very much loved his wife. However, Nurse's wife is said to have been a singer, but the movie does not put any mind of spotlight on her. Also, Nurse's exile was not spent in Italy. 1 . How are words shown to have power? State what the film has to say about the power of words and poetry. Words are the main reason the character Beatrice fall for Mario, it Maria's research on metaphors and poetry that led to him reciting poems that flattered Beatrice. In the movie, Nearer tells Mario that he needs an inspiration for his poetry and not Just words, and Mario figures out that Beatrice has to be the centre of his inspiration if he has to write her a poem and not Just metaphors.The vie also emphasizes that setting plays a strong role in writi ng a poem, as the movie shows Nearer asking Mario about the most beautiful things about the town and in the end of the movie Mario recording what are actually the most beautiful things about the town. 12. Beatrice poem to Mario. Wedding bells Walk down the aisle, For I have fallen for thy Words or purity. Find your best man, For I'm ready to march With him towards god. Same when two circles Of gold enter this life For the bond that may See no end. Carry me to the shay, For I shall ride with You to the end of the world.

Nutritional Needs over a Life Span Essay

As we grow older, our nutritional needs begin to change. Not only do they change throughout different stages of life, but they also vary depending on whether you are male or female. The following are nutrient requirements for the lifespan of both men and women: Infants Infants of both sexesleave the mother’s womb and live on their mother’s breast milk for the first four to six months of their life. If breastfeeding is not possible, then the infant should be formula fed.This provides all the necessary nutrients to sustain good health during this time frame. From age six to 12 months, infants can begin eating solid foods such as rice, oatmeal, soft fruits, cooked veggies and meats. After they are a year old, they can graduate to eating larger, raw fruits, vegetables and lean meats. Teenagers Teens have to keep a well balanced diet because they are growing during these years. They also have to be able to concentrate in school and get adequate nutrition to help them play sports, as well. They need sufficient iron in their diet; teenage girls usually do not get enough of this. Protein, calcium and Vitamin D are particularly important during a teenager’s growth spurt. This includes fish, chicken breast, skim milk, cheese and low fat yogurts. Boys usually need more calories than girls because they have more muscle mass and tend to grow taller. Another facet of teenage life, particularly for women is the pressure to stay thin. They are more likely to suffer from eating disorders and inadequate nutrition, than males. Read more:Â  Essay on Nutritional Requirements Adults Adult men and women have different nutritional needs based on their occupation and activity level. Those who have sedentary jobs, can get away with eating a 1500-1800 calorie a day diet, without weight gain. However, those who work in field such as construction, cleaning, fitness instruction, etc..require a greater calorie intake of at least 2000-3000 calories daily. Women of child bearing age, must eat plenty of iron rich foods like cooked fish and poultry products, as well as spinach and other leafy green vegetables. Just before and during pregnancy, women have to pay close attention to the diet, as this can affect the health of the baby. Along with obtaining nutrients from all of the major food groups, she may take folic acid supplements to aid in proper development of the child’s spinal cord. They should also avoid raw foods that may contain poisonous bacteria, like fish, eggs and soft cheeses. Older Adults Older adults are not as physically active as younger adults, so their calorie needs are reduced. Calcium is very important to maintain strong bones. Women are particularly susceptible to developing osteoporosis later in life, so they should increase their calcium intake Fiber rich foods such as multigrain breads and slow cooked oatmeal aid in the digestion of older adults. A variety of B-vitamins plus protein help maintain a healthy central nervous system and protects body tissues from damage.

Mining Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Mining - Essay Example The article then develops the basis for the study as a determination of the effectiveness of text mining techniques for detecting Web-based Internet abuse at the work place as well as accuracy and efficiency of some techniques compared to others. This makes the reader have a comprehensive understanding of the article and how it will be organized making it a good and excellent article in terms of idea development. The article then reviews literature on internet abuse, approach and text mining techniques, empirical findings and results and the last part presented is the managerial implications and future research directions as envisaged by the authors. The article is organized in a manner to give the reader a clear understanding from the needs for the research, findings, and conclusions made as well as further research recommendations. The authors give a clear exposition of the literature on internet abuse to bring the reader up to speed on the research undertaken on internet abuse in the work place. There are three major categories of literature reviewed by the authors including measures to prevent internet abuse behavior, measurements of evaluating the behavior and factors that augment the behavior as well as the monitoring and blocking of employees internet usage. The main approach taken by the study is the detection of web-based abuse through text mining approach excluding non-web based abuse and e-mail abuse as a means to complement the existing techniques. The authors give a clear exposition to the reader of the methods of classification, data collection methods and preparation as well as the design taken to ensure the results reached are quality and supported by evidence. After the results are analyzed using standard regression, standard deviations, Chi-test, and F-test, the conclusions and recommendations are presented at the end of the article. The analysis is in-depth to allow the reader to comprehend the steps taken to reach the

Management And Organization In The Retail Industry Assignment

Management And Organization In The Retail Industry - Assignment Example Wal-Mart is one of the largest retail companies in the country has recorded the highest profits in the past year. Its founder, Sam Walton opened his first Wal-Mart store in the year 1962 (Archtmeyer, 2003). Walton was a major influence in the retail industry when it comes to using technology, for example, Wal-Mart was one of the first retail stores to introduce bar codes, which automated inventory control. Wal-Mart was also one of the first companies to introduce satellite inventory tracking systems.Companies in this industry use different organizational structures, but the divisional structure is the most common (Galbraith, 2002). The divisional structure is made up of different divisions spread out over a geographical area but under one corporation. The divisional organizational structure is also seen in some of the other retail companies like Nordstrom and Amazon. Nordstrom and Amazon are two of the major competitors in the retail marketing industry, rated as some of the top compa nies in the industry. Small-scale retailing companies use the simple structure as their organizational structure. The simple structure is a design that is less formal, lowly departmentalized and has a centralized authority. In the retail marketing industry, sales and marketing personnel make up the majority of the workforce in the retail industry. This is because the main purpose of a retail company is to sell goods and services to consumers, and the only way to increase revenue is to have more sales.

Describe in DETAIL the A-B-C-D-E therapeutic approach of REBT Essay

Describe in DETAIL the A-B-C-D-E therapeutic approach of REBT - Essay Example The thesis below will discuss the A-B-C-D-E therapeutic approach of REBT in details. Ellis formulated the therapeutic approach method to help solve psychological problems easily. The core method is used in the first and the subsequent sessions where the therapist explains each session. Letter A in the sequence is the activation event that elicits stress or worry. The worries caused by bad performance at work, lack of confidence that propels the victim to a counselor. B represents the belief system. There are two types of beliefs rational and irrational (Sharf, 2011). Irrational behaviors are exaggerated and leads to disturbed feeling that do not help victims reach their goals. However, it is important to identify irrational behaviors early so that they can be solved. C stands for consequences of the irrational behavior (Sharf, 2011). People with negative thoughts may repeat these thoughts creating a condition known as rumination that acts like self-programming trigger. People with the repeated negative thinking may seclude themselves hence the need for such to replace the irrational thinking with positive thoughts that can make one to address problems reasonably (Sharf, 2011). D represents disputing irrational behaviors. Therapists must challenge the client belief directly. This way, the client can substitute negative thinking with more realistic ways of solving problems. E represents the client’s way of interpreting the situation. If the treatment is effective, the client loses the pessimism, anxiety, distress, and starts focusing on practical ways to solve problems (Sharf, 2011). The clients resume into their normal self and starts making reachable

EB Outcomes Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

EB Outcomes - Essay Example This paper will discuss the implementation of a change program covering poor hand washing among healthcare service providers at Veema center, which has been found to cause adverse outcomes, during service delivery (Titler, 2008). Planning for Change This stage will cover the phases of preparation (Phase I), Validation (Phase II), and Decision making/ Comparative Evaluation (Phase III) From the evidence given studies, including Garrette (2013) and Canham (2011) hand hygiene is acknowledged by control experts and infection prevention personnel, as the single and most effective measure that helps in reducing the spread of infections in the community and at health care settings (Garrette, 2013). This is the case, because the hands are transmission areas between individuals and the objects, as well as the surfaces within the healthcare environment. Some of the objects that can transfer infections in the healthcare setting include blood pressure cuffs. The means of hand hygiene include tha t of using soap and water, and using alcohol-based products, in the cases where water and soap cannot be used. The World Health Organization (WHO) and the CDC (Center for Disease Control and Prevention) maintain that hand hygiene can aid healthcare providers to uphold quality practice, and patient safety (Pittet, Allegranzi & Boyce, 2009). The practice of extensive hand washing will lessen the risk of infection between patients, lessen the infection of healthcare personnel, and lessen the cases of morbidity, mortality and the costs incurred during the treatment of infection-based conditions (Garrette, 2013). In preparation for the change, a survey was administered to the personnel at the health care center, aiming at realizing the factors limiting hand hygiene. Some of the factors explained as causes of poor hand hygiene at the health center and from studies like Garrette (2013) and Pittet, Allegranzi and Boyce (2009) include that hand washing agents leads to dryness and the irritat ion of the skin; sinks are not available in convenient areas and there is also a lack of soap, water, and disposable towels for drying hands. Others include understaffing, giving priority to patient care needs, disagreement with hand hygiene directives and the low risk of getting infected by patients (Cambell, 2010). Towards ensuring that the factors affecting hand hygiene at the Veema health center are addressed through consulting the medical personnel at the center, when developing the best recommendations on hand hygiene. Secondly, the materials required for hand hygiene, which may not be available should be supplied at all times and hand washing areas should be available at all areas, including wards, casualty and admission centers. From the evidence of studies like Garrette (2013) and Pittet, Allegranzi and Boyce (2009), alcohol-based agents should be used for hand washing, before and after patient contact, after removing gloves, and in emergency situations where water is not a vailable. Implementing the EBP Project (Phase IV Translation/ Application) Towards the implementation of the project, a team will be formed, comprising of staff nurses and doctors, clinical nurse specialists, departmental nurse administrators, nurse and doctor researchers and infection control nurse and

Difference between non-profit public sector administration and private Essay

Difference between non-profit public sector administration and private sector - Essay Example The terms of employment and leadership also determine the administrative structures in each. In the public sector, job security is high and despite poor performance, separation requires extensive documentation over a long period of time.The span of control is low, which also means more individuals to a particular task and we see that job security, stability, and sheer size of organizations tend to foster well-defined bureaucracies. Educational qualifications and political affiliations play a major role in the selection of those at the top, regardless of managerial capabilities. Forced to be competitive in order to survive, the private sector companies value efficiency over all else. They have little use for bureaucratic hierarchies.Corporate bureaucracies consist of performance-driven individuals, who function in situations of large spans of control.The number of people required to do a job is strictly monitored and adhered to, any excesses are trimmmed immediately based on optimum efficiency and job security is low. Managerial capabilities are usually the sole determining factors for high positions in a private sector organisation. Thus it is easier for an excellent performer to rise on the corporate ladder, whereas in the public sector, â€Å"seniority† is the determining factor. In other words, we might see an individual promoted purely on the basis of the fact that he or she has been in the organisation for a particular period of time, despite possible poor performance, while diregarding cases of good performance from more recent employees.

