Sandeep Sharma

Dharamshala is home to the Tibetan Government-in-Exile. Its small-town journalism landscape is unique due to specific forms of community journalism practice adopted by Indian and Tibetan journalists. The Tibetan press there faces a paradox: simultaneously-local and community specific‖ for Tibetans-in-exile,-refugee voices‖ for the international community, and-foreign journalism‖ for Indians. This framing study identified interpretive packages in news coverage of conflict and integration between Dharamshala communities, by examining stories from community news outlets. Indian Hindi journalists enact a-community booster‖ role by actively framing issues of conflict in favor of the community, while Tibetan journalists' approach was comparatively more balanced.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping. It was the state of strife, strain and harmony among the giant neighbours Russia, China and India through the vicissitudes of time in recent history which more than anything else had a determinative influence on Tibet's political aspiration, mostly with unfortunate consequences, although its future is far from sealed inasmuch as the jostling for power and influence among the three powers is still ongoing, writes Prof Pradeep NAIR* and Sandeep SHARMA*

In the wake of the social media, the political-public sphere is broadening. The scope of feedback from the public directly to their representatives has set a new phase in public opinion and policy formations. Social media platforms have arguably enabled the public to set the agenda for their representatives by pressing like button on their facebook updates, sharing and commenting on these updates. Communication scholars and political scientists have termed this phenomenon as 'reverse agenda-setting'. This commentary attempts to explore and analyse how the politicians and policy-makers are managing their social media platforms, especially facebook, and what importance they attach to the feedback which they receive in the form of likes, share and comments. Social Media and Agenda Setting The media's agenda-setting effect on the public is the most celebrated of the theories in communication studies. It explains the correlation between media and public opinion and advocates that mass media has a significant impact on shaping the agenda for political campaigns by making people aware of important political issues. But the proliferation and expansion of the social media has challenged the role of conventional mass media in setting the public agenda by coming out with a new approach that it is no longer the media but the public which propose issues on the agenda and reversely that agenda is accepted by the conventional media as public agenda. This approach is popularly accepted as reverse agenda-setting which urges that the opinion of people, disseminated through various social media platforms, influences news converges and sets the media agenda. This is one of the reasons which has attracted politicians all over the world to explore the benefit of the social media by increasing their understanding of its usage. Mainstream Weekly

The United State’s ‘Tibetan Policy Act of 2002’, clearly states that ‘the US would support the aspirations of Tibetan people in order to safeguard their distinct identity.’ Other provisions which follow speak about the possible monetary assistance to be provided in lieu of attaining the aforesaid objective. This Act, a major piece of Tibet Legislation, was enacted as Law by President George W. Bush on September 30, 2002, as part of the US Foreign Relations Authorizations Act.  Reversing its stand on Tibet policy and giving a huge jolt to the Tibetan aspirations, the Trump administration recently took a divergent step by proposing zero aid in 2018 to the Tibetans and justified the action by stating that “as we work to streamline efforts to ensure efficiency and effectiveness of the US taxpayers’ dollars, we acknowledge that we have to prioritize and make some tough choices.”
This whole episode indicates the changing internal politics of the US especially after Trump’s election and also the new geopolitics and emerging world order which is shadowed by the People’s Republic of China (Piccone 2016, 4-5). Besides analysing the US’s internal politics and emerging world order, this short note attempts to revisit and explore historical aspect of the US’s Tibet Agenda which ultimately has culminated in withdrawal of all financial aid to Tibetan community.

The Tibetan government’s arrival at the horizon of democracy is viewed
as another stone solidifying the foundation of Tibetan freedom movement.
In 2011, the Dalai Lama devolved all his political power and restricted
himself to be the spiritual head only. In the wake of this development,
in 2011, first direct elections were conducted for the post of
Prime Minister and the MPs of Tibetan Government-in-Exile. Recently
concluded elections in April-May 2016 were only the second elections of
this type. This short note looks into the governance structure and functioning
of the Tibetan Government-in-exile and reviews the recently
concluded Tibetan general elections with a view that how through these
democratic political processes the exiled community has transplanted,
institutionalized and democratized its government structures to establish
a state-like polity in a stateless and territory-less exile. [R, abr.]

City is not a new phenomenon. Civilizations like Mesopotamia, Egypt, and Indus valley had a rich culture of urban life. However, not more than ten per cent of population of these civilizations used to live in cities (Modelski, 1997). Cities were dependent of villages to meet their everyday needs. They were geographically small and less populated as compared to the Modern Cities. Urban life was not much different in the cities of these civilization than that of the cities of pre-industrialization. Industrialization first happened in 16th century in North-West Europe specifically in Britain and Denmark. Later on it spread to other part of Europe and America. By 20th century it spread its legs to the African and Asian continent in the form of colonization. New modes of social and economic life became evident in all part of the world and this marked the onset of new age called ‘modernization.’ Modernization redefined urban life and urbanization became a mandatory precondition to modernization. Urban-Rural relationship experienced a paradigm shift. New socio-politico environment put villages at back stage. Village resources were drained out to support urban life. A dependency of rural upon urban was created. As a result urbanization increased rapidly. At present there are such countries in the world where urbanization has reached to more than 90 per cent (Geoffrey, 2005). India has 31 percent of her population living in urban area with a growth rate of 2.3 per cent per year (Mani, 2016).

