Saturday, August 31, 2019

Harmonizing Research, Practice

Harmonizing Research, Practice, and Policy in Early Childhood Music: A Chorus of International Voices (Part 2) Lori A. Custodero & Lily Chen-Hafteck a b a b Music and Music Education program at Teachers College, Columbia University Music Department, Kean University, New Jersey Version of record first published: 07 Aug 2010. To cite this article: Lori A. Custodero & Lily Chen-Hafteck (2008): Harmonizing Research, Practice, and Policy in Early Childhood Music: A Chorus of International Voices (Part 2), Arts Education Policy Review, 109:3, 3-8 To link to this article: http://dx. doi. org/10. 3200/AEPR. 109. 3. 3-8PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE Full terms and conditions of use: http://www. tandfonline. com/page/terms-and-conditions This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing, systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. The publis her does not give any warranty express or implied or make any representation that the contents will be complete or accurate or up to date. The accuracy of any instructions, formulae, and drug doses should be independently verified with primary sources.The publisher shall not be liable for any loss, actions, claims, proceedings, demand, or costs or damages whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with or arising out of the use of this material. Copyright  © 2008 Heldref Publications Harmonizing Research, Practice, and Policy in Early Childhood Music: A Chorus of International Voices (Part 2) LORI A. CUSTODERO and LILY CHEN-HAFTECK Editor’s note. Lori A. Custodero and Lily Chen-Hafteck served as guest editors for both Part 1 and Part 2 of the special issue International Policies on Early Childhood Music Education: Local and Global IssuesRevealed. n the November/December 2007 issue of Arts Education Policy Review, readers were introduced to e arly childhood music policies in Brazil, England, Kenya, Puerto Rico, South Africa, and the United States. In this collection, a second ensemble of experts from Australia, China, Denmark, Korea, Israel, and Taiwan joins them. Like the previous issue, these authors presented papers or workshops at an International Society for Music Education, Early Childhood Music Education Seminar in Taipei in 2006 and wrote new articles for inclusion here.They responded to the same charge as the previous authors to answer the following questions: †¢ What policies currently exist in your country for early childhood music education? †¢ To what extent do these policies meet the needs of children in your country? †¢ How are teachers prepared to teach early childhood music in your country? †¢ In what ways do local and global cultures figure into the policies and practices of early childhood music in your country? Additionally, we offered the following questions, to be addressed at th e author’s discretion: †¢ Do different musical cultures require different instructional approaches?And, conversely, are certain music instructional approaches culture specific? How does this impact policy and practice of early childhood music in your country? †¢ What are the potential risks and rewards of mandating multicultural musical experiences for young children? Finally, we asked authors to address any issues specific to their regions and to make concrete suggestions regarding policy for their countries. Salient themes emerged addressing what was taught and who was responsible for that content.In many ways these two conditions are inseparable, interrelated through the social nature of musical experiences. In these accounts, we also see ways in which content and delivery shape reception and how that process, in turn, defines and is defined by culture. Examining these geographical contexts raises questions about atti- I tudes, practices, and policies concerning early childhood music education that have significance for many of us. We chose three threads of inquiry from the many that weave these single texts into a textual fugue: (a) ensions between child and adult culture; (b) competing influences by global, regional, and local agencies on standards and curricula; and (c) expectations for teacher knowledge and preparation. Competing Cultures: Child and Adult The existence of a musical culture in early childhood, which is distinctly different from the adult culture, is based on studies showing similarities of vocal contours used in communication between infants and mothers across cultures (Papousek 1996), as well as research regarding the differences between music made by children and adults (e. . , Bjorkvold 1992; Campbell 2007; Littleton 1998; Marsh 1995; Moorhead and Pond 1941). Sven-Erik Holgersen’s article on early childhood music in Scandinavia describes practices in Denmark, Sweden, and Norway that are sensitive to the childâ €™s culture. The cultural clash in those regional systems exists between programs that favor an elemental or natural approach to education for the young based on the free play aesthetic and those that see music Vol. 109, No. 3, January/February 2008 3 as a mode of artistic expression requiring learned skills.Lily Chen-Hafteck and Zhoyua Xu and, separately, Jennifer Chau-Ying Leu found preschools in Chinesespeaking countries to have a strong sense of adult culture. Most parents and teachers believe school should stress academic learning rather than play, so that children can achieve high scores on tests and examinations. Chinese culture also stresses study and hard work as important for academic success. In Korea, Nam-Hee Lim and Shunah Chung found that adults believe young children need close supervision and guidance from teachers and parents in their development.Therefore, children’s natural tendency to be playful and creative is not recognized as a core value in school; potential for future success drives decisions. These cultural differences are interactive with and reflective of current conditions and regional history. In China, for example, books were printed with movable type as early as the eighth century, whereas in Europe copies were still drawn by hand until the 1400s. Such a long history of text accessibility elevated reading and writing to a valued skill that was recognizable and sought (Smith 1991).Societal values may offer another lens to interpret early academic emphasis, such as those espoused by Confucius, for whom morality and caring for others, especially family, were primary. In terms of contemporary conditions, Louie Suthers of Australia notes that in her varied country one can see differences in starting ages of pre-primary education. In Denmark, the children start at three years of age and continue for four years. In China, pre-primary education starts at four years of age and continues for three years, although care is availa ble in each country mentioned from birth.Also of note, the average student teacher ratio in China is 28:1, differing from Hong Kong’s average ratio of 16:1. The older starting age in China may perpetuate (or reflect interest in) the schooling culture. Leu’s discussion of the importance of family context is relevant to this point, inasmuch as it may provide the space for child culture 4 Arts Education Policy Review to flourish while adult culture is operating at school. Claudia Gluschankof writes about the purposeful creation of materials for the child culture with the development of the New Hebrew Culture in the Israeli territories during the early 1900s.Preschools were created based on the Froebel playcentered model and provide an unusual case in the concentrated production of children’s music in a language that had no such repertoire prior to the kindergartens establishment. The conscious choice to provide young children with cultural tools for understanding a t the earliest stages of a community is reminiscent of Sheila Woodward’s discussion concerning the importance of children in nation building in South Africa, featured in the previous issue of this journal.In her conclusion, Gluschankof raises important questions concerning this created canon of songs and the lack of repertoire for Arab-speaking children. Using the idea of child culture as a lens for viewing cultural and educational policies provides a useful way to understand differences and similarities in political systems that define the worlds in which we teach, research, and cohabitate. Such understanding may lead to more focused and meaningful questions that may reveal inequities or alternative directions in music education worthy of exploration.Considerations of these policies regarding conceptions of adulthood and childhood lead directly to curricular influences that we view from a related dialectic: the local and global. Local and Global Influences: Child and World I n the first part of this symposium, we focused on the tension between small and large scaled views of what should be taught, each serving a different societal need. In the second part, we speak more specifically to the notion of a national curriculum because it is mentioned in each of the articles collected here.We are interested in questions dealing with how these personal and collective influences affect children’s music education: â€Å"Does governmentmandated standardized curriculum limit possibilities or insure access of quality to all children? † and â€Å"What is the exemplar to which music education should be standardized? † The first question is meant to generate critical thinking regarding what and how policymakers might send messages about music education in the early years; the second is meant to question assumptions we might have surrounding best practice and the cultural nuances that shape it.Suthers, discussing Australia’s situation, is min dful that there is no national music curriculum for pre-primary school and points to a recent reform movement in music education that excluded early childhood experiences. She notes that this leaves teachers feeling isolated and that their work is undervalued. Alternatively, Gluschankoff discusses the children’s music written in Hebrew as somewhat ideological and makes suggestions for addressing the inclusion of additional materials to meet the needs of a multicultural society.One of the ways in which the national curriculum may become nationalistic is in the mandates or recommendations around singing repertoire. The role played by singing in socialization is significant and has been used for centuries to transmit cultural values, to teach language, and to establish qualities of rhythmic energy that typify a way of being; Dissanayake (2000) makes the case for mutuality and belonging as ways the arts are meaningful to us.Inasmuch as collective singing creates a sense of belong ing, we have a responsibility to monitor the ways in which we look at the child and the world (see Leu’s article describing ecological systems and Lim and Chung on the supportive role of adults). Chen-Hafteck and Xu also write about the importance of family singing and the differing role of school music. When local knowledge is replaced by chauvinism, music can be decontextualized. Because musicality is deeply rooted in shared experience, (Trevarthen 1999) we need to guard the personal and not expose children’s vulnerability to politicization.Our concern regarding global trends also involves the perception that globalization means movement toward Downloaded by [Macquarie University] at 14:58 28 March 2013 Western ideals. Attention to the local, once again, is necessary to adequately implement any change. In China, for example, although the new educational policies follow the global trends rhetorically, espousing learning through play and stressing personal expression a nd creativity, its usefulness is severely hampered by conflicting views in the local tradition regarding a deep belief in academic success as the consummate benchmark.Holgerson considers a similar dissonance between local needs and governmental responsibility to all children through the philosophical lens of Bildung, a generative model that keeps the questions about such disconnections at the forefront of practice. Downloaded by [Macquarie University] at 14:58 28 March 2013 Teacher Knowledge: Child and Music Practice policies are perhaps best viewed vis-a-vis teacher preparation— what do we value as knowledge? For most of us, early childhood musical practice involves understanding as much as we can about children while keeping the cultural context in mind.This might include individual experiences that contribute to their uniqueness and developmental trends that might give indications about what to expect in terms of maturation. What knowledge do we need of music? In this issu e, the authors discuss the importance of a diverse and culturally responsive repertoire, singing range, quality of recordings, appropriate use of instruments, and sound sensitivity. In this collection of articles, the authors suggest that these two knowledge areas are rarely considered together and that they exist