Sustainable Development, the only Reconciliation between Development and Environment

Since the primordial era, man’s irresistible impulse urged him to become civilized. He learnt to make fire by using the flint stones; he also came to know how to manage his own food, clothes and shelter. Moreover, he applied his sense to roll the wheels and tame both wild and domestic animals. These were possible by means of development that has made us what we are today.

The term ‘development’ covers many areas, like the economic, the social improvement and so on.

On the one hand, the economic development refers to the notion of increasing possibilities of employments. On the other hand, the social development includes urbanization.

The advancement of science and its miraculous inventions assist society and economy to become more and more developed day by day. But here a question peeps from everyone’s mind. That is to say, don’t these so-called developments hinder the environmental conservation?

When we are inclined to heavy industrialization and urbanization, we usually make deforestation. Without visualizing the actual consequences to be faced in near future, we get involved to destroy ourselves indirectly. Rainfall is uncertain and deficient everywhere. Soil-erosion, drought and flood have become very recurrent incidents. In the past, the trees used to hold the ground tightly, which has disappeared at present. As a result of the erosion, the depth of the rivers is getting more and more decreased. Time to time drazing is required to restore its profundity. Resulting in, they overflow, sometimes washing away the entire territory. Water-logging is a very common happening in Kolkata and its outskirts and the prolonged deposited water is the breeding ground of the mosquitoes.

Because of knocking down of trees, when it starts raining, it pours incessantly and when it is summer, the sunbeams are extremely scorching. As an effect of this, the entire cycle of seasons gets disturbed.

During the year of 1985, the man made development by way of deforestation, especially in the Himalayan watershed areas, aggravated the danger of flooding; it averaged 1,471 square kilometer per year. India also lost fifty per cent of her mangrove area between 1963 and 1977. Despite thirty years of flood-control programs that had already cost an estimated $10 billion, floods in 1980 alone claimed nearly two thousand lives, killed thousands of cattle and affected 55 million people on 11.3 million hectares (28 million acres) of land. As of the mid-1990s, sixty per cent of the land where crops could be grown had been damaged by the grazing of the nation's 406 million head of livestock, deforestation, and misuse of agricultural chemicals and increase of salinity.

Due to deforestation, natural weather and climate also get affected from their usual stands. Therefore, required rainfall does not arrive at its actual time and sometimes, it gets delayed to come because of which cultivation also gets hampered.

The trees maintain a perfect balance between Oxygen and Carbon-dioxide. While the former is essential for all and sundry to breathe in, the latter aids the greenery to prepare their foods with Chlorophyll. Due to development, the felling of trees causes a large imbalance in the air. So, the normal ratio of the two gases is getting agitated.

Due to cutting down of trees in an indiscriminate manner, due to polluting the environment at large, we have created a great imbalance in our ecosystem. Consequently, many species are becoming extinct year after year. Take for example; Hangul and Snow Leopard in Jammu and Kashmir, Vulture in Punjab, Haryana and Gujarat, Swiftlet in Andaman and Nicobar islands, Nilgiri Tahr in Tamil Nadu and Sanghai Deer in Manipur are all endangered classes of animals and birds, which the Government of India is trying to recover and rescue. Wildlife Institute of India, Bombay Natural History Society, Salim Ali Centre for Ornithology and Natural History are some of the research organizations undertaking research on conservation of wildlife. Recently, global warming is a very dreadful phenomenon, as a result of which, the polar ice getting melted raises the sea level and many coastal areas are imminent to get submerged.

In the name of development, natural resources are getting exploited overtly. Take for instance; water is a limited resource, which is being contaminated each and every day. At present, the residents of the multi-storied buildings, due to high population, have to be supplied with fresh water. So, the ground water level is getting decreased each day. Moreover, hybrid vegetables are produced to meet our needs, because there is over population density. This hybridism not only invites various kinds of diseases to modern mankind but also reduces the productivity of lands, making them become barren. Environmental conservation is thus getting affected more and more.

Apart from that, the domestic and industrial waste water causes pollution to this limited resource. Washing dirty clothes, cleansing cattle, scrubbing utensils etc. are absolutely anti-environmental activities. These can be found in the domestic scenario. The filthy drainage water also gets mingled with the rivers. An impeccable instance of this case would be the Ganga. When the carcasses and the corpses float on the river, the germs get mixed with the water, creating environmental degradation.