The Beatles and the Topic of Androgyny Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

The Beatles and the Topic of Androgyny - Essay Example In other words, androgyny is the state of breaking away from the rigid following of cultural principles, especially regarding the issue of gender roles. Ideally, application of androgyny is reported to have gained popularly from 1960s, but by 1950s and before, people used to strictly follow their cultural practices. As such, androgyny is a component of societal revolution and cultural changes, an aspect that is portrayed succinctly by Jane Tompkins in her â€Å"I Want to Hold Your Hand†. This essay will delve into the lifestyles of the Beatles music band, and the manner in which they advanced androgyny during their reign. The essay will close with a personal reflection on different Tompkins’ opinions regarding androgyny and the cultures of nineteen fifties and sixties. Discussion In her autobiography, Jane Tompkins reveals how her exposure to Beatle’s music transformed her life. She portrays Beatle’s music band as androgynous, something that was apparently likable by the women and hence encouraging them to become androgynous. Jane Tompkins grew up as shy person who, like any other persons who resembled her character, is interested in only the ordinary formalities of life. As such, she was less concerned with the interests of her contemporary peers, and in fact her gender role was defined by the American popular culture of the 1950s, an era in which gender roles were inflexible. Her perception about popular artists such as the Rolling-stones is very negative, and that is why she says that they were violent humans and that they possessed male chauvinist traits, a penchant she affirms that is associated with hostility towards the opposite gender. In the 1950s, the roles of gender were firmly based on guiding principles designed by the society. For example, masculinity was represented by roughness of a male as a person. Tompkins says Beatles seemed human because of the way they sing about â€Å"love† which she did not understand w ell. This shows that she is endured to the emotional aspect of their culture, which was uncommon in the music of 1950s. She confirms this when she says that most of the popular songs she used to listen were not human in this sense (Womack and Todd 216). What Tompkins loves about Beatle’s music most is the fact that it was innocent and appealing; it had childlike quality and it focused on quality, rather than being world-weary and knowing. What’s more, their songs were very simple and they did not pretend to be righteous or possess sheer masculinity, again supporting them in breaking away from following of rigid roles of gender, which she describes as being androgynous. Beatles had compassion for people other than themselves, because they told real stories, which again is a cultural transformation – breaking away from self-aggrandizement to thinking about others. To her, this is a reprieve because the songs by Beatles did not have the authoritarian baritone of ma ny males’ singers whose tone declared the superiority of the male opinion, which was an advancement of male sexism. This is also seen where the author says that the singers of the sixties had stopped having authoritarian baritone of many male singers. She adds that this change is not only generational, but it has something to do with gender, being vulnerable, authority, showing your feelings, and wanting to

Pestle Factors Essay Example for Free

Pestle Factors Essay PESTEL analysis stands for Political, Economic, Social, and Technological, Environmental and Legal analysis. It is a part of the external analysis when conducting a strategic analysis or doing market research and gives a certain overview of the different macro-environmental factors that the company has to take into consideration. Political factors or how and to what degree a government intervenes in the economy. Specifically, political factors include areas such as tax policy, labor law, environmental law, trade restrictions, tariffs, and political stability. Political factors may also include goods and services which the government wants to provide or be provided and those that the government does not want to be provided. Furthermore, governments have great influence on the health, education, and infrastructure of a nation. Economic factors Businesses need to make money to continue to exist. They do this by listening to customers to ensure they keep their customers and attract new ones with good services that customers want and need. It is extremely important for businesses to respond to changes in demand from customers. They include economic growth, interest rates, exchange rates and the inflation rate. These factors have major impacts on how businesses operate and make decisions. For example, interest rates affect a firms cost of capital and therefore to what extent a business grows and expands. Exchange rates affect the costs of exporting goods and the supply and price of imported goods in an economy. Social factors Society’s habits and tastes are changing. People are more aware of the importance of the environment and becoming ‘green consumers’. Green consumers prefer goods and services that are ‘environmentally-friendly’ and which have less impact on the environment. They include the cultural aspects and include health consciousness, population growth rate, age distribution, career attitudes and emphasis on safety. Trends in social factors affect the demand for a companys products and how that company operates. For example, an ageing population may imply a smaller and less-willing workforce (thus increasing the cost of labor). Furthermore, companies may change various management strategies to adapt to these social trends (such as recruiting older workers). Technological factors Businesses are continually developing new technologies to provide the best solutions for the market place. Intelligent companies find out what the most appropriate technologies are for their businesses and use them. They include ecological and environmental aspects, such as RD activity, automation, technology incentives and the rate of technological change. They can determine barriers to entry, minimum efficient production level and influence outsourcing decisions. Furthermore, technological shifts can affect costs, quality, and lead to innovation. Environmental factors include weather, climate, and climate change, which may especially affect industries such as tourism, farming, and insurance. Furthermore, growing awareness to climate change is affecting how companies operate and the products they offer-it is both creating new markets and diminishing or destroying existing ones. Legal factors Legal changes that affect business are closely tied up with political ones. Many changes in the law stem from government policy. They include discrimination law, consumer law, antitrust law, employment law, and health and safety law. These factors can affect how a company operates, its costs, and the demand for its products.