in bifurcation, at least conceptually.Across the globe, there are those who are considered to have knowledge of the child in context (families or generalist teachers) and those who have knowledge of the child in music (specialists). Holgersen describes this dichotomy in practical terms—music activities and music teaching. The goals of using music are indeed varied and the complexity of music leads to multiple possibilities worthy of exploration. Among the authors there is a consensus concerning the need for collaboration between the two areas of expertise with several concrete recommendations.Reasons for this common phenomenon center on the systems in place for teac her preparation and the institutional divisions of disciplines; authors advocate for more carefully structured professional development to help bridge the disciplinary divide. Knowing the body of work of these authors, we are familiar with their efforts to form partnerships with local child care specialists and have been involved with such partnerships at our universities. Child and Adult It is noteworthy that many of the responses are about memories of musical adults who were influential in their music education.Graham Welch (pers. comm. ) offers: I was educated in a Church of England Primary school in London . . . where we sang, often with the local Vicar leading on the piano. I can remember his enthusiasm, quick tempo and intensity of keyboard playing. F or most of us, early childhood musical practice involves understanding as much as we can about children while keeping the cultural context in mind. We believe them to be some of the most meaningful opportunities for our own teach er knowledge.Policy and Personal Voice In addition to the authors featured here, to inform our sense of the historical significance of current situations regarding early childhood music and the breadth to which our profession defines policy, we asked our colleagues involved in international musical education about their memories of early childhood music education and their relationship to policy with the following questions: 1. Reflecting on your childhood before age eight, what were the influences of policy on your music education? . How does this compare with today’s situation for young children? Responses were varied and provided insight through a self-reflective lens. We looked at the seven responses regarding their relatedness to our three topics and to how policy can reach us as individuals in a long-lasting way. Alda Oliveira (pers. comm. ) from Brazil also reflected on a teacher: The first time I went to school I was seven years old. At this age I choose to take piano lessons with a private piano teacher.She was a marvelous teacher since her method included not only playing by reading and singing the notes, but also playing by ear and some popular songs. Family members had a strong musical presence in June Boyce Tillman’s (pers. comm. ) childhood in England: â€Å"My music was regularly singing with and listening to the playing of my paternal grandfather who was the village dance band pianist. † Margre van Gestel (pers. comm. ) of The Netherlands also wrote of related experiences: I had the privilege to be surrounded by a musical family.We had a piano in our home and I spent lots of time behind the piano in my grandmother’s house. My uncles and aunts could play the piano and as a child I enjoyed listening to them. One of my aunts was the ballet teacher in the village and from the age of four I was in her dancing classes. It was normal in my family to sing and play. My father had a good voice and was a soloist in the church c hoir when he was young; he played the clarinet and was a folkdance Vol. 109, No. 3, January/February 2008 5 teacher during scouting activities.I guess my days were filled with (live) music, not in courses but just all day long. Van Gestel shared a record of family influence: In my baby dairy, when I was 8 months old, my mother wrote: â€Å"Today she clapped her hands. She probably learned that from her grandmother! When you sing Clap your hands she reacts immediately. † One year old: â€Å"When we sing Oh my daddy (a popular song in the sixties) she sings along, ‘daddy, daddy. ’† In South Africa, apartheid led to decisions about schooling for Caroline Van Niekerk (pers. omm. ) that indirectly influenced her musical education by removing her from the direct influences of the national educational system of that time. She also spoke of a contemporary situation in which fighting governmental policies was necessary and of the strength we have to overcome questi onable decisions: I had a desperate call just yesterday from someone with a story of how their education faculty, in training teachers for the Foundation Phase, wants to remove music as an optional area of specialization for students.We are now all doing everything in our power to protest such a prospect loudly. But I have also seen what I regard as a promising development, and similar to the situation I witnessed in California when we lived there, more than twenty years ago—as parents of young children realize that the formal education system is not necessarily going to provide their children with what they believe is important, and especially as regards the arts, including music, they start to take responsibility for those things themselves. ntil I was about [age] five) could not get my lessons paid for. Had the place still be in that county I would have been entitled to a bursary to pay for lessons and I would have been able to learn a second instrument. But without that m y parents could only afford piano lessons. I am still sad about this, which was simply a matter of geography and the local control of resources. Child and Music The same issues featured authors raised are apparent in the additional professionals’ responses: the lack of resources and teachers. Gary McPherson (pers. comm. links personal memories with policies, of which he sees little change, from his Australian childhood: I have a vague memory of singing in a school choir that was [led] by a general classroom teacher when I was about six or seven, but the group was nothing special so it had no impact on my subsequent musical development. . . . I went back some years ago and had a look at the way music was described in the school curriculum (particularly primary school curriculum). There were all sorts of aids and resources for general primary teachers to use but music wasn’t typically taught well in schools.To be honest, I’m not sure the status of music in the cur riculum is any different. Downloaded by [Macquarie University] at 14:58 28 March 2013 These testimonies to strong and positive adult influence suggest that family education is important, as Leu and others advocate in this symposium, with the caveat that the experiences described are with adults perceived as musicians. This suggests we need to exercise caution in defining people in terms of limited musicality and that music education of our children means their children will be better educated.It is interesting that teachers were remembered for the affective qualities they conveyed and through a curricular stance that was relevant to the child. Child and World The relationships among local, state, and global influences are also reflected in these personal accounts. Many of these music professionals took private music lessons and considered their experiences to be nonpolicy driven. Oliveira (pers. comm. ) mentioned the involvement of musicians in music education policy—specific ally, the Canto Orfeonico policy under the leadership of composer Villa-Lobos.She recalls that this policy influenced her school education, which included â€Å"group singing and elementary level music theory. † As already discussed, group singing is a common vehicle for politicization. Like Gluschonkof’s report of Israeli songs contributing to nation-building, Boyce Tillman (pers. comm. ) noted that: At [age] seven I went to a school where we had massed singing in the Hall when we sang British folksongs, many of which I still know by heart. We had a book called the New National Song book, which was a deliberate attempt after the war to restore a sense of nationhood.This was used throughout my school career. 6 Arts Education Policy Review Welch wrote of intersecting influences of church and state: I discovered later that the London County Council was very supportive of music in schools generally, although my local experiences as a child were as much to do with the link to the Church and the established ethos of including singing as a natural part of the school day. Ana Lucia Frega (pers. comm. ) describes a similar situation in her native Argentina. Early childhood music courses were not always taught by a specialist . . . his means that some problems arose: some of the K-general teachers [choose materials that] do not really fit the [appropriate] children range of voices, and which tend to create vocal difficulties. He notes the longevity of such a workable match: â€Å"On returning to the school many years later for my first teaching post, I discovered that the school’s policy toward music had continued, with the same range of events and activities in place. † In the previous issue, Young discussed the unprecedented commitment England has made to the arts—specifically music, a commitment Welch reiterates.Boyce Tillman recalls a time when the resources from the national government were in local hands, resulting in inequitabl e opportunity: At [age] seven I started piano lessons but because the place we lived in was then in Southampton and not in the County of Hampshire (to which we are very close and in which we had been Although our policymaking systems move slowly, and are not always moving in the direction we would like, there is hope in the growing numbers of people who care about music education. Oliviera writes: â€Å"at least we can feel the difference between my generation and today’s generation. Perhaps our aim is to prepare children who grow up to be like von Gestel, with the same rich resources at hand for creating meaningful experiences: Music (and especially making and teaching music) was and is a part of my everyday life, and really I can’t imagine a life without singing together and making music. It makes my life worth living. References Bjorkvold, J. R. 1992. The muse within: Creativity and communication, song and play from childhood through maturity. Trans. W. H. Halverso n, New York: HarperCollins. Campbell, P. S. 2007. Musical meaning in children’s cultures. In International handbook of research in arts education, ed.L. Bresler, 881–94. Dorderecht, The Netherlands: Springer. Dissanayake, E. 2000. Art and intimacy. Seattle: University of Washington Press. Littleton, D. 1998. Music learning and child’s play. General Music Today 12 (1): 8–15. Marsh, K. 1995. Children’s singing games: Composition in the playground? Research Studies in Music Education 4:2–11. Moorhead, G. E. , and D. Pond. 1941. Music of young children. 1 Chant. Santa Barbara, CA: Pillsbury Foundation for the Advancement of Music Education. Papousek, H. 1996. Musicality in infancy research: Biological and cultural origins of early musicality.In Musical beginnings: Origins and development of musical competence, ed. I. Deliege and J. Sloboda, 37–55. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press. Smith, D. C. 1991. Foundations of modern Chinese e ducation. In The Confucian continuum, ed. D. C. Smith, 1–64. New York: Praeger. Trevarthen, C. 1999. Musicality and the intrinsic motive pulse: Evidence from psychobiology and human communication. Musicae Scientiae (Special Issue: Rhythm, Musical Narrative, and Origins of Human Communication), 155–211. Lori A. Custodero is an associate professor and program coordinator of the MusicDownloaded by [Macquarie University] at 14:58 28 March 2013 and Music Education program at Teachers College, Columbia University, where she has established an early childhood music concentration that integrates pedagogy and research through both theory and practice. She served on the International Society for Music Education’s Commission for Early Childhood for six years and is involved in research and teaching projects in a variety of countries. Lily Chen-Hafteck is an associate professor of music education and assistant chair of the Music Department at Kean University, New Jersey.Ori ginally from Hong Kong, she has held teaching and research positions at the University of Pretoria in South Africa, the University of Surrey Roehampton in England, and Hong Kong Baptist University. She serves on the editorial board of the International Journal of Music Education, Asia-Pacific Journal for Arts Education and Music Education Research International. She is the chair of the International Society for Music Education Young Professionals Focus Group. Vol. 109, No. 3, January/February 2008 7 Downloaded by [Macquarie University] at 14:58 28 March 2013 ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?

