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After noting the inadequacy in the previous development approaches to address the problem of underdevelopment in the developing world, development agencies are now turning to the application of a Rights-Based Approach (RBA), as a new development paradigm. Under RBA, the emphasis is more on the users' rights rather than focusing on the result of the project only. With donor fatigue soaring, most of the NGOs are claiming the use of RBA, seen by critics as a label to guarantee easy access to funding. This study, using a case study of ActionAid Malawi's one year women's land rights claim project (2009-2010) in matrilineal and patrilineal communities of Malawi, the study indicates that despite cultural differences between the two, women face similar marginalisation in their land rights claims due to patriarchal beliefs and practices rooted in their society. The study further indicates that women in matrilineal community have an edge over their counterparts in patrilineal community owing to the fact that they have at least ownership rights to land as guarantee by customs. The research suggests that, land ownership does empower women. The study concludes that RBAs were inadequately applied in the WOLAR Project that left women, especially those from patrilineal community, by far a distant from attaining empowerment. Power relations continue to be a major factor violating women's land rights in the communities to the benefit of men.

Can coercive foreign policy destabilise autocratic regimes? Can democracy be promoted from abroad? This book examines how foreign policy tools such as aid, economic sanctions, human rights shaming and prosecutions, and military intervention influence the survival of autocratic regimes

Notice of the inedited ms. memoirs of the Earl of Crawford, including: Account of some campaigns of the British army from 1689 to 1712, Journal of a campaign under Prince Eugene on the Upper Rhine, Miscellaneous papers; Journal of voyage from the Thames to Russia, and of Campaigning with the Russian amry, 1738-9; Journal of a campaign with the Russian army against Turkey, 1739. ; "Reprinted from Proceedings American philosophical soceity, vol. 13, no. 174. ; Mode of access: Internet. ; His Memoirs of the Earl of Crawford. A review. Reprinted from the Journal of the Military service institution, Governor's Island, N.Y., Jan., 1904. (3 p.) inserted in storage envelope with main article.

India has a long rich history tolerant coexistence and cultural interaction among its manydiverse cultural and religious groups. But today, there is a promotion of a kind of nationalismwhich identifies with certain religions or cultural groups at the exclusion of others. The temptation is to try to strengthen India as a nation-state at the expense of its pluralistic past. The philosophy of Isaiah Berlin is valuable in this context, for it shows that value pluralism is not incommensurable with liberal democracy and that the two can support one another. He recognizes that an individual can pursue freedom, but that they also possess an innate ability to respect the freedom of others. In this regard, he develops the notion of fantasia or imagination as a faculty which is instrumental in creating understanding and tolerance of other cultural beliefs and practices. This essay will show how through these processes described by Berlin, a large democratic country like India can both create and national identity and preserve the rich heritage of its pluralistic past.