Communication Between People In Health And Social Care

Communication Between People In Health And Social Care You are attending your local G.P surgery for examinations as you have been unwell lately. The receptionist asks you loudly the reason for attending; other patients can hear you being asked. You explain to reception staff that you are slightly deaf. She asked you to use the computer screen in the waiting area to indicate that you have arrived. You explain to her that your English is limited and that you have no previous experience in using computers. You felt that the receptionist did not listen to you and that she was not sensitive to your concerns. Explore communication between people in health and social care by: Applying relevant theories of communication to health and social care contexts. Review the application of a range of communication techniques for different purposes used in health and social care work. Discuss the ways in which communication influences how individuals feel about themselves. Describe ways of dealing with inappropriate interpersonal communication between individuals. Analyze the use of techniques and strategies for supporting communication between people with specific communication needs. Evaluate workplace strategies, policies and procedures for good practice in communication. People communicate to have good abundance and it is a method to pass one information to another individual. Communication between people in health and social care plays a big role in caring the service provider or the patient. To employ compatible basis of communication to health and social care in the said scenario, we must first look into the individuals that are involved in the scenario. The patient, is slightly deaf, knowledge deficit in using IT machines in the hospital such as computer, and inarticulate in speaking English. On the other hand, the receptionist is arrogant, assuming, domineering, presumptuous and disrespectful. We have four theories of communication and they are all into a cycle. First is Humanistic theory tells us about individualism. Every individual has its own unique personalities and attributes. In a health care setting, as a healthcare provider, we take our patients or service provider as an individual and we should respect them. The patient and the receptionist are the main individuals in the scenario. They have their own personality that is unique to the other one. Behaviorist theory informs us attitudes are achieved by way of conditioning through interaction with other individ uals. In other words, when an individual interacts with another individual, one personality or behavior is presented or acquainted to another personality. The scene when the receptionist interacted with the patient portrays how behaviorist theory works in the communication. Cognitive theory is established on the ideas or principles of another individual and learns from them, thus the human thought processes understanding ones personality. The humanistic theory explain to us that an individuals personality is different to another personality of another individual and behaviorist theory is about interaction of individuals, the cognitive theory on the other hand, it expound us how individual start not only to interact but understand and accept another personality of an individual. The receptionist just ignored the patient when the she explained her side in the scenario. Ignoring another individual such as the patient in the scenario is also included in cognitive theory, though the rece ptionist did understand the side of the patient, the receptionist decided to ignore the patients side. Cognitive theory does not only understand ones side of individual, but its also about accepting ones personality or behavior to your thought. In short, the act of accepting and understanding ones personality of an individual in an interaction is cognitive theory. Lastly is the psychoanalytical theory. It explains us the role of unconscious mind. A personality that an individual portrays in an interaction is not what you thought the real personality of that individual. Sometimes, we judge them on what we see or hear on the outer appearance. We can only see its appearance and process it to our thoughts in an interaction, but we do not know its real personality inside of it. In the scenario, the receptionist judged the patients personality when she asked the patient loudly the reason for attending and when she instructed the patient to use the computer screen to indicate that she arri ved already. Communication has ranges of techniques to communicate in health and social care work. In the scenario there are scenes that explain us how techniques of communication are used. When the receptionist asked the patient loudly, the technique of communication used in this scene is verbal communication which is asking question and non-verbal which is the pitch, speed, accent, and tone of the receptionist while asking the patient. Another scene is when the patient explains that she would like to discuss the reasons to the doctor and that you she is slightly deaf. The technique used here is verbal communication which is reflecting back to the question. The receptionist then told the patient to use the computer screen to indicate there that she arrived already, its verbal technique which is giving instructions. Lastly is when the patient felt that the receptionist did not listen to her, its body language technique that is portrayed by the receptionist. Initiating communication to another individual is a stage where two individuals try to open a bridge of relationship. In addition, you dont just open bridges to them but you are trying to influence them too. There are two communication influences; interpersonal communication is unmediated communication that opens mutual influence to each other. Usually this type of influence manages to open relationships and mutual understanding. In the scenario, only the patient initiate this kind of communication influence, when the patient is humbly explaining herself to the receptionist, the receptionist impersonally approach the patient by just giving instruction and ignored her after. Impersonal communication is an influence conversely to interpersonal, the individual only interacts to another individual superficially. In the scenario, the patient is trying to open an interpersonal communication to the receptionist, while the receptionist is impersonal communication. In social penetration model by Altman and Taylor, they said the more time we spend with others, the more likely we are to self-disclose more intimate thought and details of our life. As relationships develop, communication moves from relatively shallow, no intimate levels to deeper, more personal ones. When the receptionists approach the patient aggressively, the patient expresses her inabilities to the receptionist. Its intimate thoughts and details of her life are revealed like inadequate knowledge in using computers and influent in speaking English. On the other hand, Johari window explains us also the process of human interaction. It divides our personal awareness. The process of giving and receiving feedback is one of the most important concepts in training. Through the feedback process, we see ourselves as others see us. Through feedback, other people also learn how we see them. Feedbacks give information to a person or group either by verbal or nonverbal communication. The information you give tells ot hers how their behavior affects you, how you feel, and what you perceive (feedback and self-disclosure). Feedback is also a reaction by others, usually in terms of their feelings and perceptions, telling you how your behavior affects them (receiving feedback). It has four sides namely, free, blind, hidden and the unknown. In free area includes, the patients information known to herself and to others such as the receptionist. Blind area means, informations known only to other individuals excluding the patient. The hidden area is about information known only to the patient. And lastly, the unknown area which is the information is not known to any individuals even the patient. In dealing inappropriate interpersonal communication between individuals, we must look back at the receptionists behaviors towards the patient. In order to avoid such communication, the receptionist must stay focused. In the scenario, the receptionist did not focus her attention to the deaf patient that in fact the deaf patient must have special attention with the receptionist. Another one is listening carefully; the receptionist did not listen to the patients inabilities and instead she ignored the patient. Some individual need specific communication like deaf service user. These various types of communication supports and help communication efficiently between service users and service provider. SOLER technique helps to improve reception of message. Its said that when youre interacting with the service users you have to be directly and firmly to the patient. If the receptionist is directly and firmly to the patients concerns, she can provide the patients needs appropriately. Open position, lean, eye contact and relax are the other techniques in SOLER. There are also tips to communicate successfully to service users such as our patient in the scenario, since the patient sis slightly deaf, the receptionist should not shout and should speak slowly towards the patient. But in the scenario, the receptionist failed to apply this tip. In workplace, there are policies and strategies that are implemented for good communication, such as keeping confidentiality of the patient, disciplinary proced ures, equal opportunities, flexible working and policy on performance management. In my opinion, in the scenario, it seems they lacked this strategies and policies. A good practice is achieved with good policies and strategies. Care and support providers have a legal responsibility to fulfill their duty of care. Within direct support services there are regulatory bodies that can  act on any shortfalls identified in the services people receive. If they implement such tips, they will progress and service is efficiently provided to the service users. 1380 words Question 2 Scenario: You are attending your local G.P surgery for examinations as you have been unwell lately. The receptionist asks you loudly the reason for attending; other patients can hear you being asked. You explain to reception staff that you are slightly deaf. She asked you to use the computer screen in the waiting area to indicate that you have arrived. You explain to her that your English is limited and that you have no previous experience in using computers. You felt that the receptionist did not listen to you and that she was not sensitive to your concerns. Describe physical, cultural and legal influences on communication in health and social care by: Analyse how methods of communication are influenced by individual values culture and ability. Describe legislation and charters governing the rights of individuals to communicate Discuss the implications in health and social care contexts of legislation and codes of practice relating to records and communication of information about people. Analyse the effectiveness of organizational systems policies in relation to good practice in communication. Suggest and justify ways of improving communication systems in a health or care setting. Values are the principles, standards, or quality which guides human actions in daily life. Values and cultures play a big role in health and social care. Without values, individuals will pursue behaviors of their own. Values are rules by which we make decisions about right or wrong. In health and social care there are policies that are being implemented to achieve three main points; equality and diversity; confidentiality; right and responsibilities; and professional ethics. When individuals start to interact, the body language, facial expressions, and choice of words influence the whole context of the message. All these verbal and non-verbal cues are brought by the individuals personality like social class, beliefs, values, education, and culture. In the scenario where the patient visits a General practitioner surgery and a female receptionist asks her loudly the reason of attending, it could be a sign of her personality. Maybe she grew up in a family that are always arguing and she brought it up. Also, clearly the patients ethnicity, culture, and education play a role in the scenario where she said she is not fluent in speaking in English. The patient as an individual from a different background, the way she communicate to the receptionist is greatly affected. In addition to that, in a scenario where the patient said she has no previous experience in using a computer and it is hard for the patient to make use of the information communication technology which is the use of computer screen to indicate her arrival. In this situation, every healthcare setting has set values, morals, and ethics that will guide the behavior of the employees. This enables the employees to practice according to what has been agreed upon by the management and the organization that supports to avoid them to stand to their personal stand in handling patients that will cause misunderstandings. The legislation and charters governing the rights of individuals to communicate, is for those people who have difficulty communicating and receiving and understanding verbal and written communication. Its principles are in promoting anti-discriminatory practices, independence and safety, protecting people from abuse, individualized holistic care, and keeping confidentiality. Many people who have a communication disability do not get the resources, support and understanding they need to enable them to communicate. Because of this they are deprived of appropriate health and social services, opportunities for education and training, and employment. They are also vulnerable, at risk of abuse. Nor can they enjoy the social interaction, leisure pursuits, and the business of everyday life. In the scenario, the patient is clearly indeed need specific communication because she told the receptionist that she is slightly deaf. As a receptionist, I know that there are guidelines in communicating this kind of service users because it is present in every health care setting. The receptionist in the scenario should act the appropriate measures to communicate efficiently to the patient. We are promoting equality, diversity and rights of the patient. In addition, the receptionist did not open an interaction while the patient is trying to do conversations about her concerns and instead she gave directly an instruction to use the computer for indication that she arrived already. The receptionist is not fair to the patient according to the rights of the patient. The implication of these legislation and codes of practices in health and social care contexts is to implement the necessary services needed to those individual who have adversity in interacting or communicating another individual. Each individual including those with communication impairment or disabilities are accredited and free to exercise their own rights. In the legislation and codes of practices the service users must be given information the way they can receive and respond, access to training and support to the patient and his/her family to minimize the impact of the disability and improve interaction skills, enough time to communicate, and access to services. These guidelines will help the flow of system smoothly and efficiently along with appropriate care and procedures, hospital records. In the scenario, if the receptionist practices the principles of the legislations and charters, the way she deals with the patient will be nice and easier. The receptionist must take cons ideration to the patients situation by listening and providing as to what necessary services that patient needs. Patients confidentiality is important in every cases, its a core value in every healthcare setting and its a patients right to keep it with the health care providers that are involved in caring to that patient. Organizations are helping each other to evolve its policies, legislations, charters and systems to improve its effectiveness. They are setting goals to aim effective communication such as interpersonal communication, decision making, and establishing rapport not only to the service users but also to co-service providers. It focuses and promotes positive outcomes for good practices in work places, service provider trainings and development, advocacy, individualism, human rights and confidentiality. In a healthcare setting, the system must practice confidentiality, and patients rights regarding in information such as recording, storing, and relaying information. Only healthcare providers that are involved in caring the patient must share the information. In the scenario the receptionist used a loud voice to ask for the reasons of the patients visit in the General practitioner surgery. In that manner, the receptionist did not follow the health care system because other patients can hear the patient being asked and the patient answered the questions. Privacy and confidentiality of the patient is compromised. Communication is defined as the sending and receiving of messages between people. It contributes a big part from rendering care to the service users to running a health care facility. One misunderstanding in communication may cause big problems and might even cost patients life. There are so many ways to improve communication in healthcare settings especially in our scenario specifically for the special communication needs. By the use of communication tools such as pictures giving instructions or an interpreter and simplified instruction guides. We must provide necessary basic tools or equipment to help them communicate. This tool will help not only us to understand them but likewise to those people who need this kind of communication; it will not only help those people with disabilities or impairments, but also the ones who have language barriers. The administration must set their own assessment too, to monitor the feedback in the whole communication network. In the scenario, it is advisable for the receptionist to have trainings and monthly progress reports by their administration in the access to communication resources so that receptionist will be equipped with the knowledge in assessing if her patient has special communication needs. 1105 words Question 3 Scenario: You are attending your local G.P surgery for examinations as you have been unwell lately. The receptionist asks you loudly the reason for attending; other patients can hear you being asked. You explain to reception staff that you are slightly deaf. She asked you to use the computer screen in the waiting area to indicate that you have arrived. You explain to her that your English is limited and that you have no previous experience in using computers. You felt that the receptionist did not listen to you and that she was not sensitive to your concerns. Explore the use of information technology in communications in health and social care by: Analyse how the use of IT in health and social care benefits service users. Critically evaluate how the IT supports and enhances the activities of care workers and care organizations/ agencies. Analyse health and safety legal considerations in the use of IT The information Communication Technology allows us to improve the efficiency of the health care services. IT has the potential to improve the quality, and safety of health care. It improves positive patients experiences and facilities research and development relevant to health and social care. There are so many benefits of IT for services; in fact IT in healthcare setting is made for the development of rendering care to the patients. For example, the patient management systems, it allows the health care providers to render care to the right patient with right treatment at the right time. Another example is the inventory management system, it allows the healthcare providers to store and check for medical supplies and to ensure that medicines is readily available for the patients. They also have the electronic health record, billing system, and highly sophisticated medical devices. The standard ICT software is word processing, spreadsheets, database, information retrieval, and emails. They benefit the service users through meeting individual needs, administration of treatments, efficiency of administrative processes, accuracy of records, communication, and maintaining independence. A specific example is the use of Electronic Health Records (EHR) which serves as a patient-tra cking system providing real time access to patient data. Another example is the Clinical Decision Support System (CDSS) which provides healthcare providers real-time diagnostic and treatment recommendations. There is also interoperability which refers to electronic communication among organizations so that the data in one IT system can be incorporated into another. These are the stuffs in ICT that are being used today. In the scenario the receptionist asks the patient to use the computer screen to indicate that the patient has arrived. In that scenario, they are using innovative machines already. The said machine of ICT is Electronic Health Records and Electronic Care Communications, it provides access to information, and must keep being developed and/or modernized in all areas for additional benefits. IT has the way for innovations of the quality and safety of health care. The ICT supports and enhances health and social care activities of care workers and care organizations and agencies. It is through financial, clinical, administrative, infrastructures, which the needs of manpower are met; and there is a demand regarding innovation in business administration which is efficiency and quality of service. It also helps in meeting requirements, accountability, and audit. In the scenario, the use of a computer screen as an indication of a patients arrival makes the work of the receptionist lighter and easier. If there was no such thing then like the traditional way of handling the services in a hospital, the receptionist will have to entertain every service user, with limited time, limited resources and limited manpower. The health and safety legal considerations in the use of ICT are quite dangerous when not brought into awareness by the users. Safety measures are needed before implementing the use of ICT. In fact, there were several issues taken into consideration in the use of ICT. Ergonomics are usually raised problems. One solution to have bigger and has to be good design interiors of the working environment to reduce and avoid the accompanying health and safety problems and if not tolerated may turn into inability or worst of the user. Radiation in computer monitors are very dangerous if prolong usage. It may destroy the normal eyesight of the user. Another problem when using ICT is the posture while seating or standing. Again prolong posture while using the said machines may turn into serious injury in the back of the service user. Stiff necks are also common in the user. In order to avoid this, the monitor should be at eye level, fleet flat on the floor, knees and elbows with angles, no strai ning of neck, and must have a well-adjusted brightness of the screen and a screen protector or radiation protector screen. Another solution for the users is exercise before using the computer like neck rotation, back bending and rotation and hands shake. A very common problem met in ICT is called eye strain due to too much usage of computer and the eyes are exposed to radiation. There is also the Repetitive Strain Injury (RSI) like carpal tunnel syndrome in using the keyboards. Most of the time too much exposure and use of ICT give stress. For personal safety, it is deal to seek the experts who have taken health and safety courses in manual handling, and repairing especially that there are some hazardous substances present. In a scenario where I have no previous experience in using a computer, it would be best for the patient to call an assistance to demonstrate to me how to use it or better yet, the receptionist should provide assistance for the patient. ICT has many advantages and disadvantage so it depends on the users to control so that health wont be at stake. 806 words