Friday, August 30, 2019

Types of Entrepreneurship

Types of Entrepreneurship and Economic Growth DOI:10. 1093/acprof:oso/9780199596515. 003. 0004 Abstract and Keywords This chapter is an empirical exploration of types of entrepreneurship and their impact on economic growth in developing and transition countries. It relates indicators of entrepreneurship to average rates of economic growth in the period 2002–5. For this the chapter utilizes a dataset on entrepreneurship in thirty? six countries from the Global Enterprise Monitor (GEM), collected in 2002.It finds that indicators of young business activity have a significant impact on growth in high? income countries and transition countries, but not in developing countries. The chapter explains the lack of significant effects in developing countries by pointing to the lack of complementary physical and human capital and the scarcity of larger companies that can act as a training ground for SMEs. Keywords:  Ã‚  Ã‚  entrepreneurship,  growth? oriented entrepreneurship,  econ omic growth,  global entrepreneurship monitor 4. 1  IntroductionEntrepreneurship has long been considered a crucial mechanism of economic development (Schumpeter  1934; Landes  1998). However, empirical studies on the role of entrepreneurship in economic growth show mixed evidence (Stam  2008). This is not remarkable because there is much heterogeneity in both the kinds of entrepreneurship and the kinds of economic contexts in which economic growth takes place. Until now studies have not sufficiently accounted for this heterogeneity on the micro- and macro-level, which limits our insight into the contingent role of entrepreneurship in economic growth.Important questions in this respect are: ‘How does the role of entrepreneurship differ between high-income, transition, and medium-income countries? ’, and ‘What kinds of entrepreneurship are most crucial for economic growth? ’. The objective of this chapter is to provide insights into the role of dif ferent types of entrepreneurship in economic growth, and on how this role differs in poor and rich economies. In this chapter, we empirically investigate the effect of entrepreneurship on economic growth at the country-level.We use data from the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM), which provides comparative data on entrepreneurship from a wide range of countries. An important element of this chapter is that we compare the effects of entrepreneurial activity on economic growth in high-income countries, transition countries (China, Hungary, Poland, Russia, and Slovenia), and medium-income countries (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, India, Mexico, South Africa, and Thailand). This dataset also enables us to make a distinction between the effects of entrepreneurship in general and  (p. 9 )growth-oriented entrepreneurship in particular. We present empirical tests of the impact of entrepreneurial activity on GDP growth over a four-year period for a sample of 36 countries. Our empirical anal yses suggest that entrepreneurship does not have an effect on economic growth in medium-income countries, in contrast to transition and high-income countries where especially growth-oriented entrepreneurship seems to contribute strongly to macroeconomic growth. 4. 2  Entrepreneurship and economic development Development is a broad concept entailing the raising of human capabilities (Sen  1999).One of the central challenges in improving economic development is to increase the standards of living for individuals and growth of the economy as a whole. Even though economic growth in itself is a rather narrow target, it is probably one of the most important targets for development policies. It is also one of the measures that is most easy to access for analysts, and probably the best measure to make cross-national (Barro  1991; Sala-i-Martin  1997) and historical (Maddison  2001) analyses of the development of economies.Traditionally the economic output of a country is seen as a function of capital and labour inputs, combined with technical change (Solow  1957). Of course, conflicts and wars might interrupt this function (Sala-i-Martin  1997), but these are ‘just’ contingencies. The standard production function used shows that economic output (Y) is a function of the sum of labour and capital inputs, and the level of technological knowledge (i. e. productivity). This means that economic growth—the growth of economic output—is a function of the growth of labour and capital inputs and technological progress.In traditional models of economic growth investment in capital, labour, and technology is sufficient to realize economic growth. New models of economic growth see these investments as a necessary complement to entrepreneurship/innovation, but not as a sufficient explanation for economic growth in its own right (Nelson and Pack  1999). One could even argue that high rates of investment in human and physical capital are them selves stimulated by effective innovation, and cannot be maintained in the absence of innovation.Recent studies emphasize entrepreneurship as a driver of economic development and some authors include entrepreneurship as a fourth production factor in the macroeconomic production function (Audretsch and Keilbach  2004). Entrepreneurship is the factor that creates wealth by combining existing production factors in new ways. Entrepreneurs experiment with new combinations of which the outcomes are uncertain, but in order to make progress, many new variations have to be tried in order to find out which ones will  (p. 80 )  improve (economic) life (Rosenberg and Birdzell  1986).Other authors have argued that entrepreneurship will only unlock economic development if a proper institutional setting is in place (Baumol  1990; Boettke and Coyne  2003; Powell  2008). This institutional setting comprises informal as well as formal institutions (North  1990). An essential formal in stitution for welfare enhancing entrepreneurship is property rights. Insecure property rights have been an important constraint on the investments by entrepreneurs in transition countries, even more so than capital market constraints (Johnson, McMillan, and Woodruff  2000).A specific example regarding property rights is the fact that until 1988 private firms with more than seven workers were not even allowed to operate legally in China (Dorn  2008). One might say that the production factors capital, labour, technology, and entrepreneurship are the proximate causes of economic development, while institutions are a fundamental cause of economic development (Acemoglu, Johnson, and Robinson  2004). Next to productivity growth and technological change in established sectors, the development process in less advanced countries is largely about structural change (Gries and Naude  2010; Nelson and Pack1999; Rodrik  2007).It is a process in which an economy finds out—self-dis covers—what it can be good at producing, out of the many products that already exist. The role of entrepreneurs in developing countries does not equal innovation and R&D as commonly understood in advanced economies. Their role is to discover that a certain good, already well-established in world markets, can be produced at home at low cost (Hausmann and Rodrik  2003; Rodrik  2007).   Examples of this are the entrepreneurs that figured out that Bangladesh was good in the production of T-shirts, Colombia in cut flowers, India in software services, and Taiwan in bicycles and display technologies. Even if entrepreneurs cannot appropriate all these gains for themselves, their discoveries generate large social gains for their economies. Spurring entrepreneurs to invest in their home economy is said to be one of the most important aspects of stimulating growth in poor countries (Rodrik  2007). Investing refers here to innovation (e. g. mploying new technology, producing new products, searching for new markets) and expanding capacity. These investments trigger the combination of capital investment and technological change. In advanced capitalist economies, innovation and structural change take place through the combined efforts of small (independent inventors) and large innovative (organized R&D) firms, which complement each other in changing the economy (Nooteboom  1994; Baumol  2002). In developing countries the role of large firms is relatively small (Ghoshal, Hahn, and Moran  1999).In transition countries there are relatively many large organizations but these are largely in a process of restructuring and dismantling. This means that  (p. 81 )  small firms will be the prime movers in the process of structural change in developing and transition economies. We expect that the level of growth-oriented entrepreneurship in a country is a more relevant driver of economic growth than the mostly used indicators of entrepreneurship like self-employ ment and new firm formation.In contrast to rich countries, entrepreneurship in medium-income countries is mainly driven by necessity (Bosma et al. 2008). 2  Most entrepreneurs in these economies do not start a firm because they desire independence or because they want to increase their income as compared to being an employee, which are the dominant motives in rich countries. Most new businesses in medium-income countries are started out of necessity, in contrast to high-income countries, where entrepreneurship is most often opportunity-driven.This is reflected in the finding that in poor countries self-employed persons are less happy than employees, while the reverse is true in high-income countries (Blanchflower and Oswald  1998; Graham  2005). Entrepreneurs in medium-income countries most often start a business because they have no other way of earning a living. These entrepreneurs are not likely to be involved in a process of self-discovery; their actions are not likely to have an effect on the restructuring and diversification of the poor economies (Rodrik  2007). . 3  Data and research methods It is generally acknowledged that there are differences in the distribution of entrepreneurship across countries. Studies exploring differences in entrepreneurship across countries often focus on the incidence of new firm registration or self-employment, which may not be reliable indicators when applied to transition and developing countries with significant informal economies and fewer alternatives to self-employment.For these reasons we have used the Young Business (YB) indicator, defined as the percentage of adult population that is the owner/manager of a business that is less than 42 months old. Many studies have used the total entrepreneurial activity index, but that also includes the more speculative category of nascent entrepreneurs (individuals preparing a new business). In the current study we investigate whether the presence of growth-oriented en trepreneurs is a more important determinant of national economic growth than entrepreneurial activity in general.We will perform regression analyses with the YB  high-growth expectation  rate and the YB  medium-growth expectation  rate as independent variables and compare their impact on economic growth with the impact of the general YB index. The data and model used in this study are described below. We use a sample of 36 countries participating in the GEM in 2002. Data on six basic variables are used in our model: YB rate, YB medium-growth, YB  (p. 82 )  high-growth, growth of GDP, per capita income, and the growth competitiveness index (GCI). YB indexYB is defined as the percentage of adult population that is owner/manager of a business that is less than 42 months old. The YB high-(medium) growth expectation rate is defined as the percentage of adult population that is owner/manager of a business that is less than 42 months old,  and expects to employ 20 (six) emplo yees or more within five years  (YB6 and YB20). The YB medium-growth rate has some similarity to the entrepreneurship indicator used by Djankov et al. (2006), which includes owner-managers of a business with five or more employees. Data on the YB rate are taken from the GEM Adult Population Survey for 2002.Growth of GDP (? GDP) (Real) GDP growth rates are taken from the IMF World Economic Outlook database of the International Monetary Fund from September 2005. In equations (1) and (2) below variable ? GDPit  refers to the period 2002–5 (average annual growth) while the lagged GDP growth variable (? GDPi,t-1) refers to the period 1998–2001. Per capita income (GNIC) Most studies on GDP growth include the initial level of income in their analysis and find it to be significant (the conditional convergence effect, cf. Abramovitz  1986). Gross national income per capita 2001 is expressed in (thousands of) PPP dollars.These data are taken from the 2002 World Development Indicators database of the World Bank. Growth Competitiveness Index (GCI) In order to cover some aspects of the state of technology and institutions in a country (see Section  4. 2) we used the GCI for the year 2001 of the World Economic Forum (see McArthur and Sachs  2002). Given the low number of observations we are forced to use a combined index in our model. Even though there are huge problems in measuring technological capabilities and institutions (see Lall2001), the composite GCI is probably the best combined index available that covers these two factors simultaneously. p. 83 )  We investigate whether (growth-oriented) entrepreneurship may be considered as a determinant of economic growth, alongside the well-known determinants technology, institutions, and the macroeconomic environment, which are captured by the GCI. As both entrepreneurship and the factors underlying the GCI are assumed to be structural characteristics of an economy, we do not want to explain short-te rm economic growth but rather growth in the medium-term. Therefore we choose average annual growth over a period of four years (2002–5) as the dependent variable in this study.Following van Stel, Carree, and Thurik (2005), we use (the log of) initial income-level of countries to correct for catch-up effects, and lagged growth of GDP to correct for reversed causality effects, as additional control variables. 3 We allow for the possibility of different effects for high-income, transition, and medium-income countries. In addition we also test whether the effect of YB is different for transition countries. 4  YB rates may reflect different types of entrepreneurs in countries with different development levels, implying different impacts on growth.This is tested by defining separate YB variables for different groups of countries (high-income, transition, and medium-income countries). Our model is represented by equations (1) and (2). These equations are estimated separately by or dinary least squares. The expectation that growth-oriented YBs contribute more to national economic growth than YBs in general corresponds to b2  (c2) being larger than b1  (c1). In these equations sub-scripts t and t-1 loosely indicate that the independent variables are measured prior to the dependent variable.The exact years and periods for which the variables are measured can be found in the variable description above. ?GDPit=a+b1YBrichi,t? 1+c1YBtransitioni,t? 1+d1YBpoori,t? 1 +e? log(GNICi,t? 1)+f? GCIi,t? 1+g GDPi,t? 1+? it (1) ?GDPit=a+b2YB_high-growthrichi,t? 1+c2YB_high-growthtransitioni,t? 1+d2YB_high-growthpoori,t? 1+e? log(GNICi,t? 1)+f? GCIi,t? 1+g GDPi,t? 1+? it (2) To illustrate the data at hand, Table  4. 1  provides the YB rates and the YB medium- and high-growth rates in 2002 as well as the average annual growth rates of GDP over the period 2002–5.From Table  4. 1  and Figures  4. 1  and  4. 2  it can be seen that the ranking of countries in terms of YB or YB high-growth may be quite different. For instance, while China ranks fifth in terms of YB, it ranks first in terms of  (p. 84 ) Table 4. 1 Young business rates (2002) and GDP growth rates for 36 countrieshigh-growth YB. In contrast, Thailand ranks third in terms of YB, but only tenth in terms of high-growth YB. Figure 4. 1  Young business rates Figure 4. 2  Young business 20 rates Figure 4. 3  Correlation of young business rates and GDP growth rates Figure 4.   Correlation of high growth-oriented young business rates (20+) and GDP growth rates When we regress the rate of GDP growth on the YB rate and the YB20 rate, the YB20 rate reveals to have a stronger correlation with GDP growth (see Figures  4. 3  and  4. 4). (p. 85 )(p. 86 ) 4. 4  Entrepreneurship and national economic growth 4. 4. 1  Regression analyses The results of our empirical exercises are in Table  4. 