Articles in "Indian Government & Politics"

There are many scholarships in this article and some of them may not agree with each other.  Please use discretion in such and instance.

Feminism.  Is there just one or are they many?

The World Bank and IMF were those twin agencies who for the first time talked about the basic tenets of governance like transparency, accountability, efficiency and fairness in order to check the excessive concentration of state power. The concept of good governance was aired by these agencies in order to justify there policies in which they tried to show that they are really bothered about addressing the social and economic problem faced by different countries and will stress on pursuing those policies which will help in reducing poverty and will lead to the real development of the society. But in reality the World Bank advocated the concept of good governance in which they wanted state to play an active role only for creating a conducive environment for the market to flourish and wanted the state only to function in a manner that would not intrude upon the efficient functioning of the market forces .This article tries to highlight that even after streamlining the Indian administration on the principles of good governance, governance still remains  poor as is evident from various scams like fodder scam, commonwealth scam, 2G spectrum scam etc. In this we would also like to show that privatization is not a solution to problems of governance as governance itself is an issue with in the corporate world. This article proposes a shift from good governance to clean governance and also highlight the measures to ensure clean governance in India.

We have been taught by long experience that the part played by reason in politics is smaller than we have been content to suppose……Our task, assuredly, is to give reason the largest possible place in the conduct of affairs; either we must plan our civilization or we must perish

                           - Harold Laski

This paper studied the empowerment of "female headed households"(FHH) in Iran. After a brief introduction, In the second section theoretical framework and definition have been reviewed .In The third sections reason of emergence and increasing of FHHs in the world have been discussed. In next section concept of Feminization of poverty was introduced. Descriptive analysis indicates that female-headed households are worse off according to a variety of measures of welfare. Some statistical data about increasing of FHHs and their poor position in Iran has been analyzed in fifth section. Female-headed households are usually looked upon as a social problem in Iran. The increasing number of female-headed households has caught the attention of both researchers and politicians .In this section, the policies that made by Iranian government about FHH's welfare has been analyzed and evaluated. Moreover efficiency of government charity model to improve the welfare of FHHs has been estimated. Although the government of Iran allocated financial resource for FHH's pension but most of FHHs are living under poverty line. In the sixth section empowerment has been discussed as a solution. Hence Iranian policy makers focused on this issue. According finding of this study, government charity model had not considerable ability and resources for empowerment of female-headed households and in this respect, participation of civil society and NGO s is essential factor in empowerment of FHH.Finally as a case study "Seddiqin charity institution "as a NGO, is chosen to analyze and we explain its function and influence on FHH empowerment.

Keywords:

Female headed households (FHH), Empowerment, Feminization of poverty, Sedighin charity, Iran 

This is a handout that the author had given to faculty members at a refresher course.  It is being put here so that interested students may use this to see if they have any interest in any of the areas, and if interested can go on to further reading.

Some of the arguments here may be contentious.