Due to uncontrolled dumping of chemical and industrial waste, fertilizers and pesticides, seventy per cent of the surface water in India is polluted. The nation has 1,260 cubic km of renewable water resources, of which 92 per cent is used for farming. Safe drinking water is available to 95 per cent of urban and 79 per cent of rural dwellers.    

However, a start was made in terms of River Action Plan to clean up the polluted rivers in the country. Ganga Action Plan, the first phase of this plan, began in 25-class I towns in the three states, namely, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and West Bengal. Unfortunately, even after ten years, it remains incomplete.

The environmental effects of intensive urbanization are evident in all the major cities, although Calcutta—once a symbol of urban quality—has been freed of cholera and most of the city now has water purification and sewer services. Analogous improvements have been made in other leading cities under the Central Scheme for Environmental Improvement in Slum Areas, launched in 1972, which provided funds for sewers, community baths and latrines, road paving, and other services. However, as of the mid-1990s, only 21 of India's 3,245 cities had effective sewage treatment.

Just like water, air is another component that we always need to survive. Over-use of fossil fuels contaminates it, Chloro-Fluro-Carbon (CFC) that is emitted while manufacturing and repairing refrigerators make it unfit to be inhaled. Moreover, the atomic explosions used in wars upset the environmental balance and conservation to the utmost.

Air pollution is most severe in urban centers; but even in rural areas, the burning of wood, charcoal, and dung for fuel, coupled with dust from wind erosion during the dry season, poses a significant problem. Industrial air pollution threatens some of India's architectural treasures, including the Taj Mahal in Agra, part of the exterior of which has been dulled and pitted by airborne acids. It is a perfect instance of Stone Cancer. Moreover, in what was probably the worst industrial disaster of all time, a noxious gas named Methyl Isocyanate (MIC) leak from a Union Carbide pesticide plant in Bhopal, the capital of Madhya Pradesh, killed more than 1,500 people and injured thousands of others in December, 1985. In 1992, India had the world's sixth-highest level of industrial carbon dioxide emissions, which totaled 769 million metric tons, a per capita level of 0.88 metric tons.

In order to solve the enormous problem of air-pollution, what we need to do immediately is to utilize the complementary resources like the solar energy, the wind energy and tidal energy.

Besides air-pollution, land-pollution and sound-pollution are some prevalent occurrences now-a-days. Due to the former, the fertile fields are becoming arid and turning to pure waste lands. It definitely affects the environmental conservation.

The violated usage of microphones over the allowed range, the fireworks and so on destroy the balance of nature. These cause pollution, congestion, tension, noise and accidents frequently. Deafness is our daily companion now-a-days. Evidently, the most harmed persons are the destitute.    

In the modern age, people are developed, life styles are refined, but, who cares for the poorest of the poor? Are they really considered to be a part of our society? In the Stockholm Conference in 1972, Indira Gandhi, the Indian Prime Minister, said that poverty is the greatest pollutant. If we are incompetent to propagate the developments to the lower and marginalized strata at the same time, the entire development process becomes incomplete and futile. It seems that we better return to the era of nature.

Every year, people observe 5th June as World Environment Day, when they deliver series after series of lecture, when lots of seminars are held to arouse public awareness regarding environmental conservation, but simultaneously, also some of us, speakers and listeners, keep on doing disgraceful acts, which affect our nature. Each and every nook and corner of the earth will feel better and more beautiful, only if we take up the task of undoing our misdeeds collectively again from the very beginning with conscious minds and environment-friendly attitude.

However, some steps have been taken by the Government of India for the protection of environment and bio-diversity. Amongst those, the important measures include the enactment of the Wild Life (Protection) Act (1972), Wetland (Conservation and Management) Rules (2010), National Plan for Conservation of Aquatic Eco-system, Wildlife Crime Control Bureau and so on. Some of the significant Indian Acts related to the environmental conservation are Fisheries Act (1897), Indian Forests Act (1927), Mining and Mineral Development Regulation Act (1957), Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (1960), Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act (1974), Forest Conservation Act (1980), Air (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act (1981), Environment Protection Act (1986), Biological Diversity Act (2002) and Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Rights) Act (2006).

