The aim of this study is to examine the idea and practice of human rights in the particular context of India, with reference to a diverse set of organizations that emerged as a response to rights abuse, perpetrated both by state agencies and by dominant sections of the society. This work examines thirteen such organizations: ten of which are indigenous non-governmental organizations (NGOs), two are governmental organizations, and one is an intentional NGO, namely Amnesty International. The development of the idea of human rights in India is examined with reference to the major religious traditions, and the contributions of some national leaders (Gandhi, Nehru and Ambedkar). It is argued that the demand for civil and political rights, first raised by the Western educated elite, grew as a response to changes in the political system during the British rule, and was incorporated in the nationalist ideology, championed by the Congress party. The first human rights organization, established in 1936, became a model for various organizations that were formed in the post-independent period. Political developments towards the end of the 1960s and early 1970s gave rise to a set of organizations with limited agendas. After the period of national Emergency (June 1975-March 1977), as the organizations reconstituted themselves, they also diversified and expanded their agendas. The successful role of Amnesty International in highlighting rights abuse in India is described. This is contrasted with its Indian section, which has been beset by organizational problems. The circumstances in which the Indian organizations were formed, the way they have developed and how they function is examined.

Thesis (S.M. in Engineering and Management)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Engineering Systems Division, System Design and Management Program, 2011. / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 103-105). / India has established itself well as a powerhouse of talent in Information Technology (IT)/Software services, indicated by its exports of USD 54.33 Billion in 2010. Established in 1980s by the late Mr. Rajiv Gandhi, Prime Minister of India at that time, the focus on education and IT has paid rich dividends for the next generation. While a lot has been achieved by Indian entrepreneurs when it comes to software services, the same cannot be said about the Software Product segment which has remained out of focus so far. This is evident from the fact that Software Product based exports have remained less than 2% of the overall IT/Software industry exports so far. Many reasons are obvious and have been well studied in the past, while some are not very obvious and are less well explored. Using this thesis as an opportunity, an attempt has been made to explore these reasons, and some recommendations have been shared for architecting an ecosystem that can help foster Software Product and Intellectual Property (IP) focus. / by Vishal Kumar. / S.M.in Engineering and Management

Orientadora: Ana Maria Domingues de Oliveira / Banca: Cleide Antonia Rapucci / Banca: Sandra A. Ferreira / Banca: Dilip Loundo / Banca: José Hélder Pinheiro Alves / Resumo: A presença da Índia na biografia e na obra de Cecília Meireles é notável. A relação entre a poetisa e a Índia apresenta-se de forma explícita e implícita em sua produção: por um lado, tem-se o volume Poemas escritos na Índia, paralelamente às diversas crônicas sobre esse país, assim como conferências e aulas; por outro lado, em sua lírica, há inúmeros poemas que permitem a leitura de princípios, temas e nuances do pensamento filosóficoreligioso tipicamente indiano, reconhecíveis como associáveis ao hinduísmo ou ao budismo. Em nossa análise, partimos da premissa de ser imprescindível tanto a leitura de poemas sobre a Índia (paisagens, cotidiano e personalidades), como o levantamento temático dos aspectos filosófico-religiosos indianos na lírica ceciliana, por meio de análises interpretativas de poemas, demonstrando que a Índia e o pensamento indiano se apresentam nessa poesia horizontal e verticalmente. Assim, as primeiras seções analíticas são dedicadas ao país como locus para o qual a poetisa volta sua atenção e o adota como cenário, como motivo de alguns poemas; ou do qual elege personagens sobre os quais trata. Abordamos, primeiramente, a relação entre a poetisa e a Índia, por meio de dados biográficos, crônicas e da análise do poema "Cântico à Índia pacífica". Em seguida, falamos da relação de Cecília com os dois indianos renomados e analisamos poemas dedicados a eles: o pensador, educador e poeta Rabindranath Tagore e o poema "Diviníssimo Poeta", e o pacifista Mohandas K. Gandhi, e o poema "Mahatma Gandhi". Então, enfocamos o livro Poemas escritos na Índia, fruto de sua viagem à Índia em 1953, e pensamos, por um lado, em Cecília como poetisa-viajante, e discorremos brevemente sobre o ato de viajar para ela. E, por outro lado, averiguamos que a mulher indiana se destaca no volume, e, assim, analisamos dois poemas sobre a mulher... / Abstract: The presence of India in Cecília Meireles's biography is considerable. The relationship between the poetess and India presents itself both explicitly and implicitly in her writings: on one hand, there is the title Poems written in India, parallel to it there are a lot of chronicles and lectures about this country; on the other hand, dozens of poems allow the inference of premises, nuances, and themes related to Indian philosophical and religious thought, related to Hinduism and/or Buddhism. In this present analysis, we started up based on the premise that it is unavoidable both considering the poems on India (Indian sceneries, daily life and individuals), and the inventory of philosophical/religious aspects in the poems, by means of interpretative analysis, showing that India and Indian thought appear in Cecília's poetry vertically and horizontally. In this light, we dedicate the first analytical sections to the country as a place at which Cecília devotes her attention, employ as background for several poems, and from where she elects some individuals about whom she writes. We approach, firstly, the relationship between Cecília and India, by looking at biographical data, travel chronicles and the analysis of the poem "Hymn for peaceful India". Then, we discuss the relationship between Cecília and two renowned Indian personalities, in whose honor she dedicated poems, lectures, etc., i.e., the Indian poet, thinker and educator Rabindranath Tagore, and the poem "The most divine poet", and the pacifist Mohandas K. Gandhi, and the poem "Mahatma Gandhi". After that, we focus on the book Poems written in India, result of her trip there in 1953, and we consider, on one hand, Cecília as a traveler, and, on the other, her view on Indian women and their work as we analyze two poems, "Humility" and "Puri Women". The latter in comparison to another poem, "Ballad for the ten... / Doutor

