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Terrorism has been practiced for centuries in different countries throughout the globe. The international struggle against terrorism started in the early part of the last century, and in 1937, the League of Nations concluded a Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Terrorism. It is now well established in customary international law that since piracy, slavery, war crimes, and crimes against humanity are so terrible and affect the peace, tranquility, and security of all States, any State has the right to try persons for these crimes, irrespective of their nationality or where the crime was committed. This is known as universal jurisdiction. Terrorism is not quite in that category, one reason being the lack of international agreement on a comprehensive definition of terrorism. Instead, universal treaties adopted by the United Nations (UN) specializes agencies and, more recently Chapter VII measures of the UN Secretary Council, have been the means by which international law contributes to the struggle against terrorism. This aspect is discussed in a Section. Besides, today, the impact of terrorism in maintaining law and order, in assuring peace and tranquility to law-abiding citizenry and in harnessing growth and development, both at the national and international level, is quite grave, gloomy, and alarming. Global terrorism has, in fact, become an unprecedented challenge to the human civilization itself. The present chapter tries to examine the nature of terrorism at the global level with special reference to India and proposes for formation of international laws and co-ordinations to combat it.

Feminist contributions to debates on gender, poverty, and social justice have deepened our understanding of the ways gender as a structuring principle of social life and an embedded hierarchy of values produces different concepts and experience of poverty as well as adds new meaning to the idea of “human flourishing.” Gender inequality remains a major barrier to human development; the disadvantages facing women and girls are a major source of inequality; since women and girls are discriminated against in health, education, political representation, and labor market, which has negative repercussions for development of their capabilities and their freedom of choice, remaining far away from social justice (Nussbaum, 1995). Recent statistics show just how far societies are from achieving gender equality. In the above backdrop, the chapter focuses on the position and status of women in India in the realm of gender equality, poverty reduction, and social justice as well as the public actions viewed from India's perspectives. At the same time it highlights the importance of global actions in an endeavor to establish gender equality, breaking the chain of poverty trap and establishing social justice along with their fallouts in the subsequent years.

India's balance of payments (BoP) has gone though several merits and oddities over its long journey since her liberalization era. On its way forward it has faced three of the world's worst challenges from the global turmoil. Of them, the impact of first crisis on India was minimal. But the other two crises had a tremendous impact on its external sector. In effect, the current and capital account of India's BoