This paper aims to analyze how Govinda Raj Bhattarai has recapitulated the public angst, the deteriorated socio-economic condition, and the cultural downfall of Nepal during the period of ten years of Maoist civil war. The characters of the novel, Ananta, Purnima, Bhaktaman, Chitrakar, and others confront various problems in their lives due to the political instability and domestic war or the Maoist civil war. Through the close reading of the text from the perspectives of trauma theory, with special references of the trauma theorists, Cathy Caruth, Jeffrey C. Alexander, and the like, the paper focuses on why and how the Maoist waged war against the imposition of the social, political, spiritual ideologies by the ruling parties, that is by the monarchical systems. The research finding is that the domestic war leads to nothing but trauma, demolition, anarchy, fights, in the life of the public, signified through the experiences of the emotionally wounded characters.
European Union is facing challenges of ageing societies and changes in structure of economy, thus labour shortages turn into an urgent issue that ultimately affects labour market sustainability. In its attempt to recruit highly qualified workers EU has strong international competitors, e.g. USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and pursues a variety of initiatives at national level of the Member States and at the EU level in general. This article aims at assessing the EU policies related to migration of highly qualified workers. Statistical data analysis has revealed that labour mobility is increasing in EU. Thus the EU Mobility directive could be evaluated as bringing benefits, yet with a room for improvement, because highly qualified workers still make up just a small part in all the mobile citizens' population. National initiatives are more effective in fostering the migration of highly qualified workers, but this has the threat of unequal benefits in different EU regions; the effectiveness of EU Blue Card initiative is weak but with a high potential, thus it needs further improvements in its issuing policies.
In today's world, growing cultural integration has a direct impact on the development of tourism, which is important from the economic as well as the social, political or ecological perspective. Given the rapid expansion of tourism on the global market and the ever-increasing competitiveness of the tourism sector, it is important to assess the state of the tourism sector in Lithuania and determine the potential for its development. The results of the qualitative research have demonstrated that the policy options that could allow for the smooth development of Lithuanian tourism have eluded clear identification owing to the less than appropriate regulation of this area and the absence of effective tourism management. It has been discovered that the legal framework so far remains underdeveloped. In addition, when it comes to tourism policy management, the relevant functions tend to not be performed properly. Moreover, there is a lack of cooperation among the institutions responsible for tourism coordination or otherwise indirectly connected to the area, whereas cooperation between the local and the national level is minimal. This shows that a number of areas may require improvement in order for the country's tourism development policy to become more effective. However, if the country manages to perform a targeted elimination of the problematic areas and makes proper use of its strengths and existing potential in the tourism sector, such as the favorable geographical location, a well-developed sector of tourism-related services, rich recreational resources, or an attractive ratio between the quality and price of tourism products, the effective development of tourism in Lithuania will become possible in the long term.
This is the second part of meta-analysis on the interrelation between NGOsand democracy in Baltic States. The relation is monitored by integrating the regressiontechnique to find out which factors have contributed most to the developmentof democracy. The assessment by integrating the model of traffic light hasbeen applied to determine the effectiveness of factors and the level of their developmentin the context of democracy. The results of the research show that thirdsector does impact democracy in the Baltic States, secondly that in all three countriesthe ways in which NGOs influence democracy differ, thirdly as well as thelevel of influence towards democracy differs.
Innovations play a significant role in surviving in economic and marketgames. However the innovation is not self-sufficient tool for response of all futurechallenges and needs. It requires potential for new knowledge generation, adaptationand commercialization, and support of government. Therefore the article presents aconceptual analysis of the relationship between innovation and entrepreneurship,with the main focus being on the business sector, highlighting the role of governmentpolicy in the promotion of innovation through entrepreneurship.It is said that the dimension of innovation is at the core of entrepreneurship, butat the same time these concepts still often are defined singly. The concept of entrepreneurshipis often wrongly explained, just as business activity or establishment ofnew enterprises without focus on innovation. In this respect, there is a suggestion toadopt the concept of innovative entrepreneurship as the new direction for developmentof innovation through entrepreneurship.
In the conditions of the contemporary risk society the alternate nature and the variety of risks issue a serious challenge to the world community, which requires an urgent solution.Today the principle of sustainable development takes an increasing significance in the policies of all countries. The concept of sustainable development is based upon the balance between financial, social and ecological resources of our planet. Successful management of all these resources would ensure the sustainability.Achievement of the goals of sustainable development, in its turn, requires conjoint actions of governments, local authorities, businesses and each individual.This article is aimed at the analysis of actions taken by world-wide organisations, governments, and local authorities to provide sustainable development, including legislative, institutional, regulatory and public efforts exerted at all levels in the sphere of identification, assessment and management of environmental risks under the conditions of risk society. The volume of the article unfortunately dose not allow covering of all aspects related to this issue, as well as setting up a thorough discourse in this matter. Therefore, the article provides a brief analysis of theoretical base of the concept of the risk society and the idea of sustainable development and reviews legal, institutional, and regulatory instruments applied for identification, assessment and management of environmental risks applied both globally and in Latvia. It also stresses the significance of rising environmental risk awareness and promotion of readiness for ecological conduct, as it would facilitate meeting the goals of sustainable development by more active participation of population in the activities targeted at the environment protection in general, and preservation and restoration of the natural resources. The article also describes the current level of public awareness of environmental problems in Latvia, as well as the problems the Latvian residents consider to be of highest priority ...
Distribution of parties along the left-right continuum historically has been the issue of coalition stability, governmental accountability and even stability of political system. Left-right spectrum is widely used in comparative research as a guide between voters and politicians making easier to understand political preferences. The focus of this study is to test 1) whether the left-right continuum is evident and meaningful in Latvia and Estonia 2) whether voters have fairly accurate perceptions of parties' left-right positions in Latvia and Estonia and whether they vote according to their self-placement on left-right scale, 3) whether voter's self-placement can be explained by individual socioeconomic (income, education, position in work place) status or ethnolinguistic belonging (ethnic group, conversation language at home, conversation language in childhood, ethnic belonging of mother and father). Data on basis of voter analysis was obtained from EU Commission Funded FP6 EUREQUAL project (PI Professor Stephen Whitefield, University of Oxford), "Social Inequality and Why it Matters for the Economic and Democratic Development of Europe and its Citizens: Post-Communist Central and Eastern Europe in Comparative Perspective" Data on party each placement is gathered by the authors.Results show that voters have fairly accurate perceptions of the left-right position of parties or at least the position where party representatives place each party, supposing that voters chose the closest party to one's self orientation at the ballot box. Nevertheless the determinants of self-placement are not very clear as only in Latvia education, personal income and position at work influence the self-placement of the respondents while no coherence of social economic status was observed in Estonia. Also influence of ethnolingustic factors was observed neither in Latvia, nor Estonia, though both nations are considered as one of the ethnically most divided societies in Europe.
Since formation of European Union (EU) it has had great changes and developed both by expanding and creating close mutual cooperation among the involved countries. New member states have joined the first six founder states, and now EU unifies 27 states. Greater changes have affected the set objectives and activity spheres: from the war industry – coal and steel sector – over-national control institutions the aim of which is to ensure stable peace in Europe, nowadays EU has become a union that comprise more than twenty common policy and activity spheres. The integration process of Europe has been continued by setting new objectives, meeting new challenges and looking for better solutions. EU budgetary funds provide support for wide scope of activities. This support regarding its scope may be changeable – starting from the whole covering of expanses and finishing with financial support of only some percents. The range of potential recipients of financial aid is also wide. Not only member states but also candidate states, separate municipalities, public organizations, private enterprises, universities and even separate individuals can be among them.In many with structural funds related documents it is highlighted, that the aim of EU structural funds is to eliminate the regional and social inequalities among EU member states and to improve economical and social cohesion throughout all Europe. Certainly these funds is a great benefit for EU peripheral countries like Ireland, Baltic states, and they can substantially promote development of these countries. Though one has to remember that a substantial financing also creates a risk and that inadequate use of these funds can stimulate regional inequality, social outcast, environmental degradation and corruption.Ireland is one of economically most developed, industrial, trade – oriented states, that until now has managed to use means of EU structural funds most successfully. The received finances from EU support funds have considerably favoured state's economical growth.During ...