Sustainable Development Process For Overpopulation in China

Sustainable Development Process For Overpopulation in China Overpopulation, resource crisis and environmental pollution are the three major social problems of the contemporary world; they are also three major obstacles that restrict economic and social development and the improving peoples living standard in the world. China has the largest population in the world and there are more than 1.3 billion people in China. And now, China is serious shortage of fresh water, arable land, forest and grassland, energy and other resources (Rozelle, 1997; Deng, 2008.) Per capita of these resources are less than one-third of the worlds averages. Per capita consumption of mineral resources is not to half the world average. As Chinas social and economic development increasingly, the total population is approaching the maximum carrying capacity of resources, environment. Irrational exploitation of resources exacerbates the shortage of resources and waste further, and the trend of ecological deterioration has not been fundamentally reversed. Population growth on resources and the environmental impact of socio-economic sustainable development has become the most important issue. So to deal with the population problems, all the people and stakeholders are required to cooperate with the Chinese government and then raise a sustainable development to deal with the problems. In this paper, it will first have a look at the background of Chinas population problems and then talk over which people are affected by the pollution and the barriers that are stopping the people to get a sustainable development. In the following part, it will have a brief introduction of the six processes which is developed by Dr. Mark Diesendorf and used to deal with the population problems. Next, how the six processes are implemented will be discussed. At the end of the paper, there is a brief discussion on the relationship of the steps and their dependence on each other and a conclusion will be presented as well. The direct problems which result from over population are the environmental problems and health problems. But the environment is changeable that it can flow from one place to another, such as air pollution, water pollution. So it implies that every people in China are affected by the population problems. With the increasing of population in China in recent years, China has suffered a lot. More people mean more energy and resources that could be consumed, but there will be more waste let out. Therefore, it will make the environment pollution to move forward a single step. So many environmental problems have appeared one by one. For example, in order to have good harvest of more and more fertilizers are used to improve the crop productivity (Jiang, 2009). But the low efficiency of the fertilizer use makes most of the fertilizer leave into the soil or flow with the water thus it both causes water pollution and soil pollution (Foy, 2001; Green, 1993; Jin, 2001). So in many places, especial in the rural areas, there is no fresh water to drink but it is also a lack of running water in these areas, that it is a great threat to peoples health. In addition, with the population growth, more people move into the city, so this leads an increase on the price of house. But on the contrary, in orde r to save the cost to the enterprises, many enterprises invest in the rural area directly; in order improve its profit, a large mount of the waste materials are let out into the river without any treatment. To the city people, with a growth of population, they are also the victims. More and more people live in the city, that much more rubbish is produced. Now many cities are crowded with rubbish and it is becoming a headache problem to the government. Although in order to have sustainable development, there many barriers before implementing the six steps to deal with the problems. It mainly concludes political factors, economic factors, legal factors, educational factor and cultural factors. Political factors: China is on the way of socialism, but now it is primary stage of socialism. Although the central government has enacted many laws and politics, but few of the local officers follow the path of central government. In their eyes, economy development is the most important. If the economy has risen up, it will reflect their hard work on the position that it will bring greater chances to promote. But in fact, it is quite harmful to the local people to a long term. Economy factors: China is a developing country and developing economy is the biggest theme all the time. Thus it misleads a large number of the officer pay much more attention to economic development without regarding the population problems. But the population problems react to the economy development. The population problems prohibit the economy development in many places. Moreover, many local governments are very poor in China especially in the west of China. Although they realize the population problems are quite harmful to local development, it is hard to de with it. In order to achieve instant success, GDP is the best choice, thus they have to give up the idea to deal with population problems. Legal factors: China is on the way of primary stage of socialism, many laws are not perfect. Family planning policy is not effective at present, especially in the west China. In addition, many of the families have realized the population, but they prefer boys to girls that there are at least two children if eldest son is a daughter (Luo, 2008). Moreover, some families have three or four children. Because of the special national conditions, to some degree, the local law may be not useful to them because of special relationship in China. Educational and cultural factors: A survey shows that only 21% of all the Chinese people enter in school that many people get little education. With little education, the people could not realize the importance of population problems and they have little knowledge to protect the publicity. In addition, family planning policy education is very poor in Chinas education. Another, there are 56 nations in China that they differ in culture significantly. Difference in culture will lead different attitude towards population problems and water protection. More money is input to deal with population problems and more money is punished for the parents with more than one child. With the development of economy, more and more money has been input into deal with population problems. Because the government have realized that development building on destroying the environment is an unsustainable way of development because of population growth. So in order to deal with the population problems, money input will be a basic factor. And in fact it takes effects in many places. Education. In order to deal with population problems, education is a key measure. First, more measures to dealt with the population problems will be developed through education. Second, through education, it will improve peoples awareness of population problems. Now, China government has input more and more money in education year by year. At present, many universities have the major named sociology science or sociology, and so on. It implies that the government has fully realized the seriousness of the population. The six step process is developed by Dr. Mark Diesendorf, the University of New South Wales. He gives us an easy but practical six step process to get a sustainable development process. The six steps are following. First, present a guiding vision, goals and scenarios. Second, Develop sustainability policy in all sectors, at all levels, with all types of instruments. Third, Create supportive environments. Fouth, Strengthen community action. Fifth, Develop personal and organizational skills. Sixth, reorient the system. (Diesendorf, 2000) The model will be used to give out a sustainable development process to dealing with population problems in China. China is becoming one of the core countries in the world, especially after the economy crisis. But now the population is becoming one of the biggest problems in China. On the one hand, in order to protect astogeny, more new births are encouraged, but on the other hand, to have a sustainable development process and maintain full of vigor, new births are limited. So it is difficult to achieve a medial policy. Therefore, in order to have a health, livable and sustainable development in China, there is a vision that is designed for China. The vision could be: in order to create a country with health, harmonious, and livable lives in China, China should do its best to improve peoples life in a sustainable aspect. Goals and scenarios: To deal with population problems, there is a long way to go. First, the growth trend of population problems should be under controls. There are many families which have more than one child. So measures should be taken out to restrict the families to deal with the population problems. Second, reduce the birth rate in rural area, especially in China. There is a lack of realization of reducing reduce the birth rate thus broadcast of the population problems is essential to local people to help them realize the seriousness of population problems around them. Third, improve the life standard to deal with the population problems. At present, population problems are affected by the life standard because in many poor places in the west China, people think that more children mean much happier. Early birth means that early happiness will come. Forth, more laws should enact to ensure these measures to take effect normally. First, money is essential to deal with the population problems. Finance support is one of the most important measures to handle with population problems. Without money, any treatment measures could not take effect. Second, stricter laws should be carried out to assess the quality of the peoples life. There could be an annual assessment of the population problems. In addition, the present laws to assess the population problems should be improved and perfected. Third, develop new ways of accumulating the achievements in local official career. In the past, GDP is unique target to accumulate the achievement in local official career. But now although GDP is important, the green GDP is encouraged. If the officer pursue the number of GDP, not focus on the quality of GDP, it is difficult to deal with population problems efficiently. Forth, recycle economy is encouraged. In order to have a saving and harmonious society, recycle is an efficient way. With more children birth every day, more energy and resources will be consumed, so in order to improve the efficiency of energy and resources, recycle economy is encouraged. Fifth, improve monitoring of dealing with population problems. While dealing with energy and resources, monitoring is important to make sure to operate normally. Because there is an interpersonal relation in China, that many laws may be ineffective. So improving monitoring of population problems would be effective to avoid special interpersonal relation in China. To deal with population problems efficiently, supportive environments are necessary. It main contains cooperation, transparency and compliance with relevant stakeholders. To the families with more two children in the rural areas, the government should warn them to realize the burden of the family and the whole society. But the birth control measure should be put among them. The government should help them how to get birth control in daily life. The government also could organize a group of specialist to give guide the birth control. Population problems in national minority are also not ignored. Useful and practical ways of birth control should be widely broadcast among them. In addition, more village officials could be introduced to bring new concerns to national minority area. Although many laws have been carried out and will take effect, it is difficult for a single or few people to take them into practice. So it needs community action. As James Fallows said in an email (main ideas), in the past decades, because of the Chinese peoples support in the population problems, Chinas have got greatest achievement in reducing the number of new birth, they also pave the path to population problems (Fallows, 2007). It implies that community actions play a great role in reducing birth rate. So the community should be called to deal with population problems. To deal with population problems, college students are the most suitable community. In China, there is a social practical activity in both summer holiday and winter holiday and now it is becoming a required course to them. They have many advantages among other groups. For example, people in the rural area would believe college student more than because many of them desire to go to university, but they have no cha nce. Second, the college students have many channels to deal with the practical problems when they meet in social practical activity. They can get easily in touch with the specialists. In addition, there are so many college students in China that they can spread the knowledge in each corner. In China, it is a pity that not many personal and organizational skills in dealing with population problems. The main reasons are following: it is a lack of personal power among the Chinese people because of the economic level to some degree. There is also a lack of education and public awareness in reducing population. As Jared Diamond said, in China there is a low awareness in public protection, because China input low invest in public educationis just half of the developed countries as a percentage of GDP. China has a population of 20% of the world population, but China has put only 1% of the worlds investment in education (Diamond, 2005). But now the situation is becoming much better than before. More and more people have poured in deal with population problems voluntarily. For example, a large number of people want to be volunteers in BeiJing Olympic Games 2008 and ShangHai World Expo in 2010. In addition, the government has input more (including finance and politics measures) in dealing with the population problems. Reorient the system is the largest challenge when get a sustainable development process. Because it links barrierspolitical factors, economic factors, legal factors, educational factor and cultural factors together. But the governments play the greatest role in reorienting the system. As referred above, the central government has made many useful laws, but the local government could not follow the path, mainly because there is a large of economic interest to the government. As GDP is the most important target in their eyes. Another, the economy growth is imbalance in different areas in China and the concept diversity towards population in national minority; especially there is a big difference between west and east. So in order to achieve a sustainable development, China should reform many laws relevant to population problems. Each of the six steps could not stand separately. First, in order to realize sustainable development, the most import thing to do is have a goal and vision, which is step 1. But without step 1, all the following steps are useless. With a goal and vision, measures should be carried out to realize the goal. But measures can take effect only under proper policy; that is step 2. With a politic guarantee, the measures could take into practice and good supports environment are necessary; that is step 3. In order carry out the measures, community action are needed as well, and this step 4, because the laws and measure can take out by the people, not a single person. But now, in order to have good performance on reducing birth rate, personal and organization skills will help; that is step 5. To have a large scale to deal with population problems, there would be a big challenge that it should reorient the system and that is step 6. In all, the six steps is an organic entirety. In conclusion, in order to get a sustainable development in China, population problem is a serious problem. To deal with population problems, there is a specific analysis of the background and the victim. All the people in China are the victim of population problems. In the process of deal with population problems, there are both barriers and useful factors. The main barriers conclude political factors, economic factors, legal factors, educational factor and cultural factors, because China is in the primary stage of socialism. But there are many useful factors as well including money and education. More and more money is input in dealing with population problems and invested in education. After analyzing the background, a six-step process is raising out to deal with population problems. It includes a guiding vision, goals and scenarios, sustainability policy in all sectors, supportive environments, community action and personal and organizational skills. The six steps could not exist alone, on the contrary, they an organic part.

Natural Language Processing :: essays research papers

Natural Language Processing There have been high hopes for Natural Language Processing. Natural Language Processing, also known simply as NLP, is part of the broader field of Artificial Intelligence, the effort towards making machines think. Computers may appear intelligent as they crunch numbers and process information with blazing speed. In truth, computers are nothing but dumb slaves who only understand on or off and are limited to exact instructions. But since the invention of the computer, scientists have been attempting to make computers not only appear intelligent but be intelligent. A truly intelligent computer would not be limited to rigid computer language commands, but instead be able to process and understand the English language. This is the concept behind Natural Language Processing. The phases a message would go through during NLP would consist of message, syntax, semantics, pragmatics, and intended meaning. (M. A. Fischer, 1987) Syntax is the grammatical structure. Semantics is the literal meaning. Pragmatics is world knowledge, knowledge of the context, and a model of the sender. When syntax, semantics, and pragmatics are applied, accurate Natural Language Processing will exist. Alan Turing predicted of NLP in 1950 (Daniel Crevier, 1994, page 9): "I believe that in about fifty years' time it will be possible to program computers .... to make them play the imitation game so well that an average interrogator will not have more than 70 per cent chance of making the right identification after five minutes of questioning." But in 1950, the current computer technology was limited. Because of these limitations, NLP programs of that day focused on exploiting the strengths the computers did have. For example, a program called SYNTHEX tried to determine the meaning of sentences by looking up each word in its encyclopedia. Another early approach was Noam Chomsky's at MIT. He believed that language could be analyzed without any reference to semantics or pragmatics, just by simply looking at the syntax. Both of these techniques did not work. Scientists realized that their Artificial Intelligence programs did not think like people do and since people are much more intelligent than those programs they decided to make their programs think more closely like a person would. So in the late 1950s, scientists shifted from trying to exploit the capabilities of computers to trying to emulate the human brain. (Daniel Crevier, 1994) Ross Quillian at Carnegie Mellon wanted to try to program the associative aspects of human memory to create better NLP programs. (Daniel Crevier, 1994) Quillian's idea was to determine the meaning of a word by the words around it. For example, look at these sentences: After the strike, the

English :: English Literature

English A Summer’s Reading Respect is a very dominant and important factor in the story of Bernard Malamud, â€Å"A Summer’s Reading.† The reach for respect from the people around him causes a lot of dilemma within the main character, George Stoyonovic. And those dilemmas led to consequences that George hated. George, a high school drop out, can not get any job during one summer. He decides to read the magazines found at home. But when he met Mr. Cattanzara, he immediately lies about the hundred books he is reading, in order for Mr. Cattanzara to respect him as well as to be proud of him. Respect is a form of acknowledgement of one’s existence. Respect is very important to everybody. Respect also gives a person a sense of confidence that he is not a failure and contradicts the idea that he is not good enough. People want respect because they want others to know how good they are. Though everybody wants it, most people often take it for granted. The irony of it all is that people wants it so much that they would do anything just to get it. In the story, the theme Respect is very important for everybody was shown a couple of times. An example of these scenes is when George was contemplating whether or not he should attend the night classes. â€Å"He has considered registering in a night high school, only he did not like the idea of teachers always telling him what to do. He felt that they had not respected him.† He decides that since he has nothing to do at home, attending night-class would be great and it would help him catch up on the lessons he has missed. But that the idea of teachers telling him what to do causes George to think twice. He thinks that when his teachers tell him what to do or should not do it shows a lack of respect on the teachers’ part. He then feels that he is not good enough and loses confidence in himself. But in reality, when people tell you what to do, it means that they are concerned about you and that they know that you can do better but it does not really mean that you are not good enough as a person. They are actually acknowledging your abilities and your capabilities which also acknowledge your existence. George searches for respect because it is where he gets the confidence that will enable him to move on forward with his life. Another instance in the story where it shows respect is very important is when George tells Mr.

