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CSDE is organising a talk by Dr. Jayanathan Govender

CSDE is organising a talk by Dr. Jayanathan Govender

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CSDE is organising a talk by Dr. Jayanathan Govender
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CENTRE FOR THE STUDY OF DISCRIMINATION & EXCLUSION (CSDE)

JAWAHARLAL NEHRU UNIVERSITY

 

Invites you to a talk on

 

The Fault Lines of Development, Democracy and State Building in South Africa

 

Dr. Jayanathan Govender
School of Social Sciences, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa

 

Date: 19th January, 2018

Venue: room no. 402, CSDE, SSS-I

Time: 11:30am

 

The lecture is based on three papers addressing inequality, social justice and the politics of redress in post-apartheid South Africa. Our three and half century’shistory is awretched account of violent, oppressive and exploitative colonial capitalism. European decedents (English, Portuguese, German, Dutch, and French), having discarded their identities for the common title of ‘white’, dominate the present day landscape, notwithstanding, that the 2019 democratic elections will usher in the 5thAfrican National Congress (ANC) government, representing the majority Black population. South Africa is the world’s most unequal country. Poverty and inequality, exacerbated by unemployment are the country’s foremost challenges. The present government has made significant progress regarding the provision of basic services and broadening the social wage. However, the unfortunate reality is that inequality grew since the advent of democracy. The policy efforts of the current ANC governmentis articulated by the political cliché “There are good stories to tell”. The best evidence of such successes are limited to public services, with a build-in contradiction of associated costs, which the majority, poor and Black population, cannot access. Deepening inequality runs contrary to the commitments of the South African Constitution and social policy provisions, thereby raising serious questions of rights and social justice. The continuity, depth and breadth of inequality, including the extraordinary social costs, is clearly linked to the legacy of apartheid. Inequality is structurally embedded in multi-dimensional formats. The politics of redress has notrealized meaningful material and human development outcomes, originally intended by the Mandela led government. Rather, political leadership and state performance have declined, evidentially in favour of state capture.

A warm welcome to the modified and updated website of the Centre for East Asian Studies. The East Asian region has been at the forefront of several path-breaking changes since 1970s beginning with the redefining the development architecture with its State-led development model besides emerging as a major region in the global politics and a key hub of the sophisticated technologies. The Centre is one of the thirteen Centres of the School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi that provides a holistic understanding of the region.

Initially, established as a Centre for Chinese and Japanese Studies, it subsequently grew to include Korean Studies as well. At present there are eight faculty members in the Centre. Several distinguished faculty who have now retired include the late Prof. Gargi Dutt, Prof. P.A.N. Murthy, Prof. G.P. Deshpande, Dr. Nranarayan Das, Prof. R.R. Krishnan and Prof. K.V. Kesavan. Besides, Dr. Madhu Bhalla served at the Centre in Chinese Studies Programme during 1994-2006. In addition, Ms. Kamlesh Jain and Dr. M. M. Kunju served the Centre as the Documentation Officers in Chinese and Japanese Studies respectively.

The academic curriculum covers both modern and contemporary facets of East Asia as each scholar specializes in an area of his/her interest in the region. The integrated course involves two semesters of classes at the M. Phil programme and a dissertation for the M. Phil and a thesis for Ph. D programme respectively. The central objective is to impart an interdisciplinary knowledge and understanding of history, foreign policy, government and politics, society and culture and political economy of the respective areas. Students can explore new and emerging themes such as East Asian regionalism, the evolving East Asian Community, the rise of China, resurgence of Japan and the prospects for reunification of the Korean peninsula. Additionally, the Centre lays great emphasis on the building of language skills. The background of scholars includes mostly from the social science disciplines; History, Political Science, Economics, Sociology, International Relations and language.

Several students of the centre have been recipients of prestigious research fellowships awarded by Japan Foundation, Mombusho (Ministry of Education, Government of Japan), Saburo Okita Memorial Fellowship, Nippon Foundation, Korea Foundation, Nehru Memorial Fellowship, and Fellowship from the Chinese and Taiwanese Governments. Besides, students from Japan receive fellowship from the Indian Council of Cultural Relations.