2. Model I presents the regression results of the impact of the general YB i ndex (see equation (1)), while Models II and III show the results using the YB6 and YB20 rates as main independent variables (see equation (2)).The results presented in Table  4. 2  show that the impact of entrepreneurial activity is significantly positive for rich countries, but effectively zero for poor countries. The presence of growth-oriented entrepreneurs seems to be more important for achieving GDP growth than general entrepreneurship. Comparing the coefficients of the various YB rates, we see that the impact of YB6 is greater when compared to the impact of YB in general. Meanwhile the impact of YB20 is even greater, but not always statistically significant. Having more growth-oriented entrepreneurs seems to be particularly important in transition countries.Both the magnitude and the statistical significance of the estimated coefficient point to a stronger impact compared to high-income or medium-income countries. There are many reasons that could(p. 87 ) Table 4. 2 Regre ssion models average annual growth of GDP over the period 2002–5 (N=36)explain the importance of growth-oriented entrepreneurs in transition countries (Smallbone and Welter  2006). First, there are many entrepreneurial opportunities in formerly state-dominated sectors. Second, many highly qualified individuals lost their jobs at state-financed organizations (e. . universities, enterprises, government services). Third, there are many highly qualified (potential) entrepreneurs in these countries (especially in Eastern European countries), who do not face the opportunity costs of working for large public or private organizations. Fourth, those highly qualified (potential) entrepreneurs are also well connected to the power networks that were, and to a large extent still are, important in the political and economic arena of these countries, which takes away some barriers for high-growth firms in these countries.Summarizing, it may be argued that in transition economies high-grow th opportunities are more widely available and hence, a higher number of growth-oriented entrepreneurs willing to act on these opportunities may be particularly fruitful for achieving growth in these countries. However, we should be aware of the large diversity in the group of transition countries, which comprises countries like Russia and China, as well as Hungary and Slovenia. (p. 88 )  Our regression results should be interpreted with care as the analysis is based on a limited number of observations (36 countries).As a test of robustness we estimated the models leaving out one country at a time, i. e. we computed 36 auxiliary regressions, where each regression uses 35 observations (each time leaving one of the 36 countries out). Although t-values sometimes dropped a little, coefficients and t-values were generally in line with those reported in Table  4. 2. The country that matters the most for the results obtained in Table  4. 2  is China. This is not surprising as China combines high YB/YB6/YB20 rates with high GDP growth rates (see Table  4. 1). When leaving this country out of the sample, the coefficient (t-value) for the transition countries is 0. 2 (0. 5) for the YB rate, 1. 47 (1. 2) for the YB6 rate, and 1. 72 (1. 1) for the YB20 rate. The low t-values are in part due to the low number of observations. Note, however, that the coefficients are very similar to the full sample estimates reported in Table  4. 2. Furthermore, the Jarque–Bera test on the normality of disturbances is passed for all models reported in Table  4. 2, indicating that it is not necessary to remove individual country observations. Therefore we feel that our results are quite robust to the potential influence of outliers.Nevertheless, given the low number of observations, the results should only be seen as a first illustration of how the impact of different types of entrepreneurship may differ between groups of countries with different levels of development. 4 . 4. 2  Medium-income countries Within the groups of transition and developing economies there are substantial differences in entrepreneurship rates. Chile stands out because of a particularly high rate of growth-oriented entrepreneurship, while Mexico has a particularly low rate of growth-oriented entrepreneurship.In contrast to high-income countries, entrepreneurship in medium-income countries is mainly driven by necessity: self-employment is often the only occupational choice given a paucity of other sources of employment (necessity-based entrepreneurship; see Acs and Amoros  2008; Bosma et al. 2008). The actions of most of the entrepreneurs in medium-income countries are not likely to have an effect on the restructuring and diversification of the poor economies. This would be the whole story if the rates of growth-oriented entrepreneurship would also be marginal in these economies.This is only the case for Mexico. Next to Chile—where opportunity-driven entrepreneurshi p is dominant—Brazil, India, and Argentina perform quite well with respect to growth-oriented entrepreneurship. This means that there still is a substantial group of entrepreneurs in medium-income countries that might get involved in a process of self-discovery. The problem in practice is that in contrast to rich and transition economies, growth-oriented entrepreneurship is less likely to  (p. 89 )  be realized in developing economies, due to constraints on the provision of capital and (skilled) labour.An additional constraint in medium-income countries is that there are relatively few (foreign) large companies, which could act as a training ground for prospective growth-oriented entrepreneurs, and could open up distribution channels for new fledgling enterprises (Knorringa  1996). This is also reflected in the finding of Bosma, Stam, and Wennekers (2010) that the incidence of intrapreneurship (i. e. employees developing new business activities for their employer) is mu ch lower in medium-income countries than in high-income countries.In addition, one should make a distinction between large firms with productive (manufacturing) and resource extractive (mining, oil) activities here, as the former will be more useful for the development of entrepreneurship than the latter. 4. 4. 3  Transition countries New firms in transition countries not only displace obsolete incumbents but also fill in new markets, which were either non-existent or poorly populated in the past. Our study suggests that in transition countries, growth-oriented entrepreneurs make an important contribution to economic growth.They create new jobs with relatively high incomes which the small incumbent population of private firms cannot provide. This entrepreneurial growth process is facilitated by the relatively high levels of human capital in combination with relatively low opportunity costs of self-employment of the adult population. The high degree of environmental dynamism in the se countries—which is likely to positively affect the level of growth expectations and realizations of entrepreneurs in these countries—requires ambitious and well-connected entrepreneurs in order to translate these abundant opportunities in economic growth.There are considerable differences within the group of transition countries. Hsu (2005) shows that the role of these connections differs considerably between China and Russia: in China it was a tool which could be used to build enough trust to allow business transactions to succeed (‘capitalism without contracts’). In contrast, in Russia these connections devolved into corruption, and faded in importance for ordinary citizens. Without a way to build trust or extend networks, Russians retreated into defensive involution, and engaged in predatory behaviour against those outside their small circles of friends.Instead of capitalism without contracts, Russia suffered the depredations of ‘capitalists wi thout capitalism’. There are also substantial differences in entrepreneurship rates within the groups of transition economies. China stands out because of particularly high rates of growth-oriented entrepreneurship (cf. Hsu  2005). Even though the YB  (p. 90 )  rate is below the average of transition countries, the growth of self-employment has been enormous, not only in the richer coastal provinces, but also in rural areas (Mohapatra, Rozelle, and Goodhue  2007).Research by Djankov et al. (2006) also shows that entrepreneurs in China are more risk-taking and more committed to an entrepreneurial career than entrepreneurs in Russia. In addition, Russia has (and had: see Hsu  2005) a particularly low rate of entrepreneurship in general as well. The striking difference between entrepreneurship rates in China and Russia can be explained by their different paths from socialism to capitalism: gradualism and a shock therapy (see Burawoy  1996).In China the gradual transf ormation started with a policy of decollectivization (decentralization of property relations) in the late 1970s and the promotion of small-scale industry, with a focus on promoting independent entrepreneurship. Experimentation with new economic arrangements, for example privatization of small state-owned enterprises, has led to a favourable accumulation of productive capabilities in China. In contrast, Russia underwent a shock therapy in which the old communist regime was liquidated, with a focus on rapid privatization of the state sector.However, the Russian state failed to organize a market economy, which led to a coordination and entrepreneurial vacuum into which have stepped conglomerates, banks and mafia, siphoning off surplus from production to exchange (Burawoy  1996). 4. 5  Discussion of policy implications In this section we will briefly discuss the potential implications of our exploration of the relationship between types of entrepreneurship and economic growth for en trepreneurship policy and industrial/cluster policy in medium-income and transition countries. 5 4. 5. 1  Entrepreneurship policyOur empirical analyses suggest that entrepreneurship does not have an effect on economic growth in medium-income countries, in contrast to transition and high-income countries where both growth-oriented entrepreneurship and entrepreneurship in general seem to contribute strongly to macroeconomic growth. Does this mean that stimulating entrepreneurship in medium-income countries is bad policy? The least we can say is that stimulating entrepreneurship alone will be insufficient as it is likely to attract necessity entrepreneurs with low human capital levels who do not contribute to economic growth.The non-significant effect of entrepreneurship on economic growth in medium-income countries might point at a shortage of large firms in these countries. By exploitation of economies of scale and scope and by  (p. 91 )  adopting and diffusing technology devel oped elsewhere, large firms are important in transforming a developing economy into a developed economy (van Stel, Carree, and Thurik  2005). In these economies local workers are more productive working as wage employees than as entrepreneurs. Nevertheless stimulating growth-oriented entrepreneurship might be an additional element of transforming a developing economy into a developed one.Attracting investments by large (possibly foreign) firms, stimulating growth-oriented entrepreneurship, investing in labour and capital, and improving the institutional framework may be the recipe for growth here. On the one hand this is old news, in that it provides a plea for the traditional role of governments to invest in education and physical infrastructure, and to build and maintain a set of institutions that enable the development of the private sector (cf. Rosenberg and Birdzell  1986). On the other hand, the addition of growth-oriented entrepreneurship in development policy for medium- income and transition countries is a new element.One must be careful to target the right group of entrepreneurs though, i. e. governments should avoid that resources made available through government stimulation programmes are absorbed by necessity entrepreneurs with low human capital levels. 4. 5. 2  Industrial/cluster policy The focus of this chapter has been on the country-level, which disregards the sub-national level of analysis, and what is of particular relevance here, the level of regional clusters (regional concentrations of particular industries). These regional clusters have proved to be important drivers of economic development in, for example, Taiwan, India, and Brazil.These clusters are both driven by and drive growth-oriented entrepreneurship. Growth-oriented entrepreneurs that start to invest in a particular industry are needed in order to reach a critical mass that is needed to reach certain agglomeration economies (Braunerhjelm and Feldman  2006). If the build- up of capacity to this level of critical mass is not reached due to the lack of complementary investments, there might be a role to play for governments to overcome coordination failure, for example by providing investment guarantees for entrepreneurs (see Rodrik  2007).Such industrial policy is not about ‘picking winners’ or comprehensive planning, but encouraging experiments with new types of economic activity (Rodrik2007). Since it is impossible to judge winners and losers in advance, competent and growth-oriented entrepreneurs should be encouraged to try, success should be rewarded, and failure should not be coddled (Nelson and Pack  1999). These clusters do not have to be close to the technology frontier (as in advanced capitalist economies). The real policy implications arise from thinking carefully about the particular sources of advantage for a nascent cluster  (p. 2 )  and why that source might yield short-term complements with the potential to become l ong-term substitutes (Bresnahan, Gambardella, and Saxenian  2001). Cooperation of clusters in developing countries with existing richer economies is not ‘colonialist’. Take for example the linkages with the US. India and Taiwan are linked to the US (especially Silicon Valley) via outsourcing of software services and manufacturing (due to low labour costs), but also by a returning group of expatriates who have worked there, and who see the benefits of long distance collaboration (Saxenian  1999).There is a flow of people—the so-called Argonauts (Saxenian  2006)—and ideas back and forth between rich and emerging economies. Migrant workers tend to be among the most entrepreneurial in society. Governments of developing countries should not only look at these expatriate workers as a source of remittances. Given their entrepreneurialism, skills, and exposure to business in the developed world, as well as the desire of many of them to return home, they may be very important as a source of self-discovery in their country of origin (Rodrik  2007).In addition to developing the private sector, these return migrants may provide the new elite needed for building up a civil society. Only a fraction of the money spent on attracting FDI would be needed to target nationals abroad. This would attract more knowledgeable human capital and durable investments than most FDI will do. Once critical mass is reached within a regional cluster, it is likely to generate or attract growth-oriented entrepreneurs (e. g. Argonauts), who in turn stimulate further macroeconomic growth. 4. 5. 3  Limitations and further researchThe regression analyses in this chapter are of limited value: they have not only simplified the range6and (linear) effects of determinants for economic development, they have also dumbed down economic development to economic growth over a short-term (four-year) period. We know that sustaining growth is more difficult (and caused by diff erent factors) than igniting it (Rodrik  2007). This also connects to one of the other shortcomings: sustaining growth probably requires much more extensive institutional reform than can be properly taken into account in linear regression analyses.Next to better measures of institutions, future research should take into account samples with low-income countries and a larger number of medium-income and transition countries, and multiple years in order to achieve more robust empirical analyses. In addition, our data did not allow for testing the multiplicative effect of entrepreneurship, so we only analysed the additive effect. A larger number of cases would enable the inclusion of the more traditional indicators of capital and labour in the analyses, and allow for testing the multiplicative effect.

