‘Episodes of Liberalisation’ or ‘The Logic of Capital’: The Genesis of Liberalisation in India

This paper examines the genesis of liberalisation in India, it argues that once we locate its origin we can understand its direction and underlying political economy with much greater clarity. In particular the paper seeks to answer three questions. Why was reform launched in 1991 when the real economy was essentially in good condition? Why did the state choose a neo-liberal policy package when other options were available? Why did the state sustain liberalisation even after the economy had recovered from the immediate crisis? Existing answers to these questions are found to be inadequate. Instead this paper focuses on an alternative explanation that emphasises continuity, the reforms in 1991 can be traced back to the early 1970s. The Momentum of reform was sustained and assumed a particular form due to an underlying ‘logic of capital’

Voice and speech functions (B310-B340)

The International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health for Children and Youth (ICF-CY) domain ‘voice and speech functions’ (b3) includes production and quality of voice (b310), articulation functions (b320), fluency and rhythm of speech (b330) and alternative vocalizations (b340, such as making musical sounds and crying, which are not reviewed here)

Language support model for teachers

There are seven documents that comprise this resource pack. They were written for teachers who are working with speech and language therapists (SLTs) to support children in mainstream primary schools who have language difficulties with no known cause (primary language impairment)

Export Promotion, the Fallacy of Composition and Declining Terms of Trade (or the Moors’ Last Sigh).

This paper examines various schools of trade policy reform and finds little difference between them in regards their essential export optimism. This optimism is based on an unwarranted assumption in cross-country empirical studies. In practise the increasing number of large LDC’s shifting towards export promotion since the 1980s is found to coincide with declining terms of trade for labour-intensive manufactures. So far this decline has been offset by growth in volume. The positive relation is actually dependent on market growth in developed countries rather than domestic policy reform. Marx (the Moor) provides a useful framework in which to analyse this process. His analysis of competition and accumulation within a national economy is transposed to that of international trade. Finally, the increasing integration of capital into ‘value chains’ and the formation of regional trading blocs can be related to the crisis tendencies of competition and the erosion of profit margins

Play the cards, roll the dice – the integration of casinos within Asian tourism destination development strategy

New Asian casino destinations continue to emerge and expand their gambling options. The historical rhetoric of being a panacea to economic and tourism woes continues to dominant decades later. Yet the excessive regulatory environments and taxation regimes by authorities on the casino industry are unlike those applied to other destination tourism products. Once the domain of the United States in the 1990s with entertainment capitals such as Las Vegas and Atlantic City, the proliferation of legalised casino gaming is now accentuated in Asia in destinations such as Macao, Korea, Singapore and the Philippines. As a tourism product, this article highlights that the arguments for and against casinos are narrowly embedded in social and economic influences, with a limited emphasis on a broader holistic approach on the implications on overall tourism management and development. Observations to date suggest greater prominence and participation by Asia’s NTOs (National Tourism Offices) and DMOs (Destination Management Companies) are needed on the future of the casino’s role within the tourism system and destination master plan and vision

Decision support systems for large dam planning and operation in Africa

Decision support systems/ Dams/ Planning/ Operations/ Social impact/ Environmental effects

Technical note: Hydrology of the Bahi Wetland, Tanzania

Wetlands / Rivers / Flow / Hydrology / Climate / Water budget / Irrigated farming / Rice / Tanzania / Bahi Wetland / Bubu River

Supporting students who struggle with language

This chapter considers children who have speech, language and communication difficulties. These can arise from insufficient quality or quantity of language experience, or they may arise developmentally, despite appropriate language input from families and carers. They may or may not be associated with impairments such as hearing loss, learning disabilities, cerebral palsy or autistic spectrum disorders. Whether children's difficulties are specific to language-learning or more general, it is important that they become motivated, engaged learners. Motivation is central, but not in itself enough to guarantee high engagement. Engaged readers are intrinsically (rather than extrinsically) motivated to read, and have the required resources and strategies to do so. Meta-analyses show that strategy teaching, curricular coherence, choice, social collaboration and purpose all impact upon reading engagement (Guthrie and Wigfield 2000). Motivation and engagement impact upon attainment through mechanisms such as practice effects and perseverance. Continued engagement is therefore particularly important for children with speech, language and communication difficulties. Where language is part of the problem, children are at significant risk of literacy difficulties persisting into adult life (Law et al. 2009)

Open dialogue peer review: a response to Tymms, Merrell & Coe

We welcome Peter Tymms, Christine Merrell and Robert Coe's paper as a timely contribution to an important issue. For precisely the reasons that they state, this is an area of current concern. We are writing to suggest that for complex interventions involving educational programmes an even more complicated sequence of investigations could be useful, taking as the model the medical approach as detailed in MRC (2000). We agree that the RCT is an essential tool to investigate the efficacy of programmes. There is no other way to know if, on the whole, a programme works across a variety of contexts and if some programmes should 'work' better than others. Pragmatic randomisation as described in the Fife study outlined by Tymms et al. should be appropriate although it is a pity that it appears no children are continuing with their current exposure to peer learning, which would allow for the possibility that this is just as good as the new interventions. Blind assessment of outcomes is of course essential