Higher Education in the Asia Pacific: Challenges for the Future. A new book by Peter Kell and Gillian Vogl published by Cambridge Scholars Press (2007)
ISBN: 9781847181916

Rie Makita (2007) Livelihood Diversification and Landlessness in Rural Bangladesh
ISBN: 984-05-1783-X

Recent agrarian changes such as the casualisation of employment, an overall decrease in agricultural employment, the lack of agricultural labourers in the peak seasons, and increasing non-farm activities by landowners have resulted in declining patron-client relationships between landless labourers and landowning employers. Drawing on a local NGO's income-generating programme, this book explores how landless labourers avail themselves of an opportunity given under changing labour buyer-seller relationships, and how the NGO's intervention influences the relationships between landed and landless groups. The case study shows that, combined with proper intervention, the outcome of such agrarian changes can be transformed from increased vulnerability into an enabling environment for landless labourers to diversify their livelihoods and so achieve upward economic mobility through the new opportunity. Furthermore, when the intervention for the landless also stimulates the livelihood diversification of landowners, a new equal relationship emerges between the two groups.

Nadirsyah Hosen (2007) Shari'a and Constitutional Reform in Indonesia, Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (ISEAS).

This book focuses on constitutional reform in Indonesia (1999-2002) from the perspective of shari'a. Since the end of Soeharto's New Order government in 1998, Indonesia, the largest Muslim country in the world, has amended the 1945 Constitution four times. Soeharto's departure also opened the way for several Muslim groups and political parties to propose the introduction of shari'a into the Constitution. This book poses the crucial question implicit in the amendments to the 1945 Constitution: can shari'a and democratic constitutionalism be fused without compromising on human rights, the rule of law, and religious liberty? The contributions of Islamic political parties in Indonesia to the process and the outcome of the amendments, by adopting a substantive shari'a approach, reflect the ability to deal with a modern Constitution without abandoning the principles and the objectives of shari'a. The study reveals one possible picture of how Islam and constitutionalism can co-exist in the same vision, not without risk of tension, but with the possibility of success.