India"s conscious shift in the early 1990s from an inward-looking development strategy to a globalized market-based approach resulted in significant changes in its foreign investment policy. Till the 1990s, the policy was heavily restrictive with majority foreign equity permitted only in a handful export-oriented, high technology industries. Outward-oriented reforms radically changed such perceptions with foreign investment policy becoming progressively liberal following steady withdrawal of external capital controls and simplification of procedures.

Russia's military intervention in Georgia in August 2008 sent a shock wave across the post-Soviet space, particularly the republics to the west and south of Russia. In December 2008, the European Union formalized the Eastern Partnership initiative, directed at Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine. In order to understand the impact of this war both on Russia's bilateral relations with these countries and on the Eastern Partnership area as a whole, this article analyzes the reactions of these former Soviet republics to the Russian offensive. Three types of response are observed: keeping distance from Russia; maintaining a balance between Moscow and the West; and, finally, changing course (from rapprochement to keeping a distance and vice-versa) vis-à-vis the former center of the Soviet Empire.

Japan and the Democratic People"s Republic of Korea (DPRK) are as far away as ever from establishing anything resembling ‘normal" relations, let alone official diplomatic ties. This paper traces the history of the ups-and-downs in the Japan-DPRK relationship during the last decade.

This paper proposes a detailed presentation of the obstacles to the development of rural areas in China today, and of the transformations and ongoing reforms since the beginning of the 21st century.

Chen Guangjin is a Research Fellow of the Institute of Sociology at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.