Thursday, August 29, 2019

System enginnering Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

System enginnering - Essay Example While artistic concepts have been retained from pre enlightenment period, analytical concepts of engineering are modern. One of the systems engineering principles that Griffin applies in his paper is maintenance of â€Å"integrity of the system† to ensure purpose (Leffingwell and Widrig, p. 69). This is expressed in his argument that failure is inevitable in processes and cannot be controlled by â€Å"additional processes, safety measures and alerts† (Griffins, p. 5). Consequently, high level of integrity, both in a system’s development process and in the system’s components is essential in successful systems engineering (Griffins, p. 5, 7). This further identifies the principle of identification and management of systems’ needs, instead of establishing control measures to protect and sustain a system (Griffins, p. 5). Griffins’ definition of system’s engineering (p. 6) also identifies the system’s principles of identifying the problem to be solved and client’s needs from the system. He achieves this by identifying the engineering scope that involves satisfying specifications under constraints. He also addresses principles such as developments of, and adherence to plans, exploration of alternatives, and validation of processes through the scientific approach of process analysis (Griffins, p. 5-7; Leffingwell and

Wednesday, August 28, 2019

Week 7 Discussion Question 2 Retained Earnings Assignment

Week 7 Discussion Question 2 Retained Earnings - Assignment Example Items contained in this section are usually complex to various audiences (Greiner, 2002). To prepare a balance sheet that serves its purpose, accountants should make orderly arrangement of items contained in the section according to people’s knowledge. For instance, entries in the section should correspond to easily identifiable items (Weygandt, Kimmel, & Kieso, 2010). Accountants should also refrain from using complex terminologies when creating entries for the section. 2. Evaluate what a cumulative loss in the retained earnings section of a company’s balance sheet might indicate about the financial performance in the future, indicating how this may influence decisions made about the company. Provide support for your answer. The retained earnings section indicates a company’s success through a comparison of its income and expenses. Cumulative loss in the retained earning section indicates poor performance of the company (Greiner, 2002). This implies that the company is not creating sufficient net profit to cater for its losses. In addition cumulative loses also indicate postponed payments to the company’s creditors. This indicates that the company is operating on borrowed credit and, therefore at risk of

Tuesday, August 27, 2019

INSURANCE LAW Coursework Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 5000 words

INSURANCE LAW - Coursework Example ..... ts pursuant to which shares are proportioned among members to provide coverage of the management’s expenses and contemplated claims that will likely arise. Pagonis explains: In theory, the clubs pass back to the shipowners the benefit of a good underwriting year through reduced or returned premiums. In practice, the shipowners are usually asked to pay â€Å"back calls† in order to cover expenses and claims that were not foreseen in the budget.12 The primary purpose of P&I Clubs is to provide indemnity insurance as opposed to liability insurance. Even so, shipowners join P&I Clubs primarily to provide insurance in a variety of risks that are not provided for by virtue of H&M insurance policies.13 Shipowners join P&I clubs based on the â€Å"principle of mutuality – the joint, shared or reciprocal protection against losses.†14 Since P&I Clubs are by their nature not conventional insurance providers, but rather indemnity and protection organizations, there is some doubt as to whether or not maritime insurance actions can be applied against P&I Clubs. In The Alloborgia, the House of Lords ruled that P&I Clubs can be applied to the Third Parties Act but could only be applied in terms of indemnity relative to risks covered.15 P&I Clubs function under their own regulatory framework which governs the members’ relationships and the relationship between the club and the members and are generally viewed as a core part of the applicable insurance policy. For this reason, direct actions against P&I Clubs are prescribed by reference to specific statutory terms.16 Moreover, direct action against P&I Clubs are subject to the tortfeasor’s â€Å"status† as â€Å"member of the Club† and the Club’s rules as well as the clauses contained in the insurance policy.17 P&I Clubs will

Monday, August 26, 2019

Australia in the Asia Pacific Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

Australia in the Asia Pacific - Essay Example This, along with democratic institutions, cultural diversity and a record of constructive international engagement, underpins Australian participation in world affairs. Key components of Australia's security strategy include a strong national defense capability; the alliance relationship with the United States; bilateral defense and security relationships with Asia Pacific countries; and multilateral security links, especially through the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) Regional Forum. Australia is closely engaged in international counter-terrorism efforts both regionally and around the world." According to the World Bank, the East Asia Pacific region consists of more than 20 countries and the region is home to more than 2 billion of the earth's people. The countries included in this region are; Cambodia, China, Fiji, Indonesia, Kiribati, Korea, the People's Democratic Republic of Lao (Lao PDR), Malaysia, Marshall Islands, FS Micronesia, Mongolia, Palau, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Thailand, Timor-Leste, Tonga, Vanuatu, and Vietnam. (http://www.worldbank.org) One of the main reasons why Australia needs to focus on the South Asian Pacific region is that it is a lucrative potential market for our country. "Close engagement with Asia is an imperative for Australia, and bilateral political, security and people-to-people links between Australia and many Asian countries are strong and sophisticated. Extensive two-way trade and investment and the development of comprehensive bilateral free trade agreements characterize economic relations with a number of countries in Asia. Japan and China are Australia's largest and third-largest export destinations respectively." (http://www.dfat.gov.au/aib/australia_foreign_trade_policy.html) As with all the rest of the world; Australia likes to maintain close-knit relations with Pacific Asia. The following map helps to determine the layout of the South Asian region on the world map.Source: http://www.lexisnexis.com Source: http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTEASTASIAPACIFIC/Images/eap-map.jpg In the 2006 opening address to the Energy Security in Asia Pacific Policy Forum, Australian Treasurer, the Honorable Peter Costello MP stated the following statistics, "Australia has 8 per cent of the world's total reserves of coal. It has been the world's largest exporter of coal since 1986. In 2004, Australia accounted for 55 per cent of total world exports of metallurgical coal and 20 per cent of total world exports of thermal coal. It has 2 per cent of the world's natural gas reserves. Since 1989, it has emerged as one of the world's largest exporters of Liquid Natural Gas (LNG). Australian firms have become known as noteworthy long-term suppliers of LNG to China. Australia's Northwest Shelf endeavor has been chosen by China to be the sole provider of LNG. The agreement will worth between $A20 and $A25 billion in export revenue for Australia. This is Australia's largest solitary export deal. Australia has 40 per cent of the world's proven reserves of uranium and is the world's second largest uranium

Sunday, August 25, 2019

The Commonwealth games OR The Olympics Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

The Commonwealth games OR The Olympics - Essay Example (Heath and Roberts). In the Olympic Games, a combined team called Great Britain comprising England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales is only fielded in all sports disciplines. This has been the case in all the previous Olympics, and will be case in the upcoming London Olympics in 2012. â€Å"Team GB will have a chance to shine again, this time on home soil, when the next Olympics comes to London† (Berkmoes 2009). People will normally back this combination or team, thereby reinforcing their belief in Britishness. â€Å"When an England team (or athlete) fails to qualify†¦, the media quickly appropriates other British or Irish teams as ours.† (Smith and Porter 2004). However, the British identity gets changed according to the situations. The current issue which again reinforces the clash in identities is the decision about fielding a combined football team in the London Olympics. With a combined Great Britain team participating in every Olympic event, it should be the case with the f ootball event as well. So, sections of population including even the former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown proposed the idea of fielding a combined Great Britain football team, with players from England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales. â€Å"Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who is Scottish, has already jumped on board and suggested that another Scot, Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson, could coach the team.† (Silva 2009). However, this arrangement is not welcomed by the Scottish, Irish and Welsh football associations, who opined that having a combined team will negatively impact the individuality of each nation. Gordon Smith, Chief executive of the Scottish FA, had this to say â€Å"Scotland, Wales, England and Northern Ireland have always been autonomous where football is concerned and that is the way it should remain† (guardian.co.uk 2009). They have also

