Cogito Ergo Sum

Singing at the center of your soul, Long may you dance across your inner stage, Regarding neither rectitude nor rage, Pursuing neither destiny nor goal Be, then, whatever person time will tell. Do what reason and the heart deem good. Take whatever will or fortune would, Always west of heaven, east of hell. Lets Blog On !!

Tuesday, January 29, 2008

New Maldives Country Assistance Strategy

'The new World Bank Group Country Assistance Strategy (CAS) for the Republic of Maldives envisages lending around US$45 million in highly concessional funds from the International Development Association (IDA) over the next five years to support the country’s development program. The strategy was prepared jointly by the World Bank and the International Finance Corporation (IFC).


The Board of Executive Directors of the Bank discussed the FY2008-2012 Country Assistance Strategy (CAS), a document that both describes the Bank’s strategic approach to helping Maldives achieve its development goals and indicates the level of financial and technical assistance that will be provided over this time period. The CAS is designed to support the government’s Seventh National Development Plan (7NDP) which aims to improve the standard of living for all Maldivians and which serves as the country’s Poverty Reduction Strategy.


The strategy will deploy both lending and advisory services, as well as private sector investments, in selective interventions. These interventions seek to contribute to development outcomes including: (i) a well-managed economy attracting increased investment; (ii) improved quality of education to provide a better skilled workforce; and (iii) enhanced capacity to manage the country’s natural environment.


Across these three pillars—economic and fiscal governance, human development and social protection, and environmental management—special attention will be given to developing institutions so as to strengthen fiduciary management and to supporting the government’s plan for population consolidation. Adapting to the possible effects of global climate change, creating opportunities for diversified economic activities, and lowering the cost of public services across the many disparate islands and atolls underlie Maldives’ voluntary population consolidation policy.


“Maldives has made impressive development gains over the last three decades and has moved from being one of the 20 poorest countries in the world in 1978 to become a middle-income country which has the highest per capita income in South Asia,” said Alastair McKechnie, World Bank Country Director for Maldives. Maldives has already met all but two of the Millennium Development Goals and has drastically reduced poverty. Past development has been founded on sound fiscal policies, political stability, and highly successful tourist industry, based on the country’s extraordinary natural assets. The new World Bank Group country assistance strategy comes at a time when the country faces new issues—constitutional change, pressures for unsustainable fiscal deficits, and vulnerability to economic shocks and global climate change—that could offset or potentially roll back some of these development gains. We will work closely with the authorities and other donor partners to ensure continued effectiveness of our development work in meeting these challenges.”


Maldives faces some significant short-term challenges. The Country Assistance Strategy identifies three in particular: political instability, fiscal uncertainties, and potential issues associated with project implementation. Flexibility is built into the CAS for the Bank to adjust its program accordingly. For new investment projects, project design will be adapted to ensure sustainability even if short-term fiscal problems emerge. Finally, to address potential project implementation risks, projects will be kept simple with tightly focused outputs and outcomes and will include institutional development components where these are needed.


The Bank’s interventions to be funded by IDA will focus on results established by previous operations, for example, in the areas of human development and environmental management, as well as some new areas that include environmental management, mobile phone banking, and a new pensions system. Since 2000, IFC has committed $47.8 million in Maldives, consisting of four projects in the finance, tourism, logistics, and telecommunications sectors. Further investment and advisory work during the upcoming CAS will be focused in the areas of infrastructure, access to finance, and tourism.'


The key word here, of course, is "Lending"..


THE REPORT

Sunday, January 27, 2008

SCIENCE & SCIENTISM

"Even with its sparkling thousand points of light, the night sky is a dark and inhospitable place. Mocking our human frailties of both body and mind, the world of the heavens enchants us all the same with a voiceless call that tugs at our sense of being. Whether viewed with our own eyes from some isolated vantage point on a clear night, or as telescopic images that no fleshly retina could ever render, the night sky fascinates. In this computer age of virtual worlds and a seemingly unbounded menu of entertainments, we remain awed by the immensity and grandeur of the heavens. They have a unique and timeless appeal.

In Part One, we saw that human history is the story of seeking both to discover the natural borders of our world and to find meaning in those boundaries. Our most distant boundary has always been the proverbial dome of the sky, the celestial sphere, the medium in which we are enclosed.

In the 1960s when Marshall McLuhan coined the phrase “the medium is the message,” he was not speaking of the cosmos. Nevertheless, his discourse on the burgeoning electronic environment of television and computers has application well beyond its sociological context. Consider the way we continue to seek a message in the medium of the universe. We are embedded here, entrenched and rooted on a small planet looking out at a big expanse and wondering, what is it all for? As Scottish essayist Thomas Carlyle is said to have remarked, if indeed the heavens “be not inhabited, what a waste of space.” Of course, as intriguing as extraterrestrials may be in the movies, we are not simply interested in the possibility of alien neighbors; we seek the history of the universe because, from its message, we believe we will find insight into our terrestrial condition. McLuhan argued that we have a difficult time understanding societal change because our eyes and minds are tuned to the past—traveling forward while watching the rearview mirror. In astronomy as well, our perspective on the present is derived from our view of the past."

Man, however he may seek, can never be anything more than what he really is- 1500 grams of neurons mounted on an "ape", never to be certain of anything except what its senses relay to it. For it is not only the "proverbial dome of the sky" which confines us, but this vault (κρανίον ) as well, so to speak.

Read on

Main

Thursday, January 17, 2008

Charlie Wilson's War
In many ways this movie is an understatement. An insight into American plutocracy, and how grassroot political lobbying can galvanize support for any cause, without the average American even knowing say, for example where on the map Afghanistan is!

Also a picture perfect portrayal of the American psyche which looks upon its culture of infidelity and aestheticism etcetera, as defining hallmarks of it's seemingly 'secular' ideals, and the innate fallibility of Man as essentially reinforcing those 'sacred' ideals, and thus inevitable in those who speak for it- be it Charlie & Joanne or Clinton & Lewinsky..

The irony of the communist scare does not fail me, when today just as then I see neo-fascists sitting in the Roosevelt room- doing the dirty work for War mongering Corporate Eagles bred by Zionists and Christian fundamentalists elected (or so we are made to believe), by a peace loving albeit aloof, majority christian belt settled in the great plains of the Americas!
The conventional connotation of the "axis-of-evil" therefore does not do justice when it excludes the prima dona of much of what is wrong with the world today- Lady Liberty herself.

To quote the movie- "who gives a shit about a school in Pakistan?"

On an E note-Tom Hanks & Philip Seymour Hoffman, and Julia have once again proved why they are among my favorite actors. Easily one of the Best movies this season.

I wonder what the Ruskies think of the movie.lol
 
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