The National Committee on Environmental Planning and Coordination was established in 1972 to investigate and propose solutions to environmental problems resulting from continued population growth and consequent economic development; in 1980, the Department of the Environment was created. The sixth development plan (1979–84), which for the first time included a section on environmental planning and coordination, gave the planning commission veto power over development projects that might damage the environment; this policy was sustained in the seventh development plan (1985–90). The National Environmental Engineering Research Institute has field center areas throughout the country.

The Wildlife Act of 1972 prohibits killing of and commerce in threatened animals. In 1985 there were 20 national parks and more than 200 wildlife sanctuaries. As of 2001, 4.4 per cent of India's total land area was protected. In addition to 75 species of mammals, 73 types of birds are endangered, as are 785 plant species. Endangered species in India include the lion-tailed macaque, five species of langur, the Indus dolphin, wolf, Asiatic wild dog, Malabar large-spotted civet, clouded leopard, Asiatic lion, Indian tiger, leopard, cheetah, Asian elephant, dugong, wild Asian ass, great Indian rhinoceros, Sumatran rhinoceros, pygmy hog, swamp deer, Himalayan musk deer, Asiatic buffalo, gaur, wild yak, white-winged wood duck, four species of pheasant, the crimson tragopan, Siberian white crane, great Indian bustard, river terrapin, marsh and estuarine crocodiles, gavial, and Indian python. Although wardens are authorized to shoot poachers on game reserves, poaching continues, with the Indian rhinoceros (whose horn is renowned for its supposed aphrodisiac qualities), especially valuable.

Of course, both progress and transition are necessary to create a better future, but at the same time, it is also not desired and expected that they will cause harms to the environmental conservation.

Therefore, sustainable development is required all over the world. The expression ‘sustainable development’ means the economic development that is conducted without depletion of natural resources.

It sounds quite shameful to utter that the initial generations of men inherited a clean earth, but, nowadays, every person gives a defiled one to his progeny.  

Green logistics, a solution to atmospheric pollution

Green logistics, a solution to atmospheric pollution

 

The entire ecosystem is dependent upon its components. The components are dependent upon each other since it is like a chain or like a pyramid that reigns all over and all through the ecosystem. However, mankind and their various kinds of inventions including the transportations have caused much harm to the environment. Now the point is that if one of the components is damaged, the whole system or the entire pattern will be at stake. The hazards of living will prompt into the ears of all the human beings that it is better to die than to live in this polluted and exceptionally unlivable environment. But why? It is so perhaps because man defiled the atmosphere himself for his own sake. Broadly speaking, this has indirectly caused serious harms to him.

The issues of climate change and global warming due to the excessive emission of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases have posed to be a crucial problem all over the world for the last twenty years to the utmost. These ill effects in the atmosphere are especially caused by the smoke and gases given off by the transports. It is, however, true and genuine that even if a couple of degrees are raised in temperature, human beings will be seriously harmed and be in critical hazard. This has been propounded by the Inter-government Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) (Reinman, 2012).

Transport is the hugest source of atmospheric pollution in the logistics system. Man uses fossil fuels in these various kinds of transport and resulting in it causes massive increase of the emissions of carbon dioxide. The European Commission (2011) opines that transportation on road report for forty seven percent of transportation of goods in totaling in the European Union. Moreover, it is considered that between the years of 2000 and 2020, world cargo transport will increase about fifty percent, as per the knowledge of European Commission, 2006.

The European Union ought to curtail its greenhouse gas release by forty percent by the year of 2030. Even though a great deal of policies is being planned in the days of today, it is still vague how they can be implemented in order to reach the goal.

Fortunately enough, a number of companies are switching to sustainable or green logistics. However, a number of practices concerning the reduction of the carbon dioxide emissions have been adopted by many companies. Instances are, namely, Horizontal Collaboration, Green Logistics, Sustainable Practices, and Consolidation Centre and so on and so forth.

The couple of words in the phrase ‘green logistics’ are charged with meaning; the phrase is particularly suggestive. It is noteworthy that at the heart or at the core of the modern transport system, the term ‘logistics’ can be found. What does it imply? It refers to a degree organization and controlling the cargo movements. The modern technology has brought it into reality. In the domain of the industry of the transportation, green logistics have become one of the most significant developments. For a great many concerns regarding the environment, ‘green’ and ‘greenness’ have become sounding to be a couple of key words. Generally, they are considered to be positive. It suggests congeniality with the natural environment, and in this way, the term ‘logistics’ sounds to be advantageous. When these two words are placed side by side, they imply a competent transport and distribution system that is friendly to the ecosystem.