Saturday, August 24, 2019

Discuss Nathanael Greene's Southern campaign. Why do some historians Essay

Discuss Nathanael Greene's Southern campaign. Why do some historians view Greene as being second only to Washington in importance in winning the war - Essay Example Greene was handed the responsibility of leading the then weak Revolutionary southern army that had already been led by three commanders who failed in their duties (Golway, 2005). He was given the duty of commanding the war against the British occupation of the south. With a small and poorly trained army, he was up against a more established and experienced British army. With the awareness that his troops were not able to win large and decisive wars, he planned brief and sudden attacks against the prominent British army. He took a bold step to divide his army into smaller groups, forcing the British troops to do the same (Tucker, 2009). He then ordered the Continental army to retreat, and the British, without realizing the tactic used against them, followed the Continental army. This drove the British army further away from their supply base, making them weaker and eventually losing the battle (Tucker, 2009). Some historians view Greene as second to Washington in the importance of winning the war because he was appointed by Washington and took orders from him (Carbone, 2008). He also succeeded where three other commanders had failed. In the same way like Washington, he was gifted with the ability to use small means to a significant advantage (Carbone,

Can we believe in objective ideals Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Can we believe in objective ideals - Essay Example The Idols of the Tribe are supposed to connect one person to every other individual in the world by making a man think that everyone is inherently similar to everyone else in the universe (Bacon, 1620). While this may be true for a large portion of the time as in every person who is alive needs to breath and that every person who gets hungry needs to find food, the similarities often end quite quickly to be replaced with differences that have to be reconciled. Granted that no man is an island and certain social contracts need to be accepted by everyone if civilization is to exist but there is also a need to recognize the diversity which makes the tribe of man divide itself into the tribes of men. Even within tribes, there exist groups, religions, families and even individual differences which further serve to erode the concept of the tribe and decrease the idea of unity amongst individuals. This in turn reduces both the need and the validity of the existence of ideals in nature. In fact, Bacon laments the fact that a man’s sense is falsely confirmed by the standard of things as per his observations (Bacon, 1620). Unfortunately it must be realized that whatever we see around us may be very familiar and comforting to us in the hope that this is how life is supposed to be and this how people around us are supposed to act. For example, a person who has never experienced life outside a suburban American environment could be lulled into thinking at everyone looks and acts like them. Clearly this is a false situation and a wrongly understood objective idol. The majority of the world is not America, the majority of the world is not white, the majority does not live in suburbia and most importantly, the majority of the world is out of the tribe. This is true for people outside the tribe too, for instance a person living in a village in India could think that whatever they see around themselves is the absolute truth of how human beings should be molded and they

Friday, August 23, 2019

International Business Law Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words - 1

International Business Law - Assignment Example The agency intervenes in dispute resolution before they get to the level of a claim in court. It helps clients to access funds from equity partners and banks. The agency increases tenors of loans that are available to investors. Regulatory approach to the regulation of pollution involves governments or other authorities adopting guidelines that stipulate certain pollution levels and ways of maintaining these levels. An example of regulatory approach is the command and control regulation. Non-regulatory approach to the regulation of pollution uses incentives and sensitization to encourage industries to adopt environment-friendly measures and practices. Market-based incentives are an example of non-regulatory pollution regulation. The Kyoto Protocol is an agreement that many nations negotiated during the 1997 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in Kyoto, Japan. The main objective of the Kyoto Protocol is to mandate nations to reduce their emission of greenhouse gases by set rates. For example, in nation present at the convention agreed to cut their annual greenhouse emissions by 5.2% by 2012 relative to 1990. The greenhouse gases targeted are carbon dioxide, sulfur hexafluoride, methane, HFCs, nitrous oxide, and PFCs. The 1989 Basel United Nations Convention introduced measures regulate the movement of hazardous waste for disposal in other countries. The convention instituted a condition that require that states that are parties to the convention cannot authorize or transport hazardous waste across borders into or out of a country that prohibits such movement. Party states cannot move hazardous waste into another country if they have the capacity to recycle it. They also cannot move waste into a country that lacks sound waste management measures (August, Mayer and Bixby 52-

Thursday, August 22, 2019

Pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics of oral Metoprolol Essay Example for Free

Pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics of oral Metoprolol Essay The patient, Roger Smith, is a forty year old man and came to the doctors office yesterday morning presenting a chief complaint of on and off headaches. Every now and then he felt dizzy and would complain about blurred vision. He mentions that he does not have any allergies to food or medicines. He admits that he doesnt do any regular exercise. He favors salty food and eats plentiful of it everyday and prefers to drink alcohol two to three times per week. He was an only child and both his father and mother are deceased. The patients mother had hypertension and so did his mothers father. When he was a child he only had varicella zoster. He also mentioned that he sought medical attention a year ago and was diagnosed with essential hypertension. After that, the patient did not visit his previous doctor for a follow up on his medical health. The patient confesses that he did not follow his previous doctor’s prescription. Dr. Robert Jones, took the patients blood pressure and it read as 140/90 mm Hg. The patient was asked to undergo laboratory test for the patients blood creatinine (National Kidney Function, 2008). On the following day, Dr. Robert Jones, measured the patient’s blood pressure again and it read 140/90 mm Hg. The patient told the doctor that he took note of his blood pressure several days ago and it also had the same reading and it never went down. The doctor asked the patient to present him the laboratory result for the patients glomerular filtration rate. The glomerular filtration rate is the test to measure the patients kidney functions level. It is important to find out what the result is to prevent the progression of a kidney disease due to hypertension (National Kidney Function, 2008). The patients glomerular filtration rate value (GFR) was 72 mL/min/1.73 m2. The doctor interpreted to the patient that his glomerular filtration rate is normal and his kidneys are not affected yet by the hypertension. The GFR is calculated by the serum creatinine of the patient which is 1.4 mg/dL, the age of the patient is forty years old, the patients race is African American and the gender is male. The normal glomerular filtration rate value is 70  ± 14 mL/min/m2 for the male and 60  ± 10 mL/min/m2 for the female (National Kidney Function, 2008). The doctor explained that essential hypertension or primary hypertension is the blood pressure thats consistently higher than the normal value, 120/80 mm Hg, and there is no cause found for the high blood pressure. It can be controlled with normal exercise, a well-balanced diet, proper treatment and constant monitoring of the blood pressure. If it is left untreated, it will lead to heart attack, heart failure, damage to the kidney and it might cause the patient to lose his vision. (PSMHMC, 2006). The patient needs to lower the systolic and diastolic blood pressure (BP) to treat his hypertension as this is an important cardiovascular risk factor (Koenig, 2001). The doctor educated the patient to maintain his weight level near to the normal and eat a well-balanced diet. He was instructed to limit the salt intake everyday to 2,000mg or even lower. Exercise regularly and avoid drinking too much alcohol and limit the intake of caffeine. All these are needed to be followed to control the blood pressure. The patient was also educated about taking care of his blood pressure because it will cause the kidney to fail. In order to prevent this from happening, his blood pressure must be controlled (DailyMed, 2006). The doctor prescribed the patient to take metoprolol tartrate 100mg for the first four weeks and then increased the dose to 200mg for another four weeks. The patient is instructed to orally take metoprolol once daily (Koenig, 2001). Metoprolol is a beta-adrenergic blocking agent that decreases the heart rate, decreases the contraction force of the heart muscle and it lowers the the blood pressure. Metoprolol targets the sympathetic nervous system by blocking its action in order to stimulate the heart beats pace. (Hildemann, et. al., 2002). The doctor further explained that metoprolol helps relax the blood vessels and will help the heart beat at a more regular rate. In this way, high blood pressure is reduced. Other heart diseases, for example stroke or heart attack will be prevented (Koenig, 2001). The medicine is taken through the mouth and will pass through the digestive tract before it can reach the bloodstream for absorption. The onset of action of metoprolol as an anti-hypertensive if taken orally is 1 1/2 to 4 hours. It will last for ten to twenty hours and will be absorbed at a percentage of 95%. For its metabolism, it is extensively hepatic through CYP2D6; significant first-pass effect. The half-life elimination period is three to four hours (Koenig, 2001). Metoprolol will be excreted through the urine with the percentage of 3% to 10% as an unchanged drug (DailyMed, 2006). According to the explanation of the doctor, metoprolol is metabolized in the liver by the cytochrome P450 2D6. Therefore, metabolization of the drug depends on the genetic polymorph that determines the hepatic hydroxylation rate. Metoprolol is excreted by the kidney as metabolites and is absorbed within seventy-two hours by glomerular filtration. The patient is further informed that while he is taking metoprolol, he is advised not to take in any other medicine. He should follow the correct dosage at the right time, in other words, the patient is not allowed to change the dosage or the time hes supposed to take the medicine. The medicine should not be taken in with an antacid (DailyMed, 2006). The patient will feel fatigue or dizziness. He should inform the doctor any changes like unusual weight gain or muscle fatigue, swellings of any part the extremities, constipation or should he develop a cough. The patient should maintain a blood pressure of less than 140/90mm Hg. He should take his pulse prior to taking metoprolol orally. The patient will be able to keep himself healthy and fit if he continues to follow the doctors prescription. The systolic and diastolic blood pressure (BP) will be lower when the patient follows the intake of metoprolol as prescribed by the doctor (Koenig, 2001). After eight weeks, the patient came to visit Dr. Robert Jones and had his blood pressure is already 120/80 and his glomerular filtration rate value remains at the normal level. The patient is instructed by the doctor to constantly maintain a healthy diet, regularly exercise and take note of his blood pressure everyday (Koenig, 2001). References: Dailymed (2006). METOPROLOL TARTRATE and HYDROCHLOROTHIAZIDE   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   TABLETS, USP50 mg/25 mg, 100 mg/25 mg and 100 mg/50 mgBeta   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Blocker/Diuretic Antihypertensive. Retrieved February 8, 2008, from   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   http://dailymed.nlm.nih.gov/dailymed/fda/fdaDrugXsl.cfm?id=2522type=display Indian Journal of Pharmacology. (2008) Metoprolol Pindolol: A comparative study in   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   essential hypertension. Retrieved February 8, 2008, from http://www.ijp-online.com/article.asp?issn=02537613;year=1990;volume=22;issue=2;spage=85;epage=88;aulast=Gugli;type=0 S.K. Hildemann, H. Fischer, D. Pittrow, V. Bohlscheid (2002). Metoprolol Succinate SR Plus  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚     Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Hydrochlorothiazide (Beloc-Zok ® Comp) in Patients With Essential Hypertension in   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   General Practice. Medscape Today. Retrieved February 10, 2008, from   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/444414_1 Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center College of Medicine (2006). Essential   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Hypertension. Retrieved February 10, 2008, from   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   http://www.hmc.psu.edu/healthinfo/e/essentialhypertension.htm National Kidney Function (2008). Glomerular Filtration Rate (GFR). Retrieved from   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   February 10, 2008, http://www.kidney.org/kidneydisease/ckd/knowGFR.cfm Wolfgang Koenig, on behalf of the Multicentre Study Group, Department of Internal   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Medicine II-Cardiology, University of Ulm Medical Center, Ulm, Germany   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   (2001). Efficacy and Tolerability of Metoprolol Tartrate in Patients With Mild-to-   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Moderate Essential Hypertension: A Randomised, Double-Blind, Multicentre   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Trial. Retrieved from February 10, 2008, from   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/406240