Class X – Democratic Politics Book

This book is about democracy. In this first chapter we see how democracy has expanded during the last hundred years to more and more countries in the world.More than half of the independent countries in the world today are democracies. The expansion of democracy has not been smooth and straight. It has seen several ups and downs in different countries. It still remains an unstable and uncertain achievement. This chapter begins with different stories on the making and unmaking of democracy from different parts of the world. These stories are meant to give a sense of what it means to experience democracy and its absence. We present the pattern of the spread of democracy first with a series of maps and then with a short history. The focus in this chapter is on democracy within a country.But towards the end of the chapter, we take a look at democracy or its absence in the relations among different countries. We examine the working of some international organisations. This allows us to as k a big question: are we moving towards democracy at the global level? 2 EMOCRATIC LITICS D EMOCRATIC POLITICS President Salvador Allende (wearing a helmet) and his security guards in front of La Moneda, Chile’s Presidential Palace, on 11 September 1973, hours before his death. What do you read on everyone’s face in this photograph? EMOCRAC ACY 1. 1 TWO TALES OF DEMOCRACY â€Å"Workers of my homeland!I have faith in Chile and its future. Chileans will overcome this dark and bitter moment when treason became dominant. You must never forget that, sooner rather than later, the grand avenues will be opened where free men will march on to build a better society. Long live Chile! Long live the people! Long live the workers! These are my last words and I have certainty that my sacrifice will not be in vain; I have certainty that, at the least, I will be a moral lesson to castigate felony, cowardice, and treason. † These are some extracts from the last speech of Salvado r Allende (pronounced Ayen-they).He was then the President of Chile, a country in South America. The speech was given on the morning of 11 September 1973, the day his government was overthrown by the military. Allende was the founder EMOCRAC ACY D EMOCRACY leader of the Socialist Party of Chile and led the Popular Unity coalition to victory in the presidential election in 1970. After being elected the President, Allende had taken several policy decisions to help the poor and the workers. These included reform of the educational system, free milk for children and redistribution of land to the landless farmers.He was opposed to foreign companies taking away natural resources like copper from the country. The landlords, the rich and the Church opposed his policies. Some other political parties in Chile also opposed his government. Why did President Allende address himself mainly to ‘workers’? Why were the rich unhappy with him? M ilitary Coup of 1973 ilitary Coup On the mo rning of 11 September 1973, the military took over the seaport. The Defence Minister was arrested by the military when he arrived at his office. The military 3 IN THE NTEMPORARY CONTEMPORARY WORLD  ©La Nacion commanders asked the President to resign.Allende refused to resign or leave the country. But realising the danger to the country and to his life, he addressed the people on the radio, part of which we read in the beginning. Then the military surrounded the President’s house and started bombing it. President Allende died in the military attack. This was the sacrifice he was talking about in his last speech. A government elected by people was overthrown by the military through conspiracy and violence. What took place in Chile on 11 September 1973 was a military coup. General Augusto Pinochet (pronounced Pinoshe), an Army general, led the coup.The government of the United States of America was unhappy with Allende’s rule and is known to have supported and funded ac tivities that led to the coup. Pinochet became the President of the country and ruled it for the next 17 years. From a government that was elected by the people, the power shifted to the military officers. They could do as they wished and no one could question them. Thus a military dictatorship was established in Chile. Pinochet’s government tortured and killed several of those who supported Allende and those who wanted democracy to be restored.These included General Alberto Bachelet of the Chilean Air Force and many other officers who refused to join the coup. General Bachelet’s wife and daughter were put in prison and tortured. More than 3,000 people were killed by the military. Many more were reported ‘missing’. No one knows what happened to them. Did the army have any legal right to arrest the defence minister of the country? Should the army have the power to arrest any citizen? A C T I V I T Y Locate and shade Chile on the map. Which state in our coun try has a shape similar to Chile?Follow the newspaper for one month and collect news items related to any country in Latin America. Did you find the news coverge adequate. President Michelle Bachelet addressing her supporters after her victory in the presidential election in January 2006. From this photograph do you notice any difference between an election rally in Chile and in India?  ©La Nacion, Chile 4 EMOCRATIC LITICS D EMOCRATIC POLITICS Lech Walesa Poland is famous for its poster art. Most of the posters of Solidarity carried this special way of writing ‘Solidarnosc’. Can you find similar examples of poster art or wall writing in Indian politics? sto ra Democr cy emocra R esto ra tion of Democra cy Pinochet’s military dictatorship came to an end after he decided to hold a referendum in 1988. He felt confident that in this referendum, the people would say ‘yes’ to his continuing in power. But the people of Chile had not forgotten their democr atic traditions. Their vote was a decisive ‘no’ to Pinochet. This led to Pinochet losing first his political and then his military powers. The hope Allende expressed in his last address was realised: felony, cowardice and treason were finally punished. Political freedom was restored.Since then Chile has held four presidential elections in which different political parties have participated. Slowly, the army’s role in the country’s government has been eliminated. The elected governments that came to power ordered inquiries into Pinochet’s rule. These inquiries showed that his government was not only very brutal, but also very corrupt. Do you remember a little reference made earlier to General Bachelet’s daughter who was imprisoned and tortured along with her mother? That girl, Michelle Bachelet (pronounced Mishel Bashelet), was elected President of Chile in January 2006.A medical doctor and a moderate socialist, Michelle became the first woman to be a Defence Minister in Latin America. In the presidential elections she defeated one of Chile’s richest men. In this photograph of her victory speech, she is saying to her supporters: â€Å"Because I was the victim of hatred, I have dedicated my life to reverse that hatred and turn it into understanding, tolerance and — why not say it — into love. † emocra cy Poland D emocra cy in Poland Let us turn to another event, this time from Poland, in 1980. At that time Poland was ruled by the Polish United Workers’ Party.This was one of the many communist parties that ruled in several countries of East Europe at that time. In these countries no other political party was allowed to function. The people could not freely choose the leaders of the communist party or the government. Those who spoke against the leaders or the party or the government were put in prison. The government in Poland was supported and controlled by the government of the Soviet Un ion (USSR), a vast and powerful communist state. On 14 August 1980, the workers of Lenin Shipyard in the city of Gdansk went on a strike.The shipyard was owned by the government. In fact all the factories and big property in Poland were owned by the government. The strike began with a demand to take back a crane operator, a woman worker, who was unjustly dismissed 5 EMOCRAC ACY D EMOCRACY IN THE NTEMPORARY CONTEMPORARY WORLD from service. This strike was illegal, because trade unions independent of the ruling party were not allowed in Poland. As the strike continued, a former electrician of the shipyard, Lech Walesa (pronounced Lek Walesha), joined the strikers. He was dismissed from service in 1976 for demanding higher pay.Walesa soon emerged as the leader of the striking workers. The strike began to spread across the whole city. Now the workers started raising larger demands. They wanted the right to form independent trade unions. They also demanded the release of political prison ers and an end to censorship on press. The movement became so popular that the government had to give in. The workers led by Walesa signed a 21-point agreement with the government that ended their strike. The government agreed to recognise the workers’ right to form independent trade unions and their right to strike.After the Gdansk agreement was signed, a new trade union called Solidarity (Solidarnosc in Polish) was formed. It was the first time an independent trade union was formed in any of the communist states. Within a year, Solidarity swept across Poland and had about one crore members. Revelations of widespread corruption and mismanagement in the government made matters worse for the rulers. The government, led by General Jaruzelski, grew anxious and imposed martial law in December 1981. Thousands of Solidarity members were put in prison.Freedom to organise, protest and express opinions was once again taken away. Another wave of strikes, again organised by Solidarity, began in 1988. This time the Polish 6 government was weaker, the support from Soviet Union uncertain and the economy was in decline. Another round of negotiations with Walesa resulted in an agreement in April 1989 for free elections. Solidarity contested all the 100 seats of the Senate and won 99 of them. In October 1990, Poland had its first presidential elections in which more than one party could contest. Walesa was elected President of Poland. A C T I V I T YLocate Poland on the map. Write down the names of the countries that surround it. Which other East European countries were ruled by communist parties in the 1980s? Shade them on the map. Make a list of political activities that you could not have done in Poland in 1980s but you can do in our country. Fe atur tures Democr cy emocra Tw o Fe atures of Democra cy We have read two different kinds of real life stories. The story from Chile was of a democratic government led by Allende being replaced by a nondemocratic military gov ernment of Pinochet, followed by restoration of democracy.In Poland we tracked the transition from a non-democratic government to a democratic government. Let us compare the two nondemocratic governments in these stories. There were many differences between Pinochet’s rule in Chile and the communist rule in Poland. Chile was ruled by a military dictator, while Poland was ruled by a political party. The government of Poland claimed that it was ruling on behalf of the working classes. Pinochet made no such claim and openly favoured big capitalists. Yet both had some common features: EMOCRATIC LITICS D EMOCRATIC POLITICSWhy was an independent trade union so important in Poland? Why are trade unions necessary? The people could not choose or change their rulers. There was no real freedom to express one’s opinions, form political associations and organise protests and political action. The three democratic governments identified above — Allende’s Chile, Walesaà ¢â‚¬â„¢s Poland and Michelle’s Chile — are different in their approach towards social and economic matters. Allende preferred government control on all big industries and the economy. Walesa wanted the market to be free of government interference.Michelle stands somewhere in the middle on this issue. Yet these three governments shared some basic features. Power was exercised by governments elected by the people and not by the army, unelected leaders or any external power. The people enjoyed some basic political freedoms. From these two stories let us draw a rough way to identify a democracy. Democracy is a form of government that allows people to choose their rulers. In a democracy: only leaders elected by people should rule the country, and people have the freedom to express views, freedom to organise and freedom to protest.We shall come back to this question in Chapter Two and develop a definition of democracy. We shall also note some features of a democracy. CHECK Y OUR PROGRESS Anita made a list of the features of all the five governments that we have discussed so far. But somehow the list got mixed up. Now she has a list of many features but she does not remember which feature applies to which government. Can you help her by writing the correct feature under the name of the government in the table below? Remember, some of these features may apply to more than one government and would need to be written separately under each of these.Features: Military dictatorship Widespread t he The president sm of Critici ent not corruption was once a m er govern political prison d Government allowe Ruler elected owned all Ruler not by the people industries More than o ne elected by the parties e xist people Missing people People enjoyed Foreign basic political inter venti s freedom on domestic a in ffairs Chile Allende Chile Pinochet Chile Bachelet Poland Jaruzelski Poland Walesa EMOCRAC ACY D EMOCRACY IN THE NTEMPORARY CONTEMPORARY WORLD 7 1. 2 THE CHANGI NG MAPTwentieth century was full of the kind of stories we have read above: stories of transition to democracy, of challenges to democracy, of military coups, of struggles of the people to bring back democracy. Was there a pattern to these stories that record both the march towards democracy and the setbacks to democracy? Let us use the basic features we noted earlier and identify democracies among different countries of the world. This is what the three maps shown here do. Take a look at these three maps below and find out if there was a pattern in the way democracies have evolved in the twentieth century.The first map depicts the countries OF EMOCRAC ACY DEMOCRACY that were democratic in 1950, a few years after the end of the Second World War. This map also shows countries from this set that had already become democratic by 1900. The second map presents a picture of democratic regimes in 1975, after most of the colonies had gained independence. Finally, we take another leap and lo ok at democracies in the year 2000, at the beginning of the twenty-first century. As we look at these maps, let us ask ourselves some questions. How has democracy marched through the twentieth century? Is there a clear pattern of expansion?When did the expansion take place? In which regions? MAP 1. 1: DEMOCRATIC GOVERNMENTS IN 1900-1950 DEMOCRATIC GOVERNMENT IN 1900 AND 1950 DEMOCRATIC GOVERNMENT IN 1950 BUT NOT IN 1900 8 EMOCRATIC LITICS D EMOCRATIC POLITICS MAP 1. 2: DEMOCRATIC GOVERNMENTS IN 1975 DEMOCRATIC GOVERNMENT IN 1975 MAP 1. 