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Investing in Infrastructure: Harnessing Its Potential for Growth in Sri Lanka
No full textThe report starts with an overview and introduces the main findings. It addresses major constraints, instruments, and outcomes important to unleash the potential of infrastructure investments and policy fine-tuning. Chapter one discusses the infrastructure and growth nexus, given the country's macroeconomic scenario. It examines the long-term sustainability, particularly considering the Mahinda Chintana's high infrastructure investment targets, and how the country can achieve its high economic growth targets, given its historical and current investment levels. Chapter two argues that the two principal drivers of sustained high economic growth and productive employment are: (a) international competitiveness that results in export-led growth; and (b) urbanization that facilitates productive economic activity. Chapter three reviews key infrastructure sectors to identify the regulatory issues that need to be addressed and estimate the needed investment. Redressing infrastructure constraints, however, cannot be piecemeal and product specific. Instead, a sector-wide approach is needed. In light of the large investment requirement and high public debt and deficit, chapter four discusses the potential of public-private partnership in infrastructure delivery and supportive regulatory reform. Finally, chapter five concludes the analysis, summarizing major highlights
China's influence on Pakistan
No full textSeveral observers state that Chinese activities are reinforcing the manifold of inequalities that already exist between Islamabad and the Provinces in all spheres of state and society
Imran Khan - a twist in the tale?
No full textWith its troubled history and the upcoming first democratic transfer of power, it does not come across as a surprise that Mr Khan is being portrayed as someone that the Pakistanis and the international community deem fit for preventing the downward spiral of the nation
The emerging Islamist plexus in Bangladesh?
No full textSince the 1990s, Islamic fundamentalism in Bangladesh has been rising, not only in the parliamentary and political-administrative spheres, but also outside the institutional structure in the form of the emergence of militant outfits. Therefore, one can state that the Islamists are following a twofold strategy: First, trying to undermine the political system from within by using the opportunities offered in a democratic form of governance, which can be described as the formal ‘political front’ of the fundamentalist movement. Second, the building up of an informal, extra-constitutional ‘militant front’. This finds its expression in the use of physical violence, armed confrontation, and other extra-judicial measures. (...
Determinants of School Enrollment in Balochistan
No full textEducational attainment in Pakistan has been historically low as compared to other countries in the region. Currently the primary net enrollment rate (NER) in Pakistan is sixty six percent which is far below that of some of the other countries in the region. It is also evident that there is great disparity within Pakistan, particularly in Balochistan which has a primary NER of fifty six percent as compared to the Punjab province which has a primary NER of seventy percent. This project examined various factors that influence enrollment decisions in Pakistan however; there have been relatively few recent studies that examine the determinants of schooling decisions and gender differentials in schooling in Balochistan. This analysis consists of three main components: (i) constructing profiles of children in Balochistan by schooling status; (ii) conducting a decomposition of variance of schooling status; and (iii) a logistic regression analysis to determine gender differentials in school enrollment. The project results suggest that for six - ten year olds in Balochistan the majority of variation in schooling status is explained between households rather than within households, while for eleven - fifteen year olds the majority of variation in schooling status is explained by within household differences. Poverty also plays a major role in determining whether or not a child is enrolled in school, as children belonging to the poorest wealth quintile in the six - ten age groups are four times more likely to be out of school than children in the richest wealth quintile
Political Reservations and Women’s Entrepreneurship in India
No full textThis paper quantifies the link between the timing of state-level implementations of political reservations for women in India with the role of women in India's manufacturing sector. It does not find evidence that overall employment of women in manufacturing increased after the reforms. However, the analysis finds significant evidence that more women-owned establishments were created in the unorganized/informal sector. These establishments were concentrated in industries where women entrepreneurs have been traditionally active and the entry was mainly found among household-based establishments. This heightened entrepreneurship does not appear linked to changes in reporting, better access to government contracts and business, or improved financing environments. One interpretation of these results is that the implementation of the political reservations inspired more women to open establishments, and they did so at a small establishment scale in industries where they had experience and/or the support networks of other women
Semblance of civilian control? Military, elections and the latest coup conspiracy in Pakistan
No full textGenerally, Pakistan is considered by most observers as a classic example of a praetorian state in which the military
perceives itself as the sole guardian of the country's national sovereignty and moral integrity, the chief initiator of the national agenda and the major arbiter of conflict between social and political forces
Bhutan Election 2013 - Happiness under stress?
No full textThe idea of mutual consultancy in the political decision-making process is nothing new in Bhutan. The origins of it date back to the old Chhoesi system, which was a dual concept of government that prevailed from 1650 to 1907, comprising a temporal head (Druk Desi) and a religious leader (Je Khenpo) as the leading institutions of the country's socio-political system
Masala: Newsletter Virtuelle Fachbibliothek Südasien, Jg. 8, Nr. 4 (Oktober 2013)
No full textMasala, der vierteljährlich erscheinende Newsletter von Savifa, informiert über Neuerungen bei Savifa und im SSG „Südasien“ und weist auf interessante wissenschaftliche und kulturelle Veranstaltungen wie Konferenzen, Vorträge und Ausstellungen hin. Außerdem wird aktuelle Literatur zu diversen Themenbereichen vorgestellt
Metrik und Poetik der Josephsgeschichte Muhammad Sagirs
No full textDiscussions of middle Bengali Muslim works have rarely focused on the aesthetic dimensions of this strand of literature. The in-depth analysis of the earliest Bengali version of the famous tale of Joseph and Zulaikha attempted here shows its connections to many Islamic literary traditions, such as the stories of the prophets, the maṯnawī (in this case of ʿAbd ar-Raḥmān Ǧāmī) and the north Indian 'premākhyān'. Most importantly, however, the focus on the poetic form also allows reconstructing the story’s re-creation along a specific aesthetics of performance and response. While the new ending that is added in the Bengali version in many ways reflect the work’s embeddedness in North Indian literary traditions and the history of regionalization during the late Mogul empire, the most important means for the story’s recreation lies on the plain of its metrical structure. While it largely follows the maṯnawī by employing its equivalent, the Bengali meter of paẏār, other meters are used as well, most often the tripadī. In the first systematic probe into the semantic function of such a metrical system which is typical for many middle Bengali works, the alternation of different meters is linked with the alternation of the narrative modes of diegesis and mimesis. This excavation of important aspects of the aesthetics of production and reception considerably stands in contrast to judgments denying the middle Bengali Muslim works an aesthetic structure of their own and opens up comparative questions in different directions. It contributes to an overdue shift in the study of pre-colonial Muslim traditions in Bengal, from teleological paradigms of identity towards a literary history which asks the texts what they tell us about their recipients’ expectation and reception