In recent issues of Perspectives, we have sought to highlight the themes of inequality, exclusion, and the challenges facing democratic politics. We have done this because these themes resound throughout the current political world. Economist and Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz nicely summed up this state of affairs in a November 4, 2011 column circulated by Project Syndicate: “The protest movement that began in Tunisia in January, subsequently spreading to Egypt, and then to Spain, has now become global, with the protests engulfing Wall Street and cities across America. Globalization and modern technology now enable social movements to transcend borders as rapidly as ideas can. And social protest has found fertile ground everywhere: a sense that the ‘system’ has failed, and the conviction that even in a democracy, the electoral process will not set things right—at least not without strong pressure from the street.” The Occupy movement that spread like wildfire throughout the US, and that asserted itself on some major US university campuses, is simply the latest iteration of this diffusion of protest in which young people from Athens and Madrid to Cairo and Damascus seem to be playing a crucial role.
Challenges Faced by Indian International Students in the US