Wednesday, August 21, 2019

Techniques Used By Mahatma Gandhi During Struggles History Essay

Techniques Used By Mahatma Gandhi During Struggles History Essay At the time when Gandhi landed in India from his long sojourn in South Africa, the Indian national movement he was already so involved with from overseas had been becalmed by the long years of split after the acrimonious Nagpur Congress of 1906. He also arrived at the moment when most of the prominent leaders who had sustained it in the first decades of the century were either dead or on the verge of death. The Congress still had not managed to find solutions to the most common objections thrown at it by the British administrators that it was highly elitist and composed of a small faction of babus. Viceroy Curzons comment that The party contains a number of intelligent, liberal-minded and public-spirited men . . . but as to their relationship with the people of India, the constituency which the Congress Party represents cannot be described as otherwise than a microscopic minority of the total population.  [1]  The creation of Home Rule Leagues by Tilak and Annie Besant may have presaged more populist methods than those used previously by the localised and conservative Congress, but the sentiments raised remained Western ideals. Annie Besants tract of 1917 said that India demands Home Rule for two reasons, one essential and vital, the other less important but weighty: first, because Freedom is the birthright of every Nation: secondly, because her most important interests are now made subservient to the interests of the British Empire without her consent, and her resources are not utilised for her greatest needs.  [2]  Highly relevant no doubt to the liberal elite who made the strongest supporters of Congress but not relevant to the ryots and the peasants whose life is not one of political aspiration but of mute penury and toil. Indeed, Gandhi made this point within a year of returning from Africa: the system of education at present in vogue is wholly unsuited to India it is a bad copy of the Western model. It has dried up all originality, the vernaculars and has deprived the masses of the benefit of higher knowledge which would otherwise have percolated to them through the intercourse of the educated classes with them. The system has resulted in creating a gulf between educated India and the masses.  [3]   One of the first tasks which Gandhi therefore set himself on rejoining his political career was to make moves to create a real national unity and to fuse together previously local or sectional interests into a genuine national movement. Indeed, he recalled of first political organ with which he chose to involve himself Gujarat Sabha that for me the value of it lies in the education that the masses will receive and the unity that the educated men and women will have of coming in close touch with the people.  [4]  Gandhi spoke to the peasants of Champaran in 1917 not of political demands, not of home rule nor for reformed legislatures and voting rights, but of the troubles which the rural folk poured out to him how they were forced to grow indigo on their best lands, of the weight of the money payments in place of the indigo obligation, how the planters servants bullied them, and how the planters enforced illegal demands on them.  [5]   Throughout all of this time that Gandhi was involved in Congress, the movement was largely characterized by its new responsiveness to the needs for links with these dominant peasant communities. This began with Gandhi though his travels across the country meant that he himself never acquired exclusive links with any particular groups in the countryside. His chief collaborators came from across the country, and themselves became involved in rural issues: Vallabhbhai Patel was a Patidar lawyer from Gujarat; Rajendra Prasad, a small landowner lawyer from Bihar; Rajagopalachari the small town lawyer from Tamil Nadu; Abdul Ghaffar Khan, a small landowner from the Frontier. Peasant communities were also encouraged to make connections with Gandhi and his collaborators: he went to Champaran and Kheda in 1917-8 after direct requests from local leaders. For the first time, as well, there were genuine moves to create a political community involving Hindus and Muslims, with Gandhis involvement with the Khilafat movement in 1920-1. As he said, I hope by my alliance with the Mahomedans to achieve a threefold end to obtain justice in the face of odds with the method of Satyagraha and to show its efficacy over all other methods, to secure Mahomedan friendship for the Hindus and thereby internal peace, also, and last but not least to transform ill-will into affection for the British and their constitution which in spite of its imperfections has weathered many a storm.  [6]   The more inclusive religious politics may have faltered later on, but Gandhi still felt confident of telling the Round Table Conference in November 1931 that All the other parties at this meeting represent sectional interests. Congress alone claims to represent the whole of India, all interests. It is no communal organisation; it is a determined enemy of communalism in any shape or form. Congress knows no distinction of race, colour or creed; its platform is Universal.  [7]  The Nehru Committee recommendations in 1928 also made so bold as to say . . On the assumption that India is to have the status of a member of the British Commonwealth of Nations there is scarcely any difference of opinion between one section or another of political India. It may be safely premised that the greatest common factor of agreement among the well-recognised political parties in India is that the status and position of India should in no case be lower than that of the self-governing dominions.  [8 ]  A more inclusive set of concerns for national politics did pose problems for the Government of India, who wished to cast the national movement as being as unrepresentative as it had previously been and it did indeed do so on several occasions, such as the Government of Indias resolution on the Non-cooperation movement in 1920: The confidence of Government in the good sense of India has already been in great measure justified by the unanimity of her best minds in their condemnation of the folly of non-cooperation. For a most weighty body of educated opinion has rejected this new doctrine as one that is fraught with the most mischievous potentialities for India.  [9]  However, as direct action proved a larger and more diverse constituency for national politics, this line of argument was quietly dropped. Gandhi also provided the national movement with innovative and attractive forms of protest which gained much more attention than the pre-war pamphlets and meetings. Where in the partition of Bengal, the boycott had been used, it had quickly descended into sporadic violence due to lack of leadership and tacit support for himsa methods. Gandhis addition of symbol and religiosity provided an extra nobility and purity to what otherwise could have descended into jacquerie. Even the British Report of the Committee appointed to investigate the Disturbances in the Punjab, in April 1919 drew attention to the sacred vow which Gandhi ordered all his followers to take: we solemnly affirm that in the event of these Bills becoming law, and until they are withdrawn, we shall refuse civilly to obey these laws and such other laws as a committee to be hereafter appointed may think fit, and we further affirm that in this struggle we will faithfully follow truth and refrain from violence to life, perso n or property.  [10]  Gandhi also brought considerable skill as a publicist and columnist for his ideas but most importantly of all he chose techniques of protest in which the disenfranchised could also play a prominent role. The campaigns of noncooperation did not bring the raj to a grinding halt British administration carried on in its usual cumbersome fashion. However, where the means of protest were as simple as changing spending habits, it was perfectly possible for people to choose the action appropriate to them, from attending a meeting to closing a shop, staying away from classes, or persuading local to stop selling foreign cloth and liquor. The handspun cloth which Gandhi hailed as the symbol of a swaraj soon became the virtual uniform of Congressmen who in an earlier generation had prided themselves on their semi-Western sartorial elegance. Even some of the more religious actions could have serious consequences for the British not least the temperance movement which hit British excise revenue hard. For those looking to be yet more active, Gandhi managed to make jail an attractive form of political protest even for such notable and law-abiding Indians as Motilal Nehru, who now went to jail as an honour, though before 1921, they would have considered it a shameful disgrace.  [11]  Between 1921 and mid-1922, four areas each produced well over 1,000 convictions, arising out of the movement.  [12]  Yet even despite this popularisation of the political process, in the early 1930s, Congress and British sources seemed to agree that the Congress standing army is at most one lac (100,000); and although in 1936 lakhs was in the plural, it was still not claim millions, or crores (10,000,000).  [13]   What allowed such a disparate group of people to nevertheless campaign together was to some extent the fact that Gandhi chose tactics which convinced all of a common enemy in the shape of the British rulers. By picking off targets on particular issues such as tax reassessments and lack of consultation rights, Gandhis supporters could join together in spite of their apparently insurmountable differences for example, Gandhi was able to win the support of both mill owners and weavers of Ahmedabad. His tactics for action also were designed to place maximum pressure on the legitimacy for British rule which the Liberals had questioned for decades at home in any case. Mahatma Gandhis statement on satyagraha in November 1919 stated that On the political field, the struggle on behalf of the people mostly consists in opposing error in the shape of unjust laws. The law-breaker breaks the law surreptitiously and tries to avoid the penalty; not so the civil resister. He ever obeys the laws of t he State to which he belongs, not out of fear of the sanctions, but because he considers them to be good for the welfare of society. But there come occasions, generally rare, when be considers certain laws to be so unjust as to render obedience to them a dishonour. He then openly and civilly breaks them and quietly suffers the penalty for their breach.  [14]  With just 100,000 Europeans in the whole country, it was clear that only a low level of civil resistance to the economic and legal bases of British rule would be sufficient to severely jeopardise the security of British tenure. By going beyond this to question even the British fitness to rule, Gandhi moved decisively beyond the aims of the nineteenth century nationalists and severely embarrassed the European rulers. For example, the commanding officer of the Amritsar Massacre was condemned by the Government of India, but received great sympathy from the British public. Gandhis response was to condemn the official report an d the government response to it as pages of thinly disguised official whitewash and called on the Indian nation to rise against an intolerable wrongs not by armed rising, but by non-cooperation: if we are worthy to call ourselves a nation, we must refuse to uphold the Government by withdrawing co-operation from it.  [15]  The 1930 salt march generated great India-wide publicity and drew large numbers to meetings, at which Gandhi appealed to village officials to resign from their posts which buttressed the imperial regime. Resignations began to occur in large numbers, under pressure of publicity and social boycott, and the Viceroy reported to London how grave the situation was as Gandhi challenged the legitimacy of government. In Gujarat the personal influence of Gandhi threatens to create a position of real embarrassment to the administration . . . in some areas he has already achieved a considerable measure of success in undermining the authority of Government. As the government of Bombay saw it, the real problem was that more and more people who used to be judged sane and reasonable were joining Gandhi, not because they expect any definite results from anti-salt laws campaign but because belief that British connection is morally indefensible and economically intolerable is gaining strength among educated Hindus, Gujaratis mostly but others also.  [16]   Yet in 1934, Gandhi agreed that three years of civil disobedience had served their time, and that the time had come for Congress to return to constitutional politics to test the forthcoming Government of India Act. Rajagopalachari argued that If the magic of the Congress name and memory of its past sacrifices are utilised, then a position of trust and confidence among the masses could be established, and whatever the new constitution may be it can give us the power., Congressmen released from prisons soon became not just leaders of a political movement, but cadres of a political party seeking to win elections. To the dismay of the British and their supporters they were able to draw on the moral authority which Gandhi and their own participation in satyagraha had won for them. Their campaign was slickly managed, appealing to traditional nationalist themes, as well as highlighting the fruits of full responsible government in the provinces, which the new Government of India Act of 1935 now provided, was, moreover, assiduously fostered. The control this allowed over land revenue administration was particularly emphasised a key theme for the zamindar class who had previously seen their interests best served by the British rather than the nationalists. In the 1926 elections, Congress had not polled very well, but in 1934, on a similarly small franchise, Congress overwhelmingly won the Central Legislative Assembly. It went on to win innumerable district board elections in the next two or three years; and in 1937, at the end was a long three-year campaigns eventually secured legislative majorities in the provincial elections in seven of the eleven provinces of India.  [17]   The fact that Gandhi still managed to inspire and to some extent control such levels of political activism for example the salt march in 1930 and the 1941 individual satyagrahi was due to a personal magnetism not shared by any other Indian leader of his generation. From the very first political actions he took in India in 1917, a young English ICS man commented that to the peasants Gandhi seemed their liberator, and they credit him with extraordinary powers. He moves about in the villages, asking them to lay their grievances before him, and he is daily transfiguring the imaginations of masses of ignorant men with visions of an early millennium.  [18]   This personal attraction was not confined to peasants, but even to the members of Congress. As the official record says for 1919, In proposing the fifth resolution Mahatma Gandhi made a speech in Hindi He said he was bound to condemn mob excesses. He admitted that these were committed under grave provocation given by the Government, but he wanted that even in grave provocation they should not lose their heads. He wanted true Satyagraha of them.  [19]  It also proved that much of the national unity which Gandhi brought into his campaigns such as the Khilafat and Rowlatt Acts in 1920-1 was based on his own personal leadership after being jailed and subsequently retiring from public life, it seemed to many that the movement he symbolized had died. Yet in response to the Simon and Nehru Commissions, Gandhi returned with a campaign of civil disobedience which brought thousands into active opposition to continued British rule. During the 1937 election campaign, it was reported that à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ many villagers observed fast on the day of polling and broke it after exercising their franchise in favour of the Congress candidateà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ village voters bowed before the Congress candidates box as a mark of respect to Mahatma Gandhi.  [20]  Even the government understood the personal charisma the Mahatma brought with him, and had striven not to reinforce this position with martyrdom in 1922 and 1931. His value to both followers and opponents increased, even though he was behind bars, and his year-long prison term was marked by the negotiations with the Viceroy which culminated in the Gandhi-Irwin agreement. Ultimately, despite the great veneration for Gandhi, he failed to convince other nationalists to agree with his Eastern model of swaraj. In Hind Swaraj, he said the present system of education in India perpetuated immoral ideas, bred generations of Indians eager to collaborate in an imperial regime which was importing an evil civilization and threatened to create a widening gulf between the so-called educated and the masses. He argued trenchantly for the use of vernaculars as opposed to English, and the abandonment of the current over-literary and foreign syllabus in favour of study soundly based on spiritual values in the context of practical labour.  [21]   While symbolically Nationalist leaders were in favour of this, divergences became very obvious. So much so that Gandhi retired for a second time from Congress politics, saying in 1934 that I have referred to the common goal, but I have begun to doubt if all the Congressmen understand the same thing by the expression Complete Independence. For me Purna Swaraj has an infinitely larger meaning than Complete Independence, but even Purna Swaraj is not self explained. No one word or compound expression will give us a meaning which all can understand.  [22]  Clearly it did not have this meaning to Gandhis colleagues. Even Gandhis ideas of swadeshi did not create the impression he had intended: I put the spinning wheel and khadi in the forefront. Hand-spinning by the Congress intelligentsia has all but disappeared. The general body of them have no faith in it. The removal of the khadi clause in the constitution would mean removal of the living link between the Congress and the millions w hom it has from its inception sought to represent; and yet if it remains, it has to be rigidly enforced. But it cannot be, if a substantial majority of the Congressmen have no living faith in it. . .  [23]  Gandhis early consideration for the Muslim community did not prevent the Muslim community withdrawing from the Congress actions; and although Gandhi himself was very opposed to the two-nation theory, the Muslim Leagues demands were never seriously heeded by a Congress whose focus was securely on the British raj. In fact, Congress refused to go into coalition with the Muslim League after the 1937 legislative elections. Even the distinctively Indian conception of self-rule which Gandhi spent his life trying to deliver, did not force out Western political doctrines. Jawaharlal Nehru used his Presidential Address at the 1936 Congress to say I am convinced that the only key to the solution of the worlds problems and of Indias problems lies in socialism, and when I use this word I do so not in a vague humanitarian way but in the scientific, economic sense. . I see no way of ending the poverty, the vast unemployment, the degradation and the subjection of the Indian people except through socialism. That involves vast and revolutionary changes in our political and social structures, the ending of vested interests in land and industry, as well as the feudal and autocratic Indian States system. . . Some glimpse we can have of this new civilisation in the territories of the USSR. Role of Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose in the Freedom Movement In the Congress, there was a group which was influenced by the socialistic idea. This group had young elements such as Subhas Chandra Bose, J.L.Nehru, J.P.Narain, Acharya Narendra Dev, Dr. Ram Manohar Lohia, as its workers. They worked in mobilizing the working class and the peasant for the national movement and radicalizing the Congress. Again there was a division in this group. Some members formed Forward Block with Subhash Chander Bose as its member. Netaji did not agree with Gandhiji on peaceful agitation. He launched an uncompromising struggle against the British imperialism after the outbreak of Second World War. The government banned this organisation and arrested almost all its important leaders. Subhash Chander Bose was also arrested but, in a, very mysterious way, he escaped from the-custody of the government and reached Germany and japan via Kabul. He organised Azad Hind Fauz though a stop in this direction had already been taken up by Captain Mohan Singb.Hemade Indian Nat ional Army out of the Indian prisoners in Japan. He was Supreme Commander of the Azad HindFauj. A womans regiment (Rani Jhansi) was also formed under the captaincy of Laxmi Swaminathan. He came to Singapore via Japan. He established a provincial government ofAzad Hindustan with H.Q_ at Singapore on October 21, 1943. His government was given recognition by many nations. He declared war against the U.S.A. and its allies and made Burma as H.Q. He called upon the people to give him their blood and he would give them independence. The Indian National Army perxtrzted into the Indian soil and took possession of some area of Manipur Aishavpur. He planned to march 6y declaring Delhi Chalo (March to Delhi). laspite of his determination, his dreaund liberating the motherland was 1*x)t fulfilled due to shortage of food, tack of forces, ammunition and onset of monsoon. The action of the Indian National Army awakened the national feelings and had its impact on all sections of the people. The people were prepared to make any sacrifice f6r the country. The slogan Jai Hind influenced the people greatly. It is sad to say that Netaji was reported to be killed in an air-crash. Shah Nawaz, Dhillon and Sehgal who had deserted Indian Army to join INA of Netaji Subliash Bose were tried before a Court Martial in Red Fort, Delhi. The Congress leaders defended these patriotic sons of India. The Court Martial convicted them and awarded death penalty for sedition. There was resentment among people against this decision. As such the government did not dare to execute them. Governor-General set them free by using his special powers. The contribution of Netaji and members of Indian National Army is significant. They aroused national feelings. Their action forced the British government to free the country at the earliest, His dreams came true and India became free on 15th August, 1947 after a long struggle. The Britishers exploited our economy. They used our economic surplus for their own gain and drained our wealth to their motherland. They devised the policy of divide and rule and aroused communal feelings in our society: In 1857, there was a revolt against the regime of East India Company because of exploitation and other factors. Our leaders termed it as First War of Independence whereas Britishers dubbed it as Mutiny a mere sepoy rebellion. Although it failed because of the absence of common purpose, unity and co-ordination, and non-availability of modern weapons and Social, religious and economic factors awakened the national feelings among the people of India. Communication and transport, introduction of western education brought the people closer to each other and they decided to dislodge the British Government. The people felt the need fora common platform to oppose the Britishers and they started forming associations in order to right the Government unitedly. It was in 1885 that the Indian National Congress came into existence. During the first 20 years of its inception, the Congress was reformist and liberal organisation. In the beginning of 20th century, young members of Indian National Congress became opponents of liberal policies of the Moderates. Because of the difference of opinion the Congress was splitted in the year 1907 at its Surat session. However, with the efforts of Annie Besant and other leaders, both groups, got united in the year 1916 and the Congress started the struggle for freedom unitedly. Non-corporation (1920-22), the Civil Disobedience (1930) and the Quit India (1947} Movements proved milestones in the subsequent period. Finally it was in 1947 that India got Independence from the British rule. In 1915, Mahatma Gandhi came back from South Africa, where he successfully opposed the policy of racial discrimination of the South-African government with non-violent means. After the passage of Rawlatt Act which aimed at arresting-any Indian without trial, there was a protest all over the country. The feelings of Indian people were suppressed-resulting in Jallianwala Bagh massacre. Congress became agitated with the above massacre and with other events in the country and decided to launch non-cooperation movement under the leadership of Mahatma Gandhi. In this movement, people boycotted foreign goods and govt. institutions and made bonfires of foreign goods. However, Mahatma Gandhi suspended this movement because of violence in Chauri Chaura (Gorakhpur). Mahatma Gandhi launched civil disobedience movement again in 1930 by a march to DANDI to break the salt-law. The Congress in its Lahore session held on 31st December, 1929 adopted a resolution for complete independence and decided to observe 26th January every year as independence day fill the country gets independence. With the out-break of second world war and Britishers not taking the Congress into confidence for war, Congressmen became agitated, Congress under the leadership of Mahatma Gandhi decided to launch Quit India Movement. He termed this as the last struggle of his life to win the freedom. This was a decision to do or die. ft was a mass struggle based on non-violence. But this movement was also crushed with a heavy hand. Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose with his Indian National Army played a significant role in the achievement of freedom. He declared war against the British. He aroused national feelings among the people. Netaji and other freedom fighters dream became true and India got independence on 15th August, 1947 after a long freedom struggle.