A Social Charter for India

2

Conceptualising the India Social Charter

Praveen Jha

Introduction

The South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC), an alliance of seven countries, namely Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, has been in existence for close to two decades now, and its summits have been important occasions for taking stock of, among other things, a variety of what one may call extremely serious development deficits with respect to the large sections of citizens in the member countries. Beginning with the first SAARC summit of 1985 held in Dhaka to the 11^th one hosted by Kathmandu in 2002, a broad range of glaring deprivations afflicting citizens in these countries have often been acknowledged officially, and every once ...