District Magistrate Research Articles

District Magistrate and Police Superintendent in India: the controversy of Dual Control

District Magistrate and Police Superintendent in India: the controversy of Dual Control

Pakistan's Experiment in Basic Democracies

PAKISTAN HAS LAUNCHED a new system of local government, which it calls but historical examples helped a great deal to shape some of the features of the system. A mixture of elected and appointed representatives to local councils is the most important aspect of the new system, just as it was the keystone of local government several times in the past. A reliance on civil servants for leadership is also characteristic of both the old and the new. Although the guide-lines are drawn (in part, at least) from the slowly evolving forms of representative government in pre-partition British India, the Basic Democracies, with a new name and new inspiration, represent an attempt to express once the desire of Pakistan's people for accelerated development and uncorrupted government. A five-tiered system of councils in both East and West Pakistan is the chief characteristic of the system, although only four are governing bodies.' Tle councils operate at the levels of unions, or groups of villages; tahsils (in West Pakistan) and thanas (in East Pakistan); districts and divisions. Each of the two provinces also has a Development Advisory Council to advise the government on development plans. In urban areas, Town Committees and Union Committees correspond to the Union Councils in the rural areas. The lowest rung of the ladder, but probably the most important, is the Union Council. The union represents a group of villages with a total population usually approximating io,ooo, but varying between 4,0oo and i5,000. Each representative to the council is elected by a constituency of roughly i,000 persons. Because it is impossible to demarcate the population of every village into even thousands, some leeway has been allowed by permitting constituencies to range between 8oo and I,400 persons. Each council thus has between four and fifteen elected members, but usually ten. In addition to those elected there are appointed members, not exceeding more than one-half of the total number of the elected members. Appointees are named by the leading government officer in a district, variously entitled deputy commissioner, district magistrate or district collector in different parts

Scientific Expedition to Yunnan

IN the spring of 1932 a joint botanical and zoological expedition was sent to eastern Yunnan by the Fan Memorial Institute of Biology, Peiping, starting from western Szechuan and exploring the bordering regions of Szechuan, Kweichow and Yunnan. The party expects to spend the winter in Yunnanfu. The botanical staff will endeavour to explore regions formerly not thoroughly worked over and collect also specimens in the type localities. Besides collecting flowering plants, special attention will be devoted to mosses, liverworts, ferns and other cryptogams. The zoological staff will collect birds, fishes, other lower vertebrates and land shells. News has been received that the party succeeded in penetrating the forbidden territories of Ta-Liang-Shan Lolos, where probably no white man has ever entered before. These Lolos are very war-like tribes. They frequently kidnap Chinese and make them slaves. By a curious chance the present powerful chieftainess is the sister of the military governor of Yunnan, and hence much more enlightened in her view toward the purpose of scientific expeditions. The party was welcomed as honourable guests by the chieftainess. Oxen and pigs were slaughtered in their honour, and an elder of the tribe has been handed over to the district magistrate as the pledge of their safety. As two years ago the lamentable death of the eminent young Chinese palaeontologist, Ya-Tseng Chao, at the hands of bandits had cost the district magistrate of Chao Tung Hsien permanent dismissal from office, such precaution is carefully taken by his successor. The party plans to explore the south-eastern part of Yunnan next year.