Paradoxes of Democracy Today every nation in the world either desires to be a democracy, or claims to be one. With the dissolution of communist blockdemocracy is the magic word. It is seen to promise everything good politically, socially and economically. And yet, if we only think a little, democracy is full of dilemmas, contradictions and paradoxes. The basic problem is that theory and practice are not identical. The conditions for...

India’s Population and Its Economic Implications Comprising Over a billion people and being the second most populated country in the world thus supporting over 17 per cent of the world population. India’s strengths and weaknesses visibly lie in its population. According to the 2011 Census, the population of India stood at 1,210,193,422 persons, an increase of 17.64 per cent over the 2001 Census It is down by 3.90 per cent in...

The Indian Republic India became a republic on January 26, 1950 and since then’ the Constitution of India has been the governing principle of this country. Or, at least, it is supposed to have been so. It is, of course, tempting to try and overview our achievements and failures in upholding the tenets of that document. It is equally tempting and easy to point at the failures—the poverty, the illiteracy, the...

Tourism: Potentials and Problems Tourism has emerged as one of the world’s largest industries. Growing rapidly in the last two decades, today it accounts for more than seven per cent of world output and employs some 150 million people around the globe. Since the end of Second World War, it has been a good source of revenue generation. having tremendous development potential and stands today as unique natural renewable resource industry....

Modern Civilization When we talk of modernity and civilization, a host of attributes come to our mind such as welfare states where the gifts of science have brought better living standards for the people, the fear of disease, poverty, housing, starvation and political injustice are greatly minimized and leisure is filled with a myriad forms of entertainment from music to cricket; where travel is quick and comfort and ignorance does not...

Growing Flexibility in Gender Roles of Men and Women Transition in social milieu has always been a universal factor which reverberates in the vicissitudes of the society. Changes in a particular field have an impact on other realms of society too. A brilliant example of such change is that of the growing flexibility in gender roles of men and women. Early society had rigid roles for men and women. Characteristics and...

Politics and Religion If politics is ‘the last refuge of scoundrels’, and religion the opium of the masses’, any nexus between the two is bound to spell doom. However, if we consider politics as involving the recognition and reconciliation of opposing interests within a given unit of rule, and religion as the root of most of the profound and permanent values of life we cannot quite dismiss the idea of the...

The Politics of Communalism India is a nation in the making with a society in transition which has various strands of social groups either in conflict, or in temporary alliance with each other. The conflict has sometimes been summarized as ‘Bharat’ versus ‘India’, where ‘Bharat’ represents the vast disadvantaged sections left behind bearing the brunt of social exploitation, and ‘India’ symbolizes the people who are on the path of progress, having...