"SAARC: origin, development and programmes; from first to the ninth SAARC summit / edited by Davinder Kumar Madaan"

SAARC came into being on 8th December 1985. It is a great step to expedite the process of regional cooperation. In the changing international economic scenario, particularly after the establishment of WTO, trend is towards globalisation of world economy. On the other hand, trend of forming regional trade blocks has also got momentum. The manifestation of this trend are EU, ASEAN, NAFTA, APEC, etc. The emergence of these regional trade blocks is an attempt of these countries to operate in the global market with their increased economic strength. SAARC has also made modest attempt to form a trade block with the operationalisation of SAPTA on 7th December 1995, which, in fact, is the real beginning of SAARC. SAARC region has remained underdeveloped due to isolation, inspite of the tremendous wealth in terms of human and natural resources. There is a great scope of regional cooperation among SAARC countries as they share many common concerns and are facing many problems of the similar nature.

The book "SAARC: Origin, Development and Programmes" contains of various important documents en SAARC, published by SAARC Secretariat, mandu since the inception of SAARC. It vided into three parts viz., Introduction of SAARC, SAARC Agreements and SAARC Summit declarations, which study evolution, essence, various activities of SAARC, and declarations of already held nine SAARC summits.

The book will be useful to students, academicians, administrators and researchers, who are interested in the study on SAARC. It may be the first book which studies the origin, development and programmes of SAARC since its inception.