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| From the Editor's Desk The ongoing era of globalization is full of enormous opportunities and daunting challenges. The galvanizing force that would ultimately enable the countries to capitalize on the emerging opportunities and cope with the challenges attendant to globalization would appear in the form of new ideas. The emergence of meaningful new ideas is going to be the critical determinant of the success or otherwise of the nations participating in this process of globalization. While generation of new ideas would enable different nations to move onto a higher trajectory of socio-economic modernization, any failure on this count may also push nations back by a couple of centuries. By this logic, the winners in the ensuing game of globalization would be the nations that constantly experiment with new ideas and also market them successfully. It also needs to be emphasized that the ideas are not static in nature. They grow with the passage of time. While many of the old ideas outlive their utility, the new ideas continue to play an important role in shaping the process of socio-economic transformation of a society. The real beneficiaries in this game are not those who conceptualize new deas but those who have the courage and wisdom to give practical shape to these ideas so as to benefit the society in general. The ideas included in the current issue are varied in that they originate from the disciplines of English, Economics, Philosophy, Education, Psychology, Fine Arts and other applied areas of Social Sciences. What is significant is that the locations of these ideas, too, are as varied as could possibly be. In his article, A Critique of Analytical Moral Philosophy, Khawaja Muhammad Saeed critically examines an important problem in the recent ethical theory, first stated by Prichard and further reinforced by D. Z. Phillips. This has to do with the way in which the basis of ‘just life’ has to be defined or determined. He argues that our ethical judgments are inextricably linked to our conception of the nature of man. He further agues that it was a mistake on the part of Prichard to assume that the only way to demonstrate just life in man’s interest was to look for an ulterior motive for living that way. To show this would mean to show that those activities that impart the greatest happiness and contentment to man are central to our conception of what it is to be a man, and that such activities constitute the basis of our judgment of a man’s moral worth, too. The author argues that our moral judgments are necessarily based on our philosophical conception of man and human nature in the metaphysical underpinning of our ethical theory. In his paper, Architectonics of Science Fiction: A Critical Note on Issac Asimov’s Foundation Trilogy, Ashutosh Mohan has attempted to study Asimov’s Foundation trilogy, an important work of science fiction, from the standpoint of form/structure. The paper argues that structural devices used in science fiction are vastly different from those used in the mainstream fiction, and it is scientific methodology that often lends coherence and unity to such works. Every science fiction writer creates his/her own universe, which consists of the currents and cross-currents of the religious, political, economic and social fields that our planet witnesses in the period to which he/she belongs. Among other things, Asimov incorporates the contemporary social problems of population explosion and ever-mounting tyranny and tension of urbanization in the texture of his novels, which he not only represents in his fictional works, but also critiques. The main purpose of the study Social Support: Its Linkages with Personality, Depression and Anger by V.V.Upmanyu, Sujata Minhas and Fariba Moradi Goloshejerdi is to refine, replicate and extend the body of knowledge about the psychological factors that might contribute to the perceived social support among adolescents. 200 males and 200 females were administered Sarason’s Social Support Questionnaire, IPAT Anxiety Scale Questionnaire, Zung’s Self-Rating Depression Scale, Rotter’s Internal-External Scale, Eysenck Personality Questionnaire and Spielgerger’s Anger Expression Inventory. The application of Principal Component Method following Varimax Rotation revealed the detrimental role of psychoticism and depression in perceived social support for male adolescents only. Interestingly, for female adolescents, perceived social support was found to be independent of the personality and affective factors. Reflecting over the international concern over the climatic changes that have provoked the industrialized nations to reduce emission of GHG levels by an overall 5 per cent by 2008-2012, Surender Singh analyses the emission mitigation targets under Kyoto Protocol in his The Kyoto Protocol: Toothless and Obsolete. The Annex I parties (EIT and Non-EIT) are able to reduce the emissions by 6 per cent, which is mainly due to the collapse of former USSR economy in 2003 as compared to 1990 level. The EIT parties have registered a 40 per cent decline in the GHG’s emissions. On the other hand, the emissions from Non-EIT parties have increased by 9 per cent in the same period. These industrialized nations are now well off the targets and are expected to emit 10 per cent above the 1990 level by 2010. The treaty seems to be toothless and obsolete without the support of the USA, the country responsible for ¼th of the world emission, and fatally flawed because it does not require developing countries to commit themselves to emission reductions. In her Re-locating History and Identity: A Study of I. Allan Sealy’s The Trotternama, Gursheek Kaur suggests that Indian Writings in English of 1980s, especially Rushdie’s The Midnight’s Children, Tharoor’s The Great Indian Novel and Sealy’s The Trotternama: A Chronicle, to name a few, has shown a strong obsession with history as a source for narrative material. In her study, she traces the presence of Indian history in The Trotternama: A Chronicle from an Anglo-Indian point-of-view; and