Future of parliamentary democracy in India/ edited by G.Gopa Kumar

While India celebrates the sixtieth anniversary of independence and trust with liberal democracy, the country is actually passing through a tough and complex period. The rigid social and hierarchical structure, unfinished agenda of land reforms, challenges of casteism and communalism, criminalization of politics, problems of gender participation, slow pace of electoral reforms, challenges of federalism, coalition politics and party system, rise of terrorism etc are some of the major issues affecting the future course of parliamentary democracy in India. In fact, the debate cannot be narrowly focused to the structural and legal aspects of parliamentary form of Government. In the meanwhile, India embraced the neo-liberal agenda and entered the stream of globalization process. This raises further questions of interfacing a developing democracy with the challenges of globalization. The problems relating to bio-diversity. traditional knowledge, rights of ucial poor farmers and above all the role of civil society are here. The volume presents the problems and potentialities of Indian democracy in the era of globalization and liberalization.