External interventions begin with a request from the authorities of a disaster-affected country, who are responsible for coordinating the response. External responders include civilian and military organizations, bilateral and multilateral agencies, and nongovernmental actors. These responders are in turn supported by a wide range of donors, including foreign governments, individuals, corporations and foundations. Governments may choose to channel donations bilaterally or multilaterally. Individuals usually channel their funds through NGOs or specialized U.N. agencies.
Military responses are organized differently than civilian operations, which are dealt with through a single response system for both disasters and armed conflicts. In line with the United Nations Charter, conflict situations are handled multilaterally and referred to the Security Council, which may dispatch a peacekeeping force or authorize countries or groups of countries to intervene. For disaster responses, in contrast, military assistance is organized bilaterally at the request of the country struck by disaster.
On the civilian side, the main external organizations involved in disaster response are specialized U.N. agencies, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies and its members, and NGOs. Key U.N. agencies include the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, the World Food Program and the World Health Organization. The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Assistance (UNOCHA), established in 1992 by Resolution 46/182 of the General Assembly, gathers and disseminates through its website information regarding assistance provided by U.N. agencies, the Red Cross and NGOs. The same resolution also created the position of undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief coordinator (ERC), as well as the Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC), which includes representatives of relevant U.N. agencies, the World Bank, the Red Cross and NGOs. UNOCHA and the IASC, chaired by the ERC, were set up with a view to strengthening humanitarian action in response to both complex emergencies and natural disasters, and in particular to coordinate the responses of external civilian actors.
The new system was plagued by massive failures in its initial years, first and foremost in Somalia (1992) and Rwanda (1994). Despite efforts to fix it, the global disaster-response system has often been described as ineffective, blind, biased, opaque and wasteful.
The system has been perceived as ineffective because it is slow to respond -- a criticism addressed in particular to the U.N. and its specialized agencies -- and often fails to identify essential needs in the emergency phase. In addition, system blindness is characterized by recurrent and persistent erroneous beliefs, a lack of understanding of the social and political contexts of interventions and a limited ability to learn from past mistakes. The beliefs, for example, that unburied corpses trigger epidemics, that immunization campaigns are a high priority in the aftermath of natural disasters, that survivors are helpless and apathetic, and that overseas specialized teams are the primary rescuers are as enduring in the disaster-response system as they are erroneous. Responses based on such beliefs have repeatedly led to suboptimal outcomes. In fact, when disasters occur, survivors intervene quickly: Family members and neighbors are the primary rescuers, while outsiders invariably arrive too late to save but a few lives in the rescue phase.
Tuesday, October 30, 2012
The Disaster-Response Architecture
Sociological perspective
The French philosopher Auguste Comte (1798–1857)—often called the “father of sociology”—first used the term “sociology” in 1838 to refer to the scientific study of society. He believed that all societies develop and progress through the following stages: religious, metaphysical, and scientific. Comte argued that society needs scientific knowledge based on facts and evidence to solve its problems—not speculation and superstition, which characterize the religious and metaphysical stages of social development. Comte viewed the science of sociology as consisting of two branches: dynamics, or the study of the processes by which societies change; and statics, or the study of the processes by which societies endure. He also envisioned sociologists as eventually developing a base of scientific social knowledge that would guide society into positive directions.
Herbert Spencer
The 19th-century Englishman Herbert Spencer (1820–1903) compared society to a living organism with interdependent parts. Change in one part of society causes change in the other parts, so that every part contributes to the stability and survival of society as a whole. If one part of society malfunctions, the other parts must adjust to the crisis and contribute even more to preserve society. Family, education, government, industry, and religion comprise just a few of the parts of the “organism” of society.
Spencer suggested that society will correct its own defects through the natural process of “survival of the fittest.” The societal “organism” naturally leans toward homeostasis, or balance and stability. Social problems work themselves out when the government leaves society alone. The “fittest”—the rich, powerful, and successful—enjoy their status because nature has “selected” them to do so. In contrast, nature has doomed the “unfit”—the poor, weak, and unsuccessful—to failure. They must fend for themselves without social assistance if society is to remain healthy and even progress to higher levels. Governmental interference in the “natural” order of society weakens society by wasting the efforts of its leadership in trying to defy the laws of nature.