Thesis: Ph. D., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Economics, 2019 / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (pages 169-181). / This thesis includes three papers. In the first paper, I use a close election regression discontinuity design to study the development effects of political alignment between local legislative constituency representatives and state governments in India. I assemble a comprehensive annual dataset on India at a fine geographic unit and find that aligned politicians have lesser growth of visible long-term investment goods, although aligned constituencies do not get less of some other variables. In the second paper, I study the consequences as well as determinants of formation of new districts and district headquarters in the Indian context. There is evidence of an increased growth (or reorganization) of economic activity around newly formed district headquarters. However, the evidence of an effect on the entire district is mixed. In the third paper, I find a negative relationship between size of political constituencies and the various variates pertaining to the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Guarantee Scheme in India. The results are consistent with a simple theory of maximization of electoral prospects by electorally motivated government where the citizens' total demand from the government is not significantly increasing in the size of the electorate. / by Sourav Sarkar. / Ph. D. / Ph.D. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Economics

Antagonism among various religious communities and particularly between Hindus and Muslims has become a recurring feature of the public sphere in South Asia. This antagonism fed a steady growth of Muslim separatism in British India which led to the creation of Pakistan in 1947. The purpose of this thesis is to explore the evidence of such communal attitudes within the major movement dedicated to achieving Indian nationhood, the Indian National Congress. From its founding in 1885, the organization espoused secular ideals and a broad vision of Indian nationalism which would be inclusive of all religious communities. Nevertheless, a strong undercurrent of Hindu chauvinism was evident early in its history and contributed to the weakening of political and communal harmony from the early 1890s to the late 1940s. Lokamanya Bal Gangadhar Tilak (1856-1920) and Sardar Vallabhbhai J. Patel (1875-1950) were two powerful leaders who helped to nurture this Hindu chauvinism over a period of two generations of political activism. This thesis investigates how Tilak and Patel's demonization of Muslims in the print media and the relegation of Muslims to limited roles within Congress helped to enfeeble the secular goals of Congress, despite the efforts of Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948) and Jawaharlal Nehru (1889-1964)

This paper attempts to deepen historical understanding of how non-violence became a vital force in modern US politics. It interrogates the indelible association between the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and non-violent action, arguing that Kingian origin narratives of non-violence obscure historical apprehension of the long process of intellectual, tactical, and spiritual experimentation that produced a new kind of weapon in the United States. The history in this manuscript suggests that a legible non-violent praxis was developed in a partnership between A.J. Mustes Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR) and A. Phillip Randolphs all-black March on Washington Movement (MOWM) in the early 1940s. Despite the yawning divide between each movement on questions of race and war, this collaboration between the MOWM and the FOR launched a dialogical process of intellectual exchange and tactical experimentation that made legible a form of non-violence in US politics. Gandhis Quit India Campaign of 1942 inspired this collaboration, and the movement interpenetration between FOR and MOWM activists during the Gandhian Moment of 1942 hastened the development and diffusion of a non-violent praxis nearly two decades before the sit-in revolution swept across the United States in 1960.