3: DEMOCRATIC GOVERNMENTS IN 2000 DEMOCRATIC GOVERNMENT IN 2000 Source: Historical data for these maps is taken from Polity IV Project dataset of Universtiy of Maryland. This dataset defines democracy as existence of choices about policies and leaders, checks on executive power and guarantee of civil liberties.Here we have used positive ‘Polity’ scores as indicating the existence of democracy. In some cases the scores of dataset have been modified. For details see http://www. cidcm. umd. edu EMOCRAC ACY D EMOCRACY IN THE NTEMPORARY CONTEMPORARY WORLD 9 On the basis of these maps identify up to three countries (in some cases you won’t find three countries) that were democratic in these continents for the given years and make a table as given below. Year 1950 1975 2000 Africa Asia Europe Latin America CHECK YOUR PROGRESS Identify some countries from map 1. 1 that became democratic between 1900 and 1950. Identify some countries from map 1. and 1. 2 that were democratic in 1950 and 1975. Identify some European countries from map 1. 2 and 1. 3 that were democratic in 1975 and 2000. Identify some countries in Latin America that became democratic after 1975. Make a list of big countries that were not democratic in 2000. Let us summarise the main points that emerge from a reading of these maps. You need to go back to the maps to answer the question that comes after each point. Democracy has expanded throughout the tw entieth century. Is it correct to say that at each point in these maps, the number of democratic countries is larger than at the previous point in time?Democracy did not spread evenly in all parts of the world. It was established first in some regions and then spread to other regions. Which continents in the world had a large number of democracies in 1900 and 1950? And which continents did not have almost any? While a majority of countries are democratic today, there are still large parts of the world that are not democratic. Which regions in the world account for most of the countries that were not democracies in 2000? Looking at these maps, which period do you find most important in the expansion of democracy? Why? HASES XPANSI ANSIO 1. PHASES IN THE EXPANSION EMOCRAC ACY OF DEMOCRACY Beginning T he Beginning These maps do not tell us much about what happened before the twentieth century. The story of modern democracy began at least two centuries ago. You may have read the chapter on the French Revolution of 1789 in the history book of this course. This popular uprising did not establish a secure and stable democracy in France. Throughout the nineteenth century, democracy in France was overthrown and restored several times. Yet the French Revolution inspired many struggles for democracy all over Europe.In Britain, the progress towards democracy started much before the French Revolution. But the progress was very slow. Through the eighteenth and the nineteenth centuries, series of political events reduced the power of monarchy and feudal lords. The right to vote was granted to more and more people. Around the same time as the French Revolution, the British colonies in North America declared themselves independent in 1776. In the next few years these colonies came together to form the United States of America. They adopted a democratic EMOCRATIC LITICS D EMOCRATIC POLITICS 10Why were women given voting rights much later than men in most countries? Why did this not happen in India? constitution in 1787. But here too the right to vote was limited to very few men. In the nineteenth century struggles for democracy often centred round political equality, freedom and justice. One major demand was the right for every adult citizen to vote. Many European countries that were becoming more democratic did not initially allow all people to vote. In some countries only people owning property had the right to vote. Often women did not have the right to vote.In the United States of America, the blacks all over the country could not exercise the right to vote until 1965. Those struggling for democracy wanted this right granted universally to all adults — men or women, rich or poor, white or black. This is called ‘universal adult franchise’ or ‘universal suffrage’. The box here tells us when universal suffrage was granted in many countries of the world. As you can see, by 1900 New Zealand was the only country where every adult had voting right. But if you go back to the map, you can see many other countries are marked as ‘democracies’ by the beginning of the twentieth century.These countries had by then governments elected by a significant number of people, mostly men, and had granted political freedom in some measure. Early democracies were established in Europe, North America and Latin America. Colonialism E nd of Colonialism When was universal adult franchise granted? 1893 1917 1918 1919 1928 1931 1934 1944 1945 1950 1951 1952 1955 1962 1965 1978 1994 New Zealand Russia Germany Netherlands Britain Sri Lanka Turkey France Japan India Argentina Greece Malaysia Australia US Spain South Africa Note: This is only an illustrative list from different parts of the world.The year indicates when the principle of one person one vote was fully realised in that country. The list does not include those cases where the right to vote was withdrawn later. For a very long time most countries in Asia a nd Africa were colonies under the control of European nations. People of the colonised countries had to wage struggles to achieve independence. They not only wanted to get rid of their colonial masters, but also wished to choose their future leaders. Our country was one of the few colonies where people carried a nationalist struggle to liberate the country from the colonial rule.Many of these countries became democracies immediately after the end of the Second World War in 1945. India achieved Independence in 1947 and embarked on its journey to transform itself from a subject country to a democracy. It continues to be a democracy. Most former colonies did not have such a good experience. The case of Ghana, a country in western Africa, illustrates the more common experience of former colonies. Ghana used to be a British colony named Gold Coast. It became independent in 1957. It was among the first countries in Africa to gain independence. It inspired other African countries to strugg le for freedom.Kwame Nkrumah (pronounced Enkruma), son of a 11 EMOCRAC ACY D EMOCRACY IN THE NTEMPORARY CONTEMPORARY WORLD goldsmith and himself a teacher, was active in the independence struggle of his country. After independence, Nkrumah became the first prime minister and then the president of Ghana. He was a friend of Jawaharlal Nehru and an inspiration for democrats in Africa. But unlike Nehru, he got himself elected president for life. Soon after, in 1966, he was overthrown by the military. Like Ghana, most countries that became democracies after gaining independence had a mixed record. They could not remain democracies for long.A C T I V I T Y Locate Ghana in an atlas and then spot it in the three maps in the previous section. Was Ghana a democracy in 2000? Do you think it is good to elect someone President for life? Or is it better to hold regular elections after every few years? nt R e c e nt phase The next big push towards democracy came after 1980, as democracy was revive d in several countries of Latin America. The disintegration of the Soviet Union accelerated this process. From the story of Poland we know that the then Soviet Union controlled many of its neighbouring communist countries in Eastern Europe.Poland and several other countries became free from the control of the Soviet Union during 1989-90. They chose to become democracies. Finally the Soviet Union itself broke down in 1991. The Soviet Union comprised 15 Republics. All the constituent Republics emerged as independent countries. Most of them became democracies. Thus the end of Soviet control on East Europe and the break up of the Soviet Union led to a big 12 change in the political map of the world. In this period major changes also took place in India’s neighbourhood. Pakistan and Bangladesh made a transition from army rule to democracy in 1990s.In Nepal, the king gave up many of his powers to become a constitutional monarch to be guided by elected leaders. However, these change s were not permanent. In 1999 General Musharraf brought back army rule in Pakistan. In 2005 the new king of Nepal dismissed the elected government and took back political freedoms that people had won in the previous decade. Yet the overall trend in this period points to more and more countries turning to democracy. This phase still continues. By 2005, about 140 countries were holding multi-party elections. This number was higher than ever before.More than 80 previously non-democratic countries have made significant advances towards democracy since 1980. But, even today, there are many countries where people cannot express their opinion freely. They Kwame Nkrumah Memorial Park in Accra, the capital of Ghana. This park was commissioned in 1992, twenty years after Nkrumah passed away. What might have caused this delay? EMOCRATIC LITICS D EMOCRATIC POLITICS Dev Ley, Wikipedia, GNU Free Documentation License read the cartoon  ©Stephane Peray, Thailand, Cagle Cartoons Inc. This cartoon appeared in 2005 when Aung San Suu Kyi’s turned 60. What is the cartoonist saying here?Will the army rulers feel happy with this cartoon? What should be the policy of the government of India towards the military rulers of Myanmar? still cannot elect their leaders. They cannot take big decisions about their present and future life. One such country is Myanmar, previously known as Burma. It gained freedom from colonial rule in 1948 and became a democracy. But the democratic rule ended in 1962 with a military coup. In 1990 elections were held for the first time after almost 30 years. The National League for Democracy, led by Aung San Suu Kyi (pronounced Soo-chi), won the election.But the military leaders of Myanmar refused to step down and did not recognise the election results. Instead, the military put the elected pro-democracy leaders, including Suu Kyi, under house arrest. Political activists accused of even the most trivial offences have been jailed. Anyone caught publicly airing views or issuing statements critical of the regime can be sentenced up to twenty years in prison. Due to the coercive policies of the military-ruled EMOCRAC ACY D EMOCRACY government in Myanmar, about 6 to 10 lakh people in that country have been uprooted from their homes and have taken shelter elsewhere.Despite being under house arrest, Suu Kyi continued to campaign for democracy. According to her: â€Å"The quest for democracy in Burma is the struggle of the people to live whole, meaningful lives as free and equal members of the world community. † Her struggle has won international recognition. She has also been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Yet the people in Myanmar are still struggling to establish a democratic government in their country. A C T I V I T Y Locate Myanmar on an atlas. Which Indian states border this country? Write a short essay on the life of Aung San Suu Kyi.Collect newspaper reports on the struggle for democracy in Myanmar. 13 IN THE NTEMPORARY CO NTEMPORARY WORLD EMOCRAC ACY 1. 4 DEMOCRACY AT THE GLOBAL LE VEL? After reading about the various phases of expansion of democracy, a teacher, Mr. Singh, asked the students to summarise what they had learnt. This is how the conversation took place: Farida: We have learnt that democracy has been expanding to more and more regions and countries all over the world. Rajesh: Yes, we live in a better world than before. It seems we are moving towards a world democracy. Sushmita: World democracy! How can you say that?I saw a television programme that showed how the Americans invaded Iraq without any justification. The people of Iraq were not consulted at any stage. How can you call that a world democracy? Farida: I am not talking about the relationship between different countries. I am only saying that more and more countries are becoming democratic. Rajesh: But what is the difference between the two? If more and more countries become democratic, isn’t it obvious that the world also becomes more democratic? After all the Iraq war was all about taking democracy to that country. Sushmita: No, it is not obvious to me.Singh sir: I think we are talking about two very different things here. Farida spoke about establishment of democratic governments within different countries in the world today. Sushmita and Rajesh have differences over something else. Their difference is over the relationship among different countries. It is quite possible, Rajesh, that the rulers of a country who are democratically elected by their people may want to dominate over other countries. Sushmita: Yes sir. That is exactly what happened in the case of the war on Iraq. Surinder: I am confused. How can we talk about democracy at the global level? Is there any world government?Who is the president of the world? If there is no government, how can it be democratic or non-democratic? nt rn ational Organisations I nt e rn ational Organisations Let us respond to the question that came up in this co nversation: Does an increase in the number of democratic countries all over the world automatically lead to democratic relations among countries? Before we do that, let us think about the point raised by Surinder. There is a government of India, a government of the United States of America, and so on. But there is no government of the world. No government can pass any law that will apply to all the people of the world.If there is no such government, if there are no rulers and ruled, how can we apply the two features of democracy here? These two features, you would recall, were that the rulers should be elected by the people and that people should have basic political freedoms. Should there be a world government? If yes, who should elect it? And, what powers should it have?  ©Angel Boligan, EMOCRATIC LITICS D EMOCRATIC POLITICS Universal,Mexico, Cagle Cartoons Inc. This cartoon was published in Mexico in 2005 and was titled ‘International Games’. Which games is the car toonist talking about here? What does the ball symbolize?Who are the players? 