Karl Marx
Not everyone has shared Spencer's vision of societal harmony and stability. Chief among those who disagreed was the German political philosopher and economistKarl Marx (1818–1883), who observed society's exploitation of the poor by the rich and powerful. Marx argued that Spencer's healthy societal “organism” was a falsehood. Rather than interdependence and stability, Marx claimed that social conflict, especially class conflict, and competition mark all societies.
The class of capitalists that Marx called the bourgeoisie particularly enraged him. Members of the bourgeoisie own the means of production and exploit the class of laborers, called the proletariat, who do not own the means of production. Marx believed that the very natures of the bourgeoisie and the proletariat inescapably lock the two classes in conflict. But he then took his ideas of class conflict one step further: He predicted that the laborers are not selectively “unfit,” but are destined to overthrow the capitalists. Such a class revolution would establish a “class-free” society in which all people work according to their abilities and receive according to their needs.
Unlike Spencer, Marx believed that economics, not natural selection, determines the differences between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. He further claimed that a society's economic system decides peoples' norms, values, mores, and religious beliefs, as well as the nature of the society's political, governmental, and educational systems. Also unlike Spencer, Marx urged people to take an active role in changing society rather than simply trusting it to evolve positively on its own.
Emile Durkheim
Despite their differences, Marx, Spencer, and Comte all acknowledged the importance of using science to study society, although none actually used scientific methods. Not until Emile Durkheim (1858–1917) did a person systematically apply scientific methods to sociology as a discipline. A French philosopher and sociologist, Durkheim stressed the importance of studying social facts, or patterns of behavior characteristic of a particular group. The phenomenon of suicide especially interested Durkheim. But he did not limit his ideas on the topic to mere speculation. Durkheim formulated his conclusions about the causes of suicide based on the analysis of large amounts of statistical data collected from various European countries.
Durkheim certainly advocated the use of systematic observation to study sociological events, but he also recommended that sociologists avoid considering people's attitudes when explaining society. Sociologists should only consider as objective “evidence” what they themselves can directly observe. In other words, they must not concern themselves with people's subjective experiences.
The German sociologist Max Weber (1864–1920) disagreed with the “objective evidence only” position of Durkheim. He argued that sociologists must also consider people's interpretations of events—not just the events themselves. Weber believed that individuals' behaviors cannot exist apart from their interpretations of the meaning of their own behaviors, and that people tend to act according to these interpretations. Because of the ties between objective behavior and subjective interpretation, Weber believed that sociologists must inquire into people's thoughts, feelings, and perceptions regarding their own behaviors. Weber recommended that sociologists adopt his method of Verstehen (vûrst e hen), or empathetic understanding. Verstehen allows sociologists to mentally put themselves into “the other person's shoes” and thus obtain an “interpretive understanding” of the meanings of individuals' behaviors.
Uttar Pradesh Government Approved IT Policy 2012
The state cabinet of Uttar Pradesh Government in Cabinet meeting chaired by Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav on 17 October 2012 approved the IT Policy 2012.
With the approval of IT Policy 2012, the IT and Electronics Department got 150 acres of land from the Animal Husbandry Department free of cost to develop IT city.
Also taking an another Step, the Uttar Pradesh Government approved the second phase of Ghaziabad metro rail from Dilshad Garden, New Delhi, to the bus stand in Ghaziabad.
The UP State Cabinet also came up with approval to the proposal of doubling the prize money for Yash Bharti Award which is given to singers, Filmstars, Sportpersons, and Journalists etc. The award is now made to 11 lakh Rupees from earlier 5 lakh rupees.
The Cabinet in its meeting had also approved 'Janeshwar Misra handloom Award Scheme' with the prize money of 25000 Rupees. The scheme is aimed to promote handloom weavers and acknowledge their works
The IT policy 2012 basically meant for developing Lucknow and Agra as IT hub, and to establish both IT park and IT city.
As per the policy, all the IT companies establishing their units in the state would be given 100 per centexemption from stamp duty and at the same time be provided 5 per cent interest subsidy for the period of five years which will not excced 100 Crore of Rupees.