In 1975 the Indian president Indira Gandhi proclaimed the emergency period which would go on until 1977. Under this time approximately 8 million men and women were sterilized in the name of family planning. Many of them did not volunteer. This was not just an Indian con- cern because the family planning program was largely funded by international aid. The Swe- dish involvement in the program was debated 1977–1980, in what has been called “SIDA’s Watergate”. This thesis aims to map out the part of this debate that took place in daily news- papers and magazines. The purpose is to examine the arguments and the ideas that they build on, especially ideas concerning family planning, population politics and international aid. The result of the thesis shows that this debate can be seen as a part of the decline of the so called international population movement, that was compiled as a network of specialists and politicians and which in the middle of the 20th century propagated the importance of family planning to stop world population growth. In the Swedish press the lack of support for this kind of policy was uncovered and new ways of looking at family planning were expressed. Family planning was argued to be a part of a broader health centred approach, in which wom- en and child health were important components. In a way the views expressed in the debate antedated the SRHR approach of the 1990s.

I have in this essay focused on the attitude towards the medieval muslims in swedish textbooks, in the subject of history from the years between 1954 and 2012. I have made an analysis on the discourse in the books and what they says about the muslims who lived before 1500 AD. The theory I have is a Postcolonial one from the authors Edward Said, Ania Loomba and Leela Gandhi. I have also analyzed the rhetorics the authors have used in every textbook. The results I have identified is that the attitude towards the muslims have changed during the years, from a generalizing view that says that the muslims were driven by the religion and that they were different from the Christian European society that existed during the same time. During the years the attitude changed to be more objective and don´t focus so much on the religion as a power over the will of the people and more towards economic and political reasons for the expansion during the 7th and 8th century. The religious tolerance towards Jews and Christians during the islamic reign in the Middle East is presented and is mentioned in most of the books during all of the decades. My conclusions according to the theory is that the change in the attitude can be a result of a higher level of knowledge about the medieval muslims and a decrease in how much the postcolonial theory have influenced the authors.

AN ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION OF Anthony Cashio, for the Doctor of Philosophy degree in Philosophy, presented on February 25, 2011, at Southern Illinois University Carbondale. TITLE: History, Nonviolence, and the Experience of Values MAJOR PROFESSOR: Dr. Randall E. Auxier The goal of this dissertation is to address the question: what are values? To carry out this inquiry in a manner which will provide new insights into the complexity, difficulty, and importance of this question, I propose to look to actual historical events, specifically the event known as the Children's Movement that took place in Birmingham, Alabama on March 3, 1963. Coupling this historical approach with an analysis and exploration of the philosophies of nonviolence, specifically the works of Mohandas K. Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr., will allow for answers to age-old axiological problems that are grounded in both pure theory and praxis of shared communal experience. I submit that one of the main lessons learned through this inquiry into the experience of values is that what is truly experienced in the liminal moment of the successful nonviolent protest is what I name a lived value-system. This lived value-system is characterized by the attempt in every moment to bring the culturally learned value-system, the values which we are taught are integral to a society, into resonance with the ideal value-system, the value-system of dogmatic objective certitude. The task of fleshing out these three value-systems in response to an understanding of history as a starting point for philosophical inquiry is the primary task of this dissertation.

Thesis (M.A.)--Boston University / The year 1944 brought India into the eyes of the world more than anytime before in this century. The struggle between the British and t he Indians was not a new story and therefore it did not attract much attention even with the news of the imprisonment of our great leaders, Messrs. Gandhi and Nehru. But to things that attracted and still in the eyes of the American people are - first, the great famine that swept over India, killing thousands of helpless Indians. Newspapers and magazines and commentators created a very sympathetic feeling in the heart of the American people. And the Americans have graciously responded to help India in its disaster. The second phase of attraction is in process right now; and that is the Japanese invasion of India. This Japanese attach is not a disaster of India. This Japanese attack is not a disaster just India. This Japanese attack is not a disaster just to India alone, but it involves a problem to all the Allies. The Allies are doing everything they can to keep the Japanese away for the sake of India and for the sake of all democracies. The cause of the disastrous famine is the economic conditions and these condition are primarily caused by the present wars. [TRUNCATED]