It is known that in the late 1980s and at the onset of the 1990s, the term ‘greenness’ became a key word in the transport trade. Moreover, it stretched its hands out of the increasing consciousness of environmental problems. Particularly, the most enlightened issue such as acid rain, Chloro Fluro Carbons (CFCs), climate change and global warming. The World Commission on Environment and Development Report published in 1987 gave green important urge in the political as well as in the economic domains that sustainability and green logistics should be treated as an important issue and that they ought to be the targets for international action. It is revealed from a study that in the United Kingdom, around eighteen percent of the greenhouse gases are given off because of road transport (Hill et al., 2012).

The European Union supported CO3, that is, Collaborative Concepts for Co-Modality, scheme for the goal of increasing the competence of European logistics with the help of horizontal collaboration between European shippers. Apart from this, a great deal of repetitive test cases will be created.

The notion of green logistics encapsulates and covers the areas of green transportation, green storage and safekeeping, loading and unloading green system, green packaging, green distribution processing, gathering or collection, and green information management.

The expression green package can also be named and called to be ‘ecological package’ or ‘environment friendly package’. It is entirely made by natural plants; it can have propensity to degradation and endorsing sustainable development. In short, the notion of green packaging is the perfect packaging that can be used again and again or can be reused and recycled. It does never cause contamination in human beings and also not in the environment during the product life cycle (Gunjal et al., 2015).

The day has arrived when all the people are supposed to go green, live green and love green. Trees or the greenery are the most essential parts of the ecosystem. If they are neglected, the entire system will tumble down one very day. That is why, all men, all women and all the children ought to know and must be made aware of the beneficence of trees and greens and green logistics. Only then by implementing the plans rather than just programming would be capable enough to come to the aid of mankind. If not, man himself will be ruined as one day may come like that. Therefore, it is always better and wiser to invite the green logistics not only to go green but even to reduce the carbon dioxide emissions from all kinds of transportation. 

 

Inviting Innovations in Transportation

 

Did nature create the human beings or did the human beings create nature? Which is the true answer? However, the relative importance belongs to both of them. One is relying upon the other. They are like true friends indeed. However, the days that we are having now reveal the harshest fact that man is polluting the other, that is, nature as much as possible. But why does he do so? There is truly no perfect and absolute answer to this question.

Human beings are components of the natural environment. That is to say, man and nature are interrelated to each other. Everything benevolent happens because of this relationship. Broadly speaking, whenever this tie or this bond gets disturbed, everything will collapse in the wink of an eye.

It can be said that science and nature walk hand in hand. Frankly speaking, science is more dependent on nature, not merely because of the components helpful for scientific discovery but also for the execution of the scientific formulae.

Unfortunately, now-a-days, every scientific process, it may rather be said that every scientific attitude of man contaminates the environment. It is truly unimaginable that the human beings are treacherous to their origin, that is, nature.

Man is becoming more and more developed, more and more civilized in his own way, sometimes with his scientific inventions and sometimes with his easy approach to taint nature. He invented various kinds of transports, and at the same time, various kinds of green house gases like Carbon dioxide, Nitrous oxide, Trichlorofluromethane, Carbon tetrachloride, Fluoroform, Methane and so on and so forth, not just to pollute his environment but even to dig his own grave indirectly.

At present, transportation epitomizes around 10% of the gross domestic product in the United States of America, according to Research Innovative Technology Administration 2012, 3 – 3. Moreover, transportation is necessary to many aspects of the economy of the USA. It incorporates transportation of people to reach their employment, or other ends. However, transportation takes into its account of 28% of the emission of the greenhouse gases in the USA in 2012, as per the knowledge of U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 2013.

Moreover, the emissions from transportation sector are expected to increase hastily within the next few decades. The International Energy Agency (IEA) propounds that the use of energy and consequently the emissions of carbon dioxide will rise about between 2000 and 2030. The developing countries like China and Indonesia and so on will fall victim to this phenomenon greatly; the emissions in those countries may get doubled between 2000 and 2020. These basically occur due to increase of personal travel and goods movement, and apart from these, use of fossil fuels for these purposes.

