CONTENTS:- Preface; 1. Promotion of women; 2. Women and poverty; 3. Equal opportunities for women in the community; 4. Women in authority: the ideal and the reality; 5. Women in politics: breaking through the barriers; 6. Lightening the load for women; 7. Empowerment for women? the gap between theory and practice; 8. Action for safe motherhood; 9. Population growth and women's role in India; 10. For a fair sharing of time; 11. One battle after another; 12. Fighting for equality on all fronts; 13. What is known about reducing maternal mortality? 14. Gender-based violence; 15. Sex and gender: a world of difference; 16. All human rights for all; 17. Human rights: the road to progress and peace; 18. Speaking from a position of economic strength: the human rights debate and Asia; 19. Safe motherhood is a human rights issue; 20. No progress without a secular society; 21. Link between disability and poverty; 22. Peace and poverty; 23. The nature and causes of drug addiction; 24. Crisis prevention: can better development planning lessen the toll of civil emergencies and natural disasters? 25. Employment and poverty alleviation; 26. The persistence of Indian poverty and its alleviation; 27. The do's and don'ts of risk reduction; 28. Biodiversity; 29. Social summit; 30. Literacy gaining too slowly; Bibliography; Index.
DESCRIPTION
No division of democracy--which transcends politics and includes economic, social and cultural life can--really take root if it is a sterile copy that fails to take account of the history and myths, the values and traditions of each people. While these roots are necessary, however, they provide no justification for citing "cultural relativism" as an excuse for violating the basic principles on which the rights of human beings are founded. Respect for "cultural identity" cannot legitimise anti-democratic practices. A second danger arises from the fact that the field in which these rights are elaborated and exercised is all too often limited. The recent commemoration of the universal declaration of human rights was a reminder that human rights comprise not only political and civil rights but also, on exactly the same basis, economic and social rights, such as the right to a job, housing, health and education. One and a half billion people live in dire poverty. Their most fundamental right, the right of life, the bedrock of all other rights, is constantly threatened. So the still unfinished struggle to extend and strengthen human rights includes the duty to promote development. This duty is not only a matter of legal formalism of an ethical imperative. Fundamental freedom will remain very fragile as long as poverty, exclusion and inequalities persist. The forces of globalisation encourages the establishment of the rule of law, but a version of law biased in favour of rules needed for successful business activity. They also do more to sharpen economic and social tensions rather than to reduce them.