14 Should the permanent members of the UN be given the power to veto? While Surinder is right in a simple sense, we cannot say that the question of democracy does not arise here. There is no single World Government, but there are many institutions in the world that perform partially the functions of such a government. These organisations cannot command countries and citizens in a way a government can, but they do make rules that put limits on what governments can do. Consider these points: Who makes laws and rules to govern the seas that do not fall within the boundaries of any one country?Or who takes steps to control environmental degradation that threatens all the countries together. The United Nations (UN) has evolved many Conventions on these questions that are now binding on most countries of the world. The UN is a global association of nations of the world to help cooperation in international law, s ecurity, economic development and social equity. The UN Secretary General is its chief administrative officer. What happens when a country attacks another country in an unjust manner? The UN Security Council, an organ of the UN, is responsible for maintaining peace nd security among countries. It can put together an international army and take action against the wrongdoer. Who lends money to governments when they need it? The International Monetary Fund (IMF) does so. The World Bank also gives loans to the governments. Before lending they ask the concerned government to show all its accounts and direct it to make changes in its economic policy. EMOCRAC ACY D EMOCRACY decisions A r e these decisions democra democra tic? So, there are many institutions at the world level that perform some of the functions that a world government would perform.But we need to know just how democratic these organisations are. The yardstick here is whether each of the countries has free and equal say in t he decisions that affect them. In this light let us examine the organisation of some of these world bodies. Everyone of the 192 member countries of the UN has one vote in the UN General Assembly. It meets in regular yearly sessions under a president elected from among the representatives of the member countries. General Assembly is like the parliament where all the discussion takes place. In that sense the UN would appear to be a very democratic organisation.But the General Assembly cannot take any decision about what action should be taken in a conflict between different countries. The fifteen-member Security Council of the UN takes such crucial decisions. The Council has five permanent members – US, Russia, UK, France and China. Ten other members are elected by the General Assembly for two-year terms. The real power is with five permanent members. The permanent members, especially the US, contribute most of the money needed for the maintenance of the UN. Each permanent memb er has veto power. It means that the Council cannot take a decision if any permanent member says no to that decision.This system has led more and more people and countries to protect and demand that the UN becomes more democratic. 15 IN THE NTEMPORARY CONTEMPORARY WORLD International Monetary Fund (IMF) is one of the biggest moneylenders for any country in the world. Its 173 member states do not have equal voting rights. The vote of each country is weighed by how much money it has contributed to the IMF. Nearly half of the voting power in the IMF is in the hands of only seven countries (US, Japan, France, UK, Saudi Arabia, China and Russia). The remaining 166 countries have very little say in how these international organisations take decisions.The World Bank has a similar system of voting. The President of the World Bank has always been a citizen of the US, conventionally nominated by the Treasury Secretary (Finance Minister) of the US government. A C T I V I T Y Find out more abou t the history and various organs of the United Nations. Collect any news about the decisions of the World Bank and the IMF. Compare these to the kind of democratic practices that we have been discussing in this chapter. What would you say about a country where some persons have a permanent position in the ministry and have the power to stop the decision of the entire parliament?Or a parliament where five per cent of the members hold a majority of votes? Would you call these democratic? Most of the global institutions fail to pass the simple test of democracy that we use for national governments. If global institutions are not democratic, are they at least becoming more democratic than before? Here too the evidence is not very encouraging. In fact, while 16 nations are becoming more democratic than they were earlier, international organisations are becoming less democratic. Twenty years ago there were two big powers in the world: the US and the Soviet Union.The competition and confli ct between these two big powers and their allies kept a certain balance in all the global organisations. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the US appears to be the only superpower in the world. This American dominance affects the working of international organisations. This is not to say that there is no urge or move towards global democracy. The urge comes from people who get more opportunities to come in touch with one another. Over the last few years the people of different countries have come together without their governments’ support.They have formed global organisations against war and against domination of the world by a few countries and business companies. As in the case of democracy within the nations, the initiative for democracy among nations has come from the struggles of the people. Wolfowitz was a senior official in the Department of Defence in the US (commonly called Pentagon). He was an aggressive supporter of the invasion of Iraq. The cartoon comments on his appointment as the President of the World Bank. What does the cartoon tell us about the relationship between the World Bank and the US? ead the cartoon  ©Patrick Chappatte, International Herald Tribune, Cagle Cartoons Inc. EMOCRATIC LITICS D EMOCRATIC POLITICS CHECK YOUR PROGRESS Here are some suggestions to strengthen world democracy. Do you support these changes? Are these changes likely to happen? Give your reasons for each of these. More nations should become permanent members of the Security Council. UN General Assembly should become like a world parliament with representatives from each country in proportion to the population of the country. These representatives should elect a world government.Individual countries should not have armies. The UN should maintain task forces to bring about peace in case of conflict between nations. A UN President should be elected directly by all the people of the world. D emocra cy promotion emocra cy The cartoon â€Å"Cactus of Demo cracy† was published in 2004. What does the cactus look like here? Who is gifting it, and to whom? What is the message? read the cartoon  ©Stephane Peray, Thailand, Cagle Cartoons Inc. Take a close look at the two cartoons on this and on the next page. These cartoons raise a fundamental question related to global democracy.Recently, many powerful countries in the world, particularly the United States of America, have taken on the task of democracy promotion in the rest of the world. They say that propagating the values of democracy is not enough. Existing democracies should directly intervene in countries that are non-democratic to establish democracy there. In some cases powerful countries have launched armed attack on nondemocratic countries. This is what Sushmita was talking about. Let us see what happened in Iraq. Iraq is a country in Western Asia. It became independent from British ule in 1932. Three decades later there were a series of coups by military officers. Since 1968, it was ruled by Arab Socialist Ba’th Party (the Arabic word Ba’th means renaissance). Saddam Hussein, a leading Ba’th party leader, played a key role in the 1968 coup that brought the party to power. This government abolished traditional Islamic law and gave women the right to vote and several freedoms not granted in other west Asian countries. After becoming the president of Iraq in 1979, Saddam ran a dictatorial government and suppressed any dissent or opposition to his rule.He was known to have got a number of political opponents killed and persons of ethnic minorities massacred. The US and its allies like Britain, alleged that Iraq possessed secret nuclear weapons and other ‘weapons of mass destruction’ which posed a big threat to the world. But when a UN team went to Iraq to search for such weapons, it did not find any. Still the US and its allies invaded Iraq, occupied it and removed Saddam Hussein from power in 2003. The US installed a n interim government of its preference. The war against Iraq was not authorised by the UN Security Council.Kofi Annan, the UN Secretary General, said that the US war on Iraq was illegal. EMOCRAC ACY D EMOCRACY IN THE NTEMPORARY CONTEMPORARY WORLD 17 A C T I V I T Y Collect information on the debate related to Iraq within the US and the UK. What were the reasons originally offered for the Iraq invasion by the President of US and the Prime Minister of UK? What were the reasons offered after the war? read the cartoon ‘Helping Democracy’ was a comment on the presence of US forces during the elections in Iraq. Do you think the cartoon can apply to many other situations? Identify some examples from this chapter which this cartoon can help understand. 8 EMOCRATIC LITICS D EMOCRATIC POLITICS  ©Ares, Caglecartoons. com, Cagle Cartoons Inc. The example of Iraq raises some basic questions that we need to think about: Is this the right way to promote democracy? Should a democrati c country wage a war and invade other countries for establishing democracy there? Does external help work in every case? Or does it work only when the people of a nation are actively engaged in a struggle to make their societies democratic? Even if external intervention leads to the establishment of democracy in a country, would it last long? Would it enjoy the support of its citizens?Finally, is the use of external force to gift democracy to the people in keeping with the spirit of democracy? Think about these questions in the light of all that you have learnt in this chapter. GLOSSARY Censorship: A condition under which the freedom of expression is taken away. Citizens have to take prior permission from the censor authorities of the government for making a speech or publishing news and views. Anything that the government finds objectionable cannot be published. Coalition: An alliance of people, associations, parties or nations. This alliance may be temporary or a matter of conveni ence.Colony: Territory under the immediate political control of another state. Communist state: A state governed by a communist party without allowing other parties to compete for power. The state controls all the big property and industry. Coup: A coup d’etat (pronounced ku de’ta), or simply a coup, is the sudden overthrow of a government illegally. It may or may not be violent in nature. The term is French for ‘a sudden blow or strike to a state’. Martial law: A system of rules that takes effect when a military authority takes control of the normal administration of justice.Political prisoners: Persons held in prison or otherwise detained, perhaps under house arrest, because a government considers their ideas, image or activities as a threat to the authority of the state. Often exaggerated or false cases are foisted on them and they are kept in detention without following normal law. Referendum: A direct vote in which an entire electorate is asked to eit her accept or reject a particular proposal. This may be adoption of a new constitution, a law or a specific governmental policy. Strike: Mass refusal by workers or employees to perform work due to certain grievances or because of demands not met.In most democratic countries the right to strike is legal. Trade Union: An association of workers for the purpose of maintaining or improving the conditions of their employment. Veto: The right of a person, party or nation to stop a certain decision or law. The word comes from Latin, which means ‘I forbid’. A veto gives unlimited power to stop a decision, but not to adopt one. exercises 1 Which of the following does not lead to the spread of democracy? a Struggle by the people b Invasion by foreign countries c End of colonialism d People’s desire for freedom Which of the following statement is true about today’s world? Monarchy as a form of government has vanished . b The relationship between different countries ha s become more democratic than ever before. c In more and more countries rulers are being elected by the people. d There are no more military dictators in the world. NTEMPORARY CONTEMPORARY WORLD 2 EMOCRAC ACY D EMOCRACY IN THE 19 3 Use one of the following statements to complete the sentence: Democracy in the international organisations requires that †¦ a The rich countries should have a greater say. b Countries should have a say according to their military power. c Countries should be treated with respect in proportion to their population. All countries in the world should be treated equally. Based on the information given in this chapter, match the following countries and the path democracy has taken in that country. COUNTRY PATH TO DEMOCRACY 4 a b c d 5 Chile Nepal Poland Ghana i ii iii iv Freedom from British colonial rule End of military dictatorship End of one party rule King agreed to give up his powers What are the difficulties people face in a non-democratic country? G ive answers drawing from the examples given in this chapter. Which freedoms are ususally taken away when a democracy is overthrown by the military? 6 7Which of the following positions can contribute to democracy at the global level? Give reasons for your answer in each case. a My country gives more money to international institutions. Therefore, I want to be treated with more respect and exercise more power. b My country may be small or poor. But my voice must be heard with equal respect, because these decisions will affect my country. c Wealthy nations will have a greater say in international affairs. They cannot let their interests suffer just because they are outnumbered by poor nations. d Big countries like India must have a greater say in international organisations.Here are three opinions heard in a television debate on the struggle for democracy in Nepal. Which of these do you agree with and why? Guest 1: India is a democracy. Therefore, the Indian government must support the people of Nepal who are struggling against monarchy and for democracy. Guest 2: That is a dangerous argument. We would be in the same position as the US was in Iraq. Remember, no outside force can promote democracy. Guest 3: But why should we bother about the internal affairs of another country? We should be worried about our business interests there, not about democracy. 