Day by day, urbanization is taking the prior place more and more. In the urban areas, not only the factories but even the transports are emitting Carbon dioxide. People consume fuel electrical power and resulting in, they increase the number of their carbon footprints.

Fortunately, at the present times, some measures are being taken against pollution and climate change due to the emission of greenhouse gases. Carbon dioxide mitigation measures to urban transport projects are being undertaken that offer the scopes for improving the cost-effectiveness of mobility investments.

In the meantime, Japan has taken some stratagems for leading the Fourth Industrial Revolution. “Japan Revitalization Strategy” got revised in 2015, and decided at the cabinet meeting on June 30, 2015. The country has expressed a few basic approaches for dominant sectors. First, comprehending the directions of world technology and industries and strategies of leading companies may be helpful. Second, analyzing Japan’s strengths and weaknesses and thus endeavoring to improve may come to an aid. Third, sharing the strategies all over Japan for government, private sectors and research institutes may be helpful as well.

Apart from that, there are transportation technologies and stratagems that are commencing their journey for helping to meet the climate change. These technologies and strategies include automotive and fuel technologies, intelligent transportation systems (ITS) and mobility management strategies for reduce the demand for private vehicles. The climate change beneficence of innovative engine and transport technologies are, however, comprehended. Yet there are a very few or a small number of studies that are available on the energy and carbon dioxide emission.

Intelligent transportation system (ITS) can curtail fuel consumptions and emissions by reducing congestion, smoothing the progress of optimal route planning and timing, perfecting accelerations or decelerations, permitting pricing and demand management stratagems, bettering the public transportation mode use, and so on and so forth.

Now the question is – What is innovation? It is nothing but a central notion of economic development and is perceived as a key driver of a company’s success. From the organizational point of view, innovation is essential for creating new scopes or for ruining the existing ones in order to survive in challenging the dynamism. Furthermore, technological as well as organizational innovations may be considered as fundamental novelties or changes for betterment.

Therefore, the solutions to these problems need to be discovered by the people themselves. They can use solar energy, wind energy, atomic energy, and tidal energy and so on. When fossil fuels have invited a great curse all over the world, some alternative energy should be found out. At present, many companies have shifted from using fossil fuel energies to the utilization of solar energy.

It must be said that whatever the circumstances are, whatever the innovations may be, all the human beings must work shoulder to shoulder for the entire world, because world cannot be composed of a number of counties and their barriers only but with the help of brotherhood that can break the barricades of the nations to make them a unified whole. All the fragments of the jigsaw puzzle should be harmonized to make them a complete and beautiful picture. Only then the whole world will become a better place for living with less pollution and more innovation, and for that people should take steps with much immediacy.

 

Is Sustainable Development Welcomed Properly?

 

Now-a-days, all over the world, it has become a conscious concern to combat climate change and global warming by inviting sustainable development. Although it has raised a hue and cry all over the globe, many steps are yet to be taken for better existence of the human beings on this earth. Regarding this notion, many citations are there. One of them may be quoted below.

 

The Unilever Company, in November, 2015, announced, “We will become carbon positive in our operations by 2030. This means we will source 100% of the energy used within our operations from renewable sources by 2030, and generate more renewable energy than we consume. We are also working to lower our greenhouse gas (GHG) impact from sourcing, manufacturing and innovation, as well as deepening our efforts to eliminate deforestation from our supply chains.” They added, “In 2016, our factory sites reduced CO₂ emissions from energy by 43% per tonne of production compared to 2008, achieving our target four years ahead of schedule. However, the GHG impact of our products has risen by 8% since 2010.² Underlying sales growth over the same period was 30%, so it is encouraging to see that we are indeed decoupling our value chain GHG impacts from our business growth. The increase in GHG emissions per consumer use is mainly driven by our Personal Care business which has expanded in hair and shower products via acquisitions, in particular Alberto Culver. Over 60% of our value chain GHG footprint comes from consumer use, primarily from heated water for showering, which is more difficult to influence.”

