The success of India's export-oriented software industry is well known. Whether information technology (IT) can contribute to development beyond the obvious income effects generated by software exports depends on how pervasive are IT's impacts on the economy, ranging from improving the efficiency of existing businesses, to enabling new kinds of goods and services. In a developing country such as India, it is of particular interest whether such benefits can reach the poor, and even help in directly reducing the deprivations associated with poverty. Professor Singh's talk and paper will examine two ongoing experiments that aim to provide IT-based services to rural populations in India. Several features distinguish these experiments from others: a combination of public and private efforts, with "nonprofit" organizations acting as catalysts; goals of commercial sustainability, both for the local entrepreneurs and the nonprofits; and an eclectic approach to the services that are sought to be provided. The paper's main contribution is to draw some preliminary lessons from comparing two different approaches in localities that are geographically close and economically similar. While the ultimate goals of the two organizations studied are quite similar, he identifies some important differences in implementation that may have more general implications for the success of such experiments. Nirvikar Singh is currently Director of the Business Management Economics Program at the University of California, Santa Cruz, where he is Professor of Economics. He teaches courses on business strategy, technology and innovation, and electronic commerce, as well as graduate microeconomic theory. He has consulted for the World Bank and for high-tech start-ups in Silicon Valley. Professor Singh's current research topics are electronic commerce, business strategy, technology and innovation, governance and economic reform in India, federalism, international water disputes, and economic growth.

As 39th President of the United States, Jimmy Carter's significant foreign-policy accomplishments included the Panama Canal treaties; the strategic arms limitation treaty (SALT II) signed with Soviet president Leonid Brezhnev; the Camp David Accords between Israeli premier Menachem Begin and Egyptian president Anwar el-Sadat; and the establishment of full diplomatic relations with the People's Republic of China.

A graduate of the United States Naval Academy, Mr. Carter's naval career took him to many parts of the world, including Asia. He rose to the rank of lieutenant, working under Admiral Hyman Rickover in the nuclear submarine program. President Carter's rise to political prominence began when he chaired the Sumter County School Board in his native Georgia. After serving as the first president of the Georgia Planning Association he was elected to the State Senate in 1962, followed by his election as state governor in 1971. He announced his candidacy for the United States presidency in 1974 and won the general election in 1976, thereby completing the most rapid ascent in modern American politics.

In 1982 Mr. Carter became University Distinguished Professor at Emory University in Atlanta. In partnership with the university he also founded The Carter Center, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization actively promoting human rights, international conflict resolution, agriculture advancements in the developing world, and the prevention of disease. President Carter is the author of sixteen books, many now in revised editions, including most recently Talking Peace: A Vision for the Next Generation. President and Mrs. Carter are also regular volunteers for Habitat for Humanity, earning national recognition for an organization dedicated to building affordable housing for the needy.

The Oksenberg Lectures honor the memory of Professor Michel Oksenberg, who was a senior fellow at the Institute for International Studies. A pioneer in the field of Chinese politics, Mike was an important force in shaping American attitudes toward China, and was consistently outspoken about the need for the United States to be more thoughtful and informed in its engagement of Asia.

Professor Oksenberg was a cherished colleague here at the Asia/Pacific Research Center, and a beloved mentor to generations of China scholars. As a tribute to his legacy, the Shorenstein Forum has established The Oksenberg Lectures, to be delivered annually by a distinguished practitioner of America's affairs with Asia.

The United States' strategic interests in Asia must account for the concerns of its two rising powers, China and India. Each has a population of over a billion people, nuclear weapons, and among the fastest growing economies in the world. Clearly, relations among these three countries will to a large extent influence the course of events within Asia in the 21st century. This seminar seeks to explore some aspects of the India - China - U.S. triangle and identify the broad direction in which relations appear to be moving. Venu Rajamony is currently the Counselor at the Embassy of India in Beijing, China. He is a member of the Indian delegation to the Commission on Human Rights and was Chairman/Coordinator of informal consultations during sessions of the Working Group in Human Rights Defenders in 1996 and 1997. Now on sabbatical with the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington DC, he has been working on India and Pakistan, and on their relations with the U.S. and China.

Dr. Chowdhury is a vascular surgeon and pioneering public health leader from Bangladesh who wrote "The Politics of Essential Drugs: The Makings of a Successful Health Strategy: Lessons from Bangladesh." In 1971, Dr. Chowdhury left England to return to what was then East Pakistan and join the war of liberation for Bangladesh. He helped establish a field hospital for freedom fighters and refugees, which lead to the development Gonoshasthaya Kendra (GK) or "The People's Health Center." GK has trained more than 7,000 barefoot doctors, and serves 1,000 villages in 14 Bangladeshi districts. A pharmaceutical factory was established by GK in 1981 which produces medicines on the World Health Organization's essential medicines list; employs 1,500 people and has an $11 million annual budget. One-half of its profits are reinvested and the other half go to GK's other projects. In 1985, Dr. Chowdhury and GK were awarded the Ramon Magsaysay Award (sometimes called the Asian Nobel Peace Prize) and in 1992, the Right Livelihood Award (also known as the alternative Nobel Prize). Dr. Chowdhury was instrumental in convincing the Bangladesh government to adopt a National Drug Policy in 1982. This controversial policy promotes essential medicines and discourages the use of drugs with little therapeutic value. GK hosted the People's Health Assembly in December 2000, which challenged global health organizations to improve public health care for the poor. Dr. Chowdhury is this year's International Honoree of the UC Berkeley School of Public Health Heroes.

Democracy in South Korea has gone through four decades of transition and is finally at a consolidation stage. Democratic constitutionalism is slowly being accepted as a new guiding principle in the public life in the country which is still a predominantly collectivity- or person-oriented society. Democracy as a political ideal and institution came from the West and, is, by virtue of its origins, individualist in that the individual conscience is the ultimate source of decision about what is right and wrong (E.H. Carr). Will constitutionalism, then, eventually replace collectivism-personalism (which puts emphasis on group and person over and against the individual) and establish an individualist democracy in South Korea? Or, since the traditional collectivist-personalist ethic survived democratic encroachment and accommodated itself to the democratic polity, will there be a new form of democracy? If so, how different it will be from Western democracy? The aim of this paper is to explore these issues.