Growing consumption of goods, production and usage of various chemicals influence the amount of different hazardous waste (HW) flows. Society is increasingly facing the problem how to treat and where to dispose of waste in environmentally sound, and economically efficient way, also taking into account a social aspect.Waste management is one of the principal pollution problems in many countries, and its control has so far not been addressed in a sustainable analysis. Each year in the European Union alone people throw away 1.3 billion tons of waste, 40 million tons of which being hazardous. HW generally constitutes about 1% of the total waste amount generated in Europe; nevertheless, it presents a serious risk to the ecosystem and human health if not managed and treated properly. Several EU countries report HW treatment rates over 40%, the others export a large of portion of HW. Recently, lots of efforts having been put into proper HW identification, treatment, recycling, storage, transportation and/or disposal, this issue is still hot among the governments of the EU.In spite of the fact that all European Union legal requirements concerning HW management are transferred to Member States legal framework, there are still a number of problems concerning inefficiency of an HW management system and Lithuania is not the exception. The total amount of waste generated in 2008 in Lithuania is about 7.8 million tons; about 145 thousand tons are considered as HW. While the incineration plant and landfill for HW is not built, HW is temporarily stored, processed, exported or managed in the companies which have the Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control (IPPC) permits. It aims to manage HW in a more environmentally friendly way. However, the current HW management is not developed on an integrated approach, which allows to evaluate the environmental impact throughout the life cycle and to use cost-effective HW management processes, and all available technical and technological capabilities. The legal system determines the main HW ...
The article analyses the issues involved in the privatization of public hospitals inthe U. S. Faced with increasing costs, many public hospitals are bleeding red ink andthus encounter difficulties when making investments necessary to cut costs and increaseperformance. Hospital expenditures accounted for almost a third of the $1.6trillion the United States spent on health care in 2000. According to the U.S. Departmentof Health and Human Services, over the ten-year period from 1990 to 2000the average cost of an inpatient stay at a public hospital increased by nearly 50 percent,compared to only 20 per cent at private for-profit hospitals. By 2001 the $7,400cost of a stay at a public hospital was 24 per cent greater than at a private for-profit($5,972). In the case of public hospitals, a conflicting mix of social, political, andbusiness objectives results in weak incentives to control costs. Cost burdens comefrom inefficient accounting, restrictive government personnel and procurement regulations,a tangled web of bureaucracy, and a general lack of accountability. Mostpublic hospitals lack the strategic advantages enjoyed by private hospitals including:a marketing orientation, volume purchasing systems, state-of-the-art information systems,standardization of supplies, outcome management systems, computerized casemanagement systems with cost-per-procedure variables among physicians performingthe same procedures, physician practice management, and technologically advancedpatient care.
Emphasizing that e. government is becoming one of the attributes of globalization andmultilevel governance is influencing its development, the article analyses the initiatives of theEuropean Union (EU), European Commission (EC) and the Division for Public Administrationand Development Management of the United Nations Department of Economic and SocialAffairs, witch can be used for generalization of e. government development achievements and serveas a tool for its further development. The importance of the European Commission's strategicdocuments on information society development and periodically prepared studies on e. servicesin the European Union countries for e. government regional development is underlined. It is statedthat the United Nations reports on e. government development are an effective tool for globalcoordination of this development and they can help governments of different countries to determinee. government development trends and to take into account the good practices of other countries.
The article analyses influence of constitutional regulation on development of localgovernance in the Republic of Lithuania and show the setting of the prerogative limits oflegislators in the areas of administrative partition of state territory and organization of localgovernance. According to analysis of the provisions of the Constitution of the Republic ofLithuania and resolutions of the Constitutional Court, the wide prerogatives of legislators tospecify and elaborate the main principles of organization of local governance that areestablished in the Constitution and to regulate other issues related to development of thisgovernance by law are shown. The article shows that provisions of the Constitution of theRepublic of Lithuania do not make any difficulties in implementation of changes in the area oforganization of local governance.
The article reveals several most important preconditions for integration of disabled intothe labour market – specifics of the legal system of professional rehabilitation of the disabled,the role of state institutions in organization of professional rehabilitation services for thedisabled, the rules for delivery of such services, and the importance of criteria's to determinethe need for professional rehabilitation. The authors emphasize that positive results can beachieved by higher individualization and that the state assistance is necessary during theemployment. The article discusses the latest changes in the national legislation, the statisticaldata of the Lithuanian Labour Exchange and suggests several areas where the legislation on theprofessional rehabilitation of the disabled people can be improved.
In the public sector, the decision-making process is multidimensional. Themethodological framework for all decision-making theories is the rationalisttradition, according to which mankind is inherently rational and seeks to maximizeits goals. The proponents of the main decision-making theories—the rationalcomprehensivetheory, the incremental theory and the mixed scanning theory—seekto argue in favour of their postulated values and the approaches to avoidunnecessary risks of the decision-making process. Those theories are aimed atpromoting innovative solutions in the new public management environment. Toimprove the decision-making process, it is necessary to improve the management ofinformation flows which would allow an accurate and objective information analysisby distorting the information necessary for decision-making.