 

It must be kept in mind that the phenomenon of climate change is a crucial and serious challenge to the world. From the pre-industrial levels, greenhouse gas (GHG) concentrations have increased more and more as a consequence of human acts. As a result to this, global warming is obvious in the present days from the surveillance of increase in global average air. Ocean temperatures, pervasive melting of snow and ice in the Polar Regions and the rise of the sea levels all over the world have become and posed to be serious problems in human life and they are getting even more harmful day by day. As a result to the rise of the level of the marine water due to the melting of ice and snow in the Polar Regions, many low lands are about to get submerged.

 

Apart from that, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has propounded that basically nothing but the greenhouse gases and their emissions are the causes of climate change and global warming. Day by day, its consequents will deteriorate over time, and this will happen due to the absence of regulatory action. Actually, the vulnerability of the future generations will bring in a kind of catastrophic disaster.

 

Stephen Pacala, an ecologist, and Robert Socolow, a physicist, both belong to the Princeton University. They have come up with a few measures for controlling pollution, climate change and global warming. They are, namely, eliminating the use of fossil fuels like burning coal, oil and natural gas, upgrading infrastructure since all over the world, nothing but buildings contribute in emitting one third of the natural gas, innovating the new ways to use transportation, less consuming, citizens becoming more efficient, eating vegetarian, planting saplings and stopping deforestation, unplugging the electrical goods when they are off, inviting the system of having one child, replacing the fuels coming from the fossils, and so on and so forth.

 

Moreover, farming livestock like cattle, sheep, goats, pigs and chickens gives off about six billion tonnes of greenhouse gases, like carbon dioxide, Nitrous oxide, Trichlorofluromethane, Carbon tetrachloride, Fluoroform, Methane and so on and so forth each and every year. The estimates may vary. However, this epitomizes up to eighteen percent of the global emissions of polluting greenhouse gases.

 

Climate change and global warming due to the effects of the greenhouse gases are perhaps the most visible and most researched challenge of the global environment. In the eco-system, every creature is linked with the other, because it is like a chain; it is rather a pyramid. If one living creature is neglected, the entire pyramid will collapse to the utmost. Every creature is dependent upon the others. So there is no question of independence.

 

Unfortunately, human technology and population growth have changed the web of ecosystem. Wherever people like to go, they will definitely find dangers in human food, water and air. However, the target of a globe in natural equilibrium is long past pract8ical and people are now in the grip of the era of sustainable practices. People have and require comprehending the natural systems much better. They should learn cautiously how they can probe into the matter of keeping them as it was and productive.

 

Is there any light of hope? Do people will have to grope in the utmost and fierce darkness forever? The answers lie in the proper learning and correct understanding of the matter of sustainable development by the people. It ought to be done by the people and for the people. Unless men work hand in hand always to curb this grim advent of human tragedy, no one can ever be able at all to solve this challenge. For this men need to bid farewell to all the non-renewable energy resources and usher in a new era of hope when there will be renewable energy to be used as much as the human beings desire. However, it is not just a word to say. That is to say, it should be executed; human plans and strategies must be implemented with immediacy, since the present attitude of man will determine the future destiny. The planet is for everyone. So, without any discrepancy, it must be, rather it ought to be loved by all; it has to be taken care of, and what is more, it should be nurtured with intense love and care just as it forever more has taken care of mankind.

Political theory – the mold of international relations

Political theory – the mold of international relations

Political theory plays an integral role in shaping the study and practice of politics and international relations. It is about different ways with the help of which the nature and character of international politics can be interpreted, understood and assessed.

International relations are sometimes referred to as international studies, but the two states of affairs are not perfectly synonymous. This is actually the amend of relationships bordered by countries, including the role of states, inter-governmental institutions (IGOs), international non-governmental institutions (INGOs), non-governmental institutions (NGOs) and multinational corporations (MNCs).

It covers the areas of both academic and public policy. It is sometimes positive and sometimes normative, seeking to scrutinize and to devise the foreign policy of meticulous states. Every now and then, it is measured as a branch of political science. However, an important segment of academia prefers to look upon it as an interdisciplinary domain of revise. The features of international relations have been studies for years after years, since the period of Thucydides. However, it became a secluded and definable discipline on the onset of the twentieth century.