8 20 EMOCRATIC LITICS D EMOCRATIC POLITICS xercises exercises 9 In an imaginary country called Happyland, the people overthrew the foreign ruler and brought back the old royal family. They said: â€Å"After all their ancestors were our kings before foreigners started ruling us. It is good that we have one strong ruler, who can help us become rich and powerful†. When someone talked about democracy the wise men said it is a foreign idea. Their struggle was to throw the foreigners and their ideas out of the country. When someone demanded freedom for the media, the elders thought that too much criticism of the ruler would not help them improve their living standards. After all, the king is so kind and interested in the welfare of all the subjects. Why create problems for him. Don’t we all want to be happy? † After reading the above passage, Chaman, Champa and Chandru made the following observations: Chaman: Happyland is a democratic country because people were able to throw out the foreign rulers and bring back the king. Champa: Happyland is not a democratic country because people cannot criticise the ruler. The king may be nice and may provide economic prosperity, but a king cannot give a democratic rule. Chandru: What people need is happiness.So they are willing to allow their new ruler to take decisions for them. If people are happy it must be a democracy. What is your opinion about each of these statements? What do you think about the form of government in this country? Form different groups in your class and collect different types of information (news clippings, article s, photographs, cartoons, etc. ) about struggles for democracy in any country that is currently not democratic. Focus on the following questions: What makes the government non-democratic? What are the main complaints and demands of the people in that country?How do the existing rulers react to people’s demands? Who are the main leaders of the struggle for democracy? You could present the information thus collected in various forms: an exhibition, a collage, a report or a wallpaper. EMOCRAC ACY D EMOCRACY IN THE NTEMPORARY CONTEMPORARY WORLD 21 CHAPTER 2 What is Democracy? Why Democracy? OVERVIEW VERVIE VIEW The stories and the analysis in the previous chapter gave us a sense of what democracy is like. There we described some governments as democratic and some as non-democratic. We saw how governments in some of those countries changed from one form to the other.Let us now draw general lessons from those stories and ask the more basic question: What is democracy? What are its features? This chapter builds on a simple definition of democracy. Step by step, we work out the meaning of the terms involved in this definition. The aim here is to understand clearly the bare minimum features of a democratic form of government. After going through this chapter we should be able to distinguish a democratic form of government from a non-democratic government. Towards the end of this chapter, we step beyond this minimal objective and introduce a broader idea of democracy.In the previous chapter, we have seen that democracy is the most prevalent form of government in the world today and it is expanding to more countries. But why is it so? What makes it better than other forms of government? That is the second big question that we take up in this chapter. 22 EMOCRATIC LITICS D EMOCRATIC POLITICS HAT 2. 1 W HAT IS EMOCRAC ACY DEMOCRACY? distinguishes these governments from Pinochet’s rule in Chile, communist rule in Poland or the later period of Nkrumah’s rule in Ghana? What do these governments have in common with the military rule in Myanmar? Why do we say that these governments are not democratic?On the basis of this analysis, write down some common features of: Democratic governments Non-democratic governments In Chapter One we read many stories from different parts of the world. Through these stories we discussed various governments and organisations. We called some of these democracies. Others were described as non-democracies. Can you recall, for each of these countries, something about the governments that were described as democracies? Chile, before and after Pinochet’s rule Poland, after the fall of communist rule Ghana, in the early period of Nkrumah’s government What do you think is common to them?Why do we club them all under the label of democracy? What is it that define democra cy W h y define democra cy ? Before we proceed further, let us first take note of an objection by Merry. She does not like this w ay of defining democracy and wants to ask some basic questions. News items like this appear very often in newspapers. Do they all use the word democracy in the same sense? HAT W HAT IS EMOCRAC ACY EMOCRAC ACY DEMOCRACY? WHY DEMOCRACY? 23 Her teacher Matilda Lyngdoh responds to her questions, as other classmates join the discussion: Merry: Ma’am, I don’t like this idea.First we spend one whole chapter discussing democracies in different parts of the world and then we want to find out the meaning of democracy. I mean logically shouldn’t we have approached it the other way round? Shouldn’t the meaning have come first and then the example? Lyngdoh Madam: I can see your point. But that is not how we reason in everyday life. We use words like pen, rain or love. Do we wait to have a definition of these words before we use them? Come to think of it, do we have clear definition of these words? It is only by using a word that we understand its meaning.Merry: But th en why do we need definitions at all? Lyngdoh Madam: We need a definition only when we come across a difficulty in the use of a word. We need a definition of rain only when we wish to distinguish it from, say, drizzle or cloudburst. The same is true for democracy. We need a clear definition only because people use it for different purposes, because very different kinds of governments call themselves democracy. Ribiang: But why do we need to work on a definition? The other day you quoted Abraham Lincoln to us: â€Å"Democracy is a rule of the people, for the people and by the people†.We in Meghalaya always ruled ourselves. That is accepted by everyone. Why do we need to change that? Lyngdoh Madam: I am not saying we need to change it. I too find this definition very beautiful. But we don’t know if this is the best way of defining unless we think about it ourselves. We must not accept something just because it is famous, just because everyone accepts it. Yolanda: Ma†™am, can I suggest something? We don’t need to look for any definition. I read somewhere that the word democracy comes from a Greek word ‘Demokratia’. In Greek ‘demos’ means people and ‘kratia’ means rule. So democracy is rule by the people.This is the correct meaning. Where is the need to debate? Lyngdoh Madam: That is also a very helpful way of thinking about this matter. I would just say that this does not always work. A word does 24 not remain tied to its origin. Just think of computers. Originally they were used for computing, that is to say calculating, very difficult mathematical sums. These were very powerful calculators. But nowadays very few people use computers for computing sums. They use it for writing, for designing, for listening to music and for watching films. Words remain the same but their meaning can change with time.In that case it is not very useful to look at the origins of a word. Merry: Ma’am, so basical ly what you are saying is that there is no shortcut to our thinking about the matter ourselves. We have to think about its meaning and evolve a definition. Lyngdoh Madam: You got me right. Let us get on with it now. A C T I V I T Y Let us take Lyngdoh Madam seriously and try to write down the exact definition of some of the simple words that we use all the time: pen, rain and love. For example, is there a way of defining a pen that distinguishes it clearly from a pencil, a brush, a highlighter or a marker?What have you learnt from this attempt? What does it teach us about understanding the meaning of democracy? I have heard a different version. Democracy is off the people, far (from) the people and (where they) buy the people. Why don’t we accept that? definition A simple definition Let us get back to our discussion on similarities and differences among governments that are called democracies. In the last chapter we identified one simple factor common to all democracies: the government is chosen by the people. We could thus start with a simple definition: democracy is a form of government in which the rulers are elected by the people.This is a useful starting point. This definition allows us to separate democracy from forms of government that are clearly not democratic. The army rulers of Myanmar are not elected by the people. Those who happen to be in control of the army EMOCRATIC LITICS D EMOCRATIC POLITICS become the rulers of the country. People have no say in this decision. Dictators like Pinochet are not elected by the people. This also applies to monarchies. The king of Nepal and Saudi Arabia rule not because the people have chosen them to do so but because they happen to be born into the royal family. This simple definition is not adequate.It reminds us that democracy is people’s rule. But if we use this definition in an unthinking manner, we would end up calling almost every government that holds an election a democracy. That would be ve ry misleading. As we noted in Chapter Four, every government in contemporary world wants to be called a democracy, even if it is not so. That is why we need to carefully distinguish between a government that is a democracy and one that pretends to be one. We can do so by understanding each word in this definition carefully and spelling out the features of a democratic government. CHECK YOUR PROGRESSRibiang went back home and collected some more famous quotations on democracy. This time she did not mention the names of the people who said or wrote these. She wants you to read these and comment on how good or useful these thoughts are: Democracy gives every man the right to be his own oppressor. Democracy consists of choosing your dictators after they’ve told you what you think it is you want to hear. Man’s capacity for justice makes democracy possible, but man’s inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary Democracy is a device that insures we shall be gove rned no better than we deserve.All the ills of democracy can be cured by more democracy. read the cartoon This cartoon was drawn when elections were held in Iraq with the presence of US and other foreign powers. What do you think this cartoon is saying? Why is ‘democracy’ written the way it is?  ©Stephane Peray, Thailand, Cagle Cartoons Inc. HAT W HAT IS EMOCRAC ACY EMOCRAC ACY DEMOCRACY? WHY DEMOCRACY? 25 EATURES 2. 2 FEATURES EMOCRAC ACY OF DEMOCRACY want in a democracy? Or must a democratic government function with some limits? Is it necessary for a democracy to respect some rights of the citizens? Let us consider each of these questions with the help of some examples.We have started with a simple definition that democracy is a form of government in which the rulers are elected by the people. This raises many questions: Who are the rulers in this definition? Which officials must be elected for any government to be called a democracy? Which decisions may be taken by nonelected officials in a democracy? What kind of election constitutes a democratic election? What conditions must be fulfilled for an election to be considered democratic? Who are the people who can elect the rulers or get elected as rulers? Should this include every citizen on an equal basis?Can a democracy deny some citizens this right? Finally, what kind of a form of government is democracy? Can elected rulers do whatever they M ajor decisions by elec t e d decisions by elec leaders In Pakistan, General Pervez Musharraf led a miliary coup in October 1999. He overthrew a democratically elected government and declared himself the ‘Chief Executive’ of the country. Later he changed his designation to President and in 2002 held a referendum in the country that granted him a fiveyear extension. Pakistani media, human right organisations and democracy activists said that the referendum was based on ead the cartoon Syria is a small west Asian country. The ruling Baath Part y and some of its small allies are the only parties allowed in that country. Do you think this cartoon could apply to China or Mexico? What does the crown of leaves on democracy signify? 26 EMOCRATIC LITICS D EMOCRATIC POLITICS  ©Emad Hajjaj, Jordan, Cagle Cartoons Inc. read the cartoon  ©Ares, Caglecartoon. com, Cagle Cartoons Inc. This cartoon was drawn in the context of Latin America. Do you think it applies to the Pakistani situation as well? Think of other countries where this could apply?Does this happen sometimes in our country as well? rulers. They cannot take the final decisions. The power to take final decision rests with army officials and with General Musharraf, and none of them are elected by the people. This happens in many dictatorships and monarchies. They formally have an elected parliament and government but the real power is with those who are not elected. In the last chapter we read about the role of USSR in communist Poland and that of US in contemporary Ira q. Here the real power was with some external powers and not with locally elected representatives.This cannot be called people’s rule. This gives us the first feature. In a democracy the final decision making power must rest with those elected by the people. malpractices and fraud. In August 2002 he issued a ‘Legal Framework Order’ that amended the constitution of Pakistan. According to this Order, the President can dismiss the national or provincial assemblies. The work of the civilian cabinet is supervised by a National Security Council which is dominated by military officers. After passing this law, elections were held to the national and state assemblies.So Pakistan has had elections, elected representatives have some powers. But the final power rests with military officers and General Musharraf himself. Clearly, there are many reasons why Pakistan under General Musharraf should not be called a democracy. But let us focus on one of these. Can we say that the rulers are elected by the people in Pakistan? Not quite. People may have elected their representatives to the national and provincial assemblies but those elected representatives are not really the HAT W HAT EMOCRAC ACY EMOCRAC ACY DEMOCRACY? WHY DEMOCRACY? elec ra F ree and fair elec t o ra l c ompetitionIn China, elections are regularly held after every five years for electing the country’s parliament, called Quanguo Renmin Daibiao Dahui (National People’s Congress). The National People’s Congress has the power to appoint the President of the country. It has nearly 3,000 members elected from all over China. Some members are elected by the army. Before contesting elections, a candidate needs the approval of the Chinese Communist Party. Only those who are members of the Chinese Communist Party or eight smaller parties allied to it were allowed to contest elections held in 2002-03. The government is always formed by the Communist Party.Since its independence in 1 930, Mexico holds elections after every six years to elect its President. The country has never been under a military or dictator’s rule. But until 2000 every election was won by a 27 All this is so remote for me. Is democracy all about rulers and governments? Can we talk about a democratic classroom? Or a democratic family? IS party called PRI (Institutional Revolutionary Party). Opposition parties did contest elections, but never managed to win. The PRI was known to use many dirty tricks to win elections. All those who were employed in government offices had to attend its party meetings.Teachers of government schools used to force parents to vote for the PRI. Media largely ignored the activities of opposition political parties except to criticise them. Sometimes the polling booths were shifted from one place to another in the last minute, which made it difficult for people to cast their votes. The PRI spent a large sum of money in the campaign for its candidates. Should we consider the elections described above as examples of people electing their rulers? Reading these examples we get a sense that we cannot. There are many problems here. In China the elections do not offer the people any serious choice.They have to choose the ruling party and the candidates approved by it. Can we call this