Doha Round Dilemmas: What Stakes India holds in the WTO?

The Doha round of WTO is one of the most contentious and prolonged round in the history of global trade talks and has been facing a ro adblock since July 2008 when the talk failed in Geneva. There is a new found interest among the officials to conclude the Round at least by the end of 2011. Under these circumstances, this paper examines why the process of trade negotiation has run into so much trouble in the Doha Round? Is it the round provides only limited scope for the developing countries like India. So this paper explores the available estimates of welfare gains accruing to India form the existing simulations on the DDA, and analyses India’s stakes particularly the agriculture sector, the issues of non agricultural market access (NAMA) and service sectors in the multilateral trading system

China consolidates the rare earth industry and builds strategic reserves

China has started to regulate the rare-earth industry intensively since 2010. Its policy measures have heightened the consolidation process of the industry and the country has started to build strategic reserve of the minerals. These policies will provide China more power to fix the prices and control the supply in the international market

China checks into Africa with "chequebook" diplomacy

China has outmaneuvered everybody else in the strategic calculations with respect to cultivating relationships with Africa. In the recently concluded, fifth Ministerial Conference of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) on China-Africa strategic partnership, the President Hu Jintao pledged $20 billion of credit line for African countries in next three years — double the amount what China promised to lend Africa at the last joint forum three years ago

Minerals and Development : The Environmental Discord in Tibet

中国では急速な経済発展に伴って環境破壊も著しいスピードで進行している。本稿ではチベットの大規模な銅鉱山であるギャマ鉱山の事例から経済開発がもたらす環境悪化の状況を報告する。高地に位置するギャマ鉱山は1990年代以降開発が始まったが、民間資本による乱開発が進んだのち、2007年から中央直属の国有企業が一括して管理することになった。鉱山会社は地元に対する社会的責任を果たしていることを強調しているが、2013年5月に83人の犠牲者が出る土砂崩れが起き、その事故に関する報道が統制されるなど、政府は鉱山による環境と地元社会に対する破壊的影響を直視していない。China is undergoing huge economic development as the country contributed 29 percent of global growth in gross domestic product in 2013. .This rapid development comes at a cost of unprecedented environmental degradation even affecting beyond its domestic territory. China’s enormous demand for mineral and energy resources to fuel its economy has led to a devastating effects on its environment which was completely ignored until recently. The objective of this paper is to analyze the environmental issues related to heavy metal mining in Gyama in Tibet which have seen a wide range of environmental problems, local resistance and government suppression in last few years. Through this case study, the problems related to mining, impacts and the Chinese government’s response is critically analysed in detail.特集　中国の地域経済問

Policy Against Sexual Harassment at the Workplace: Guidelines for National Institute of Advanced Studies, Bangalore, India

Sexual Harassment at the Workplace (SHW) has remained one of the central concerns of the women’s movement in India since the early-’80s. Before 1997, women experiencing SHW had to lodge a complaint under Section 354 of the Indian Penal Code that deals with the ‘criminal assault of women to outrage women’s modesty’, and Section 509 that punishes individual/individuals for using a ‘word, gesture or act intended to insult the modesty of a woman’. These sections left the interpretation of ‘outraging women’s modesty’ to the discretion of the police officer/s. In 1997, the Supreme Court passed a landmark judgment in the Vishakha case laying down guidelines to be followed by establishments in dealing with complaints about sexual harassment. THE SEXUAL HARASSMENT OF WOMEN AT THE WORKPLACE (PREVENTION, PROHIBITION AND REDRESSAL) ACT was passed in April 2013

China’s export restrictions on rare earths

China is the world’s largest depositor, producer, consumer and exporter of rare earths, controlling 97 per cent of the global supplies. But with China’s export restrictions, the gap between demand and supply is growing because of the dearth of any other major supplying nation. In recent years, the Chinese government has cut down the number of export enterprises, export quotas and the annual exploitation volume of rare earth ores. Users of the minerals in industrialised countries now face tighter supplies and higher prices. China has cut its export quotas for rare earths by 35 per cent in the first round of permits for 2011, threatening to extend a global shortage of the minerals needed for smart phones, hybrid cars and guided missiles