International relations, separately from the study of political science, draw upon a number of diversified meadows like technology, engineering, economics, history, international law, philosophy, geography, social work, sociology, anthropology, criminology, psychology, gender studies, and cultural studies. Apart from that, it engrosses a varied range of issues like globalization, state sovereignty, international security, ecological sustainability, nuclear proliferation, nationalism, economic growth, global fund, terrorism, organized crime, human security, foreign interventionism, and human rights. However, the diverse issues are merely limited to the mentioned items.

If the history of international relations is delved deeper, the origin can be traced back to thousands of years. For example, Barry Buzan and Richard Little trust that the interaction of old Sumerian municipality-states, commenced in 3,500 BC. It was the first fully fledged international system.

Its history is founded upon the sovereign states. The history can often be found back to the Peace of Westphalia of 1648. It was a milestone in the development of the contemporary state system. Before that, the medieval system of political power in Europe was based on a vague hierarchy and religious order. However, Westphalia still represented layered systems of sovereignty. This happened especially within the Holy Roman Empire. The Treaty of Utrecht of 1713 is a notion that reflects an emerging parameter that sovereigns had no internal equals within a definite area and there were no external superiors as well that could stand as the ultimate power within the sovereign borders of the region. This was effective more than the Peace of Westphalia.

The theory of international relations has a widespread custom of drawing on the work of the social sciences of the other kinds. In the expression “International Relations”, “I” and “R” are capitalized for distinguishing the academic discipline of International Relations from the phenomena of the same. Whatever it is, manifold works can be cited from Sun Tzu’s The Art of War (sixth century BC), Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War (fifth century BC), Chanakya’s Arthashastra (fourth century BC) and so on and so forth. Apart from these, Hobbes’ Leviathan and Niccolo Machiavelli’s The Prince provide more elaboration.

Thomas Hobbes (1588 – 1679) was a contemporary of Grotius and, like the latter, he answered the concerns found and faced during his time and at his place. On the one hand, Grotius used to think that a state without any political authority would still be governed by natural law. On the other hand, Hobbes held that there is no natural law in which such moral value or fundamental human commonality is engraved. This sounds that both of the thinkers were in stark contrast.

Similarly, the works of Kant and Rousseau are drawn upon by liberalism. The former’s work is pretty often quoted as the first elaboration of democratic peace theory. Moreover, Francisco de Vitoria, Hugo Grotius and John Locke gave the initial accounts of global entitlement and this was meant for ensuring rights on the basis of usual humanity. In the modern era, Marxism has been groundwork of international relations.

The theories of international relations can be divided into two categories, namely, “positivist” and “post-positivist”. The former aims at repeating the ways of the natural sciences in the method of analyzing the influence of material forces, while the latter concentrates upon constitutive questions, for instance, the meaning and implication of ‘power’, what creates it and how it is implanted. The post-positivism is also known as Reflectivity Theory.

Whatever the theory be, ‘sustainable growth’ matters most. However, the quoted term raises a number of criticisms at different stages and dissimilar phases. John Baden writes, “In economy like in ecology, the interdependence rule applies….Several suggestions to save our environment and to promotes model of ‘sustainable growth’ risk indeed leading to reversal effects.”

Some critics say that the term is indeed too vague. For example, both Jean-Marc Jancovici and the philosopher Luc Ferry articulate the same inspection. Of course, the term is more charming than meaningful.

Sylvie Brunel, a French geographer and specialist of the third world, raises the question of the person who benefits from ‘sustainable growth’. Apart from that, she opines that the central ideas of this phenomenon are concealed form protectionism through urbanized nations hindering the growth of other countries.

The aim is not that one nation should trample the other, but it is of universal growth in order to make a world state. Everybody should come forward to take steps and, what is more, to activate the plans rather than mere strategy. If the plans of ‘sustainable growth’ are to be activated in case of the political theory playing an indispensable part in shaping the study and practice of politics and international relations, the foremost step for every nation will be to work hand in hand. One nation is interdependent on the other. It is like a chain rather than a pyramid. If one nation is neglected, the entire bond will collapse. Therefore, it will be intelligent and wise to work together for betterment of the globe.

 

Feminism, the key to empower women

It is beyond imagine that even in today’s world, that is, in the world of the twenty first century, there is still gender discrimination all over the world, including the first world countries. It is known that from time to time women movements have taken place in every country and in every nation. It is quite humiliating for the developed and the developing countries and it is indeed a shame in the name of modernity. The world must feel ashamed of its acts of discriminating the male and the female in case of their capabilities, competence, skill and merit. A woman is not a babysitter but a fighter as well.