In 1998, while being the head of an alliance of 26 political parties, the then Prime Minister of India Atal Bihari Vajpaee once frustratingly said that India should look for the possibility of adopting presidential system, which, in his views would be more permanent and representative. However, amongst all political compulsions and political opportunism, some of the electoral arrangements at centre and in various states went on for another decade by making coalition politics a more permanent feature of Indian politics. But BJP’s whooping majority in 2014 Lok Sabha elections brought this trend to a halt. Political pundits were left with no options but to redo their political calculations. Nationwide data of assembly elections substantiate this point by making a stronger case for one party rule. The first half of the second decade of 21st century has witnessed a political scene in which 23 states including Delhi, have one party in the position to form a majority government. While there are only six such states where governments are being formed by pre or post poll alliances. With these evidences, we are not terming this the end of coalition politics in India; rather we are interested in examining the factors which have led to a situation of more permanent (a majority) government at centre and state. By looking back to some events in Indian political history and forward to the outcome of Uttar Pradesh, Uttrakhand, Punjab and Manipur assembly elections, we will be unearthing the dynamics of power and polarization in Indian politics.

In the aftermath of the American presidential elections, streets in several cities of America rocked with the slogan “Not My President”. This sloganeering rose against a person who went into election (and won the same) with a campaign catchphrase ‘Make America Great Again’. The protestors termed his win ‘unusual’, ‘unexpected’ and ‘unconventional’ and feared the ways he would realize his dream of making America great again! Mr Donald John Trump, a real estate mogul, businessman, pageant owner and a billionaire reality TV star is the new President of United States of America. Defeating all pollsters’ predictions, crushing the media agenda and undermining the popular votes, he surged to victory and set a new paradigm of the American character of the presidential candidate. His win should be looked at with a deeper insight and meaning crossing beyond the Democratic and Republican Party politics.

Providing quality day -care services for children in informal economy have been widely discussed and debated at policy and execution level from the last two decades. Numerous studies have been conducted in developing countries to critically evaluate existing regulations, policies and schemes on child -care provision. The focuses of these studies were largely on the interventions through laws and schemes. However, very little studies were conducted on care facilities available for the Tibetan children living in exile.
This article explores the vision of the newly elected Tibetan government-in-exile to provide quality child care  at the care centres so as to obtain the larger goals of social transformation by taking into account the broader social and cultural context in which the care is provided.
The study is based on field observation undertaken in Tibetan settlement in Dharamshala and interviews conducted with Tibetan government officials, child-care providers, and community representatives to collect primary data.

The Gandhian idea of governance and development at the community level is a people-centred approach that combines a number of activities to ensure people (rural people) access to relevant information so that they shall collaborate and participate in development. Through information and knowledge, the rural voices may express their expectations and can share their knowledge. Here community governance is a powerful driver, especially for the marginalised people, to change their lives for better. The Gandhian idea of government and governance is about to enhance rural communication services at the grassroot level so that it can empower the local people to plan and manage the development processes. Any government—whether of Nehru, Gandhi (Indira and Rajiv) or Modi—in its policy docu-ments/election manifestos highlights what rural people need in order to move up the socioeconomic ladder. Prime Ministers in India never fail to mention 'Gandhi' and 'Village' in their promises. They feel happy to speak about investments and technologies that would improve rural livelihood. But in practice, the efforts are not really sufficient to sustain the desired change at the grassroot level. The failure is because of two primary reasons—lack of participation and ineffective communication. This commentary appreciates the Gandhian understanding of governance and is evolved with an analysis that how relooking this concept of governance could help the formal and informal agencies of development and governance to build a platform for dialogue and common understating for rural communities who are the real decision-makers in good governance. Governance and Development In the last two decades, a number of studies have been conducted to understand the gap between the rural people and the political institutions, especially the government, which affect their lives. The World Bank's study—'Voices of the Poor'—finds that many poor people around the world, notably those living in rural areas, perceive political and governance institutions like the state to be distant, unaccountable and corrupt. (Narayan et.al. 2000)

The Tibetan government’s arrival at the horizon of democracy is viewed as another stone solidifying the foundation of Tibetan freedom movement. In 2011, His Holiness the Dalai Lama devolved all his political power and restricted himself to be the spiritual head only. In the wake of this development, in 2011, first direct elections were conducted for the post of Prime Minister and the Members of Parliament of Tibetan Government-in-Exile. Recently concluded elections in April-May 2016 were only second elections of this type. This short note looks into the governance structure and functioning of the Tibetan Government-in-exile and reviews the recently concluded Tibetan general elections with a view that how through these democratic political processes the exiled community has transplanted, institutionalized and democratized its government structures to establish a state-like polity in a stateless and territory-less exile. This study is based on field observation undertaken in Dharamshala. Interviews were conducted with Tibetan government officials, journalists and members of Tibetan electorate.

Providing quality day-care services for children in informal economy have been widely discussed
and debated at policy and execution level from the last two decades. Numerous studies have been
conducted in developing countries to critically evaluate existing regulations, policies and schemes
on child-care provision. The focuses of these studies were largely on the interventions through
laws and schemes. However, very little studies were conducted on care facilities available for the
Tibetan children living in exile. This article explores the vision of the newly elected Tibetan
government-in-exile to provide quality child care at the care centres so as to obtain the larger goals
of social transformation by taking into account the broader social and cultural context in which the
care is provided. The study is based on field observation undertaken in Tibetan settlement in
Dharamshala and interviews conducted with Tibetan government officials, child-care providers
and community representatives to collect primary data.