the fictionalization of the past events in the retelling of Indian history. The objective of her enquiry is two-fold: to examine the manner in which I. Allan Sealy draws on indigenous material for his narrative to resolve the troublesome question of the hyphenated Anglo-Indian identity and to look at the range of possibilities suggested by the inclusion of native records in the retelling of Indian history. In their article Energy Efficiency and Structural Change in India during 1996-2002: A Divisia Index Approach, Sabita Acharya and Umakant Dash argue that so long as the country’s energy supply is constrained by the financial losses of the energy sector, which, in turn, remain a burden on the public sector finances, economic growth in India and the welfare of its people will continue to be hampered. The Government of India has placed increased emphasis on improving the efficiency in supply, consumption and pricing of different sources of energy, which can only be achieved by reforming management and financing at the state level. There have been a variety of studies investigating the relative importance of the change in energy consumption of India in the past. However, no detailed analysis has been done to examine the sources of change at the state level till date. This article seeks to fill this gap by investigating the change in energy efficiency in Indian states in the late 1990s, based on the data sets of SDP, the end-use energy consumption of all the states, and using the newly proposed decomposition method. In Traditional Temple Terracottas: Intrusion of Western Subject-matter and Imagery, Rajinder Bhandari, while documenting the discovery of many terracotta figurines in various ancient sites throughout the Indian subcontinent, shows that this is one of the most popular mediums of artistic expression among people in general. Bengal has had a long tradition of constructing brick temples. During the 17th century, a uniquely Bengali style of temple architecture and sculpture established itself as the Hindu artistic expression of new social, religious and cultural development. He studies and analyses the changes in the themes and form of the surface decoration of these temples which was largely based on finely fashioned terracotta relief sculpture. While the folk art style continued to operate in this region during the late 18th and 19th centuries, a process of Westernization of Indian traditions also began in a planned manner in this period in the field of art as well. To iconographic and narrative elements that formed the basis of mythological sculpture was added an emphasis on naturalism, particularly in relationship to European subject matter leading to a hybrid style combining local folk mannerism with Western stylistic modes. In Technology and Teacher Education, Sangeeta and Rekha base their argument on the fact that in today’s world, teachers increasingly find that their present knowledge and teaching skills are becoming obsolete due to knowledge-explosion. They are of the view that the existing teacher education programmes are unable to meet the growing demand of the society to produce ‘quality teachers.’ Recognizing the need for substantial reforms in the teacher education programmes, this article throws light on some of the innovative practices which are being used in teaching-learning process. It focuses upon the reconstruction of curriculum of teacher education programmes in order to develop the creative, innovative and problem-solving abilities among the prospective teachers. This requires the development of proper mechanism for content enrichment and its transaction by providing practical experiences so that the students become comfortable with the tools of the information age. In Punjab State Electricity Board, Nisha Bhargava and Shakuntala Gupta argue that the Punjab State Electricity Board is passing through a transitory phase. Previously, the Board had contributed to the development of Punjab economy by playing a key role in the onset of green revolution through intensive rural electrification programmes. But at present, the Board is under severe strain due to various administrative, operational and political reasons. Most of the states have already introduced sweeping power sector reforms but the Punjab State Electricity Board, though preparing to follow this course, is rather hesitant in bringing about drastic changes in its structure as the experience of reforming states indicates that reforms have been slow in gathering momentum. Moreover, they have not been free from lacunae. Therefore, instead of blindly accepting the World Bank prescription of reform, the state of Punjab has been wise in adopting the policy of wait and watch and the decision of not privatising the PSEB in haste is perfectly justified. In Jane Austen: Quest for Moral Autonomy Anita Kaushal argues that Jane Austen was deeply influenced by Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Woman published in 1792, which reflected her ideas on feminine rationality, status of women in society, their education and marriage. Taking her lead from Fanny Burney, Jane Austen sought to revise the traditions
of the novel as a means of authenticating stereotypical definitions of women,
sought to recast them, thereby providing dynamic models for change. It is with
Jane Austen that the actual feminization of the English novel could be said
to have begun. The prevalent notions of Romanticism and Sentimentalism so commonly
found in Richardson’s works had no impact on Jane Austen. She abhorred
romanticized characters living in idealized conditions and made them into practical
and down-to-earth beings. Her heroines like Emma Woodhouse and Catherine Morland
exhibit a gradual progression from a state of naivete to rational maturity.
While Jane Austen’s fiction is thus essentially domestic, revolving around
love and marriage, which she considered as a means of self-actualization, this
article focuses upon how feminism in its embroynic form is to be found in her
novels. M.R . Khurana |
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