 

The notion of feminism is deeply rooted in the ancient Greece with Sappho (d. c. 570 BCE), or the medieval world with Hildegard of Bingen (d. 1179) or Christine de Pisan (d. 1434). Definitely Olympes de Gouge (d. 1791), Mary Wollstonecraft (d. 1797) and Jane Austen (d. 1817) are the flag bearers of the modern women’s movement. However, a large number of people distinguish women’s movement by the idea of the three waves of feminism.

 

The first wave of women’s movement took place from the 1830’s up to the early 1900’s. The movement of this kind covered the areas of women’s fight for equal contract and property rights. It has been taken for granted pretty often that women comprehended the fact of gaining political power, including that of voting, in the late 19th to the onset of 20th century. They believed that there must be a transition to add fuel to the fire. Day by day, their political plan broadened to the sexual, reproductive and economic issues. Actually, the idea that was implanted was that they have the latent power to have a say in each domain of the society just like the men.

 

The second wave broadened the debate from the 1960’s up to the 1980’s. It concentrated on the workplace, sexuality, family and reproductive rights. At the time of restructuring of the United States, it was apparent that women had congregated their goals of equality. The only exception was that the ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment, that is yet to be passed, did not come to success. In Britain, the women eloquent in this wave of feminism in Britain began its journey from the environment created by the 1944 Education Act that assured the completion of secondary school by all girls, with a minority giving access to academic girls’ grammar schools.

 

The third is the movement in which we are living at present. It commenced from the 1990s and is active till the present. It is concerned with the “micropolitics” of gender equality. Now-a-days, unlike the previous movements, the term ‘feminist’ is taken by the female persons less seriously due to the different feminist outlooks. There are a number of feminists, such as, the ego-cultural feminists, the radicals, the liberals or the reforms, the electoral, the academic, the eco-feminists and so on and so forth. This wave of women’s movement makes three crucial tactical moves for responding to a series of theoretical problems within the second wave. First and foremost, it answers back the collapse of the category of “women”. It is said that it forefronts the personal narratives that illustrate an intersectional version of feminism. Secondly, as a result of the rise of postmodernism, the third-wavers usher in multivocality over synthesis and action over the justification of theory. Lastly, responding to the divisiveness of the sex wars, the third wave feminism stresses upon a comprehensive approach that refutes to police the boundaries.

 

The present women’s movement is exactly a catalogue of five things. They are, namely, knowledge, linguistics, listening, intersectionality and equality of opportunity. If knowledge is shared, the notion that feminism is pointless can be dismissed. Women can actually still make about 80% in comparison with their male counterparts in identical jobs, and so on. Then language comes that is culturally built. For example, languages like German have masculine and feminine nouns. One of the most significant and undervalued goals of feminism is that we listen to the attacking cultural messages. Again, previously the feminist movements made clear decisions about intersectionality. Equality of opportunities includes the job scopes, educational opportunities, promotional opportunity, bonus and benefits, and equal pay. For instance, abortion, contraceptive, prenatal and other health issues, maternity love, childcare, child support and custody issues, workplace rights, and equal scopes for jobs and education may be mentioned.

 

Moreover, science is such a subject that the feminists have a number of different interests in, and viewpoints on. The implementations of science have been a vital resource for comprehension of nature, its impact and hopes for changing forms of oppression based on gender.

 

A research has proved that the female physicians even now earn less than their male counterparts. From the point of view of both social justice and feminist perspectives, the laws need to pay equally to the female persons in accordance with their male counterparts. Gender bias in case of the incomes of the physicians may be conceptually understood, provided the impact of specialization and other variable things differ in terms of gender.

 

However, a light of hope has to be invited by hook or by crook for the empowerment of the women, for the betterment of the world, for the beneficence of mankind, and for enlivening a better future. Otherwise, the entire world shall be ruined one day, and if any positive step is yet to be taken, it should be done immediately, because the days must be near when men and women are supposed to work together hand in hand. Both the genders should be treated equally. They must stand together to welcome a new era of hope and peace. Only then our beautiful earth will become even more pretty, for a woman can begin the war and she can finish the same war as good as a man, for women and men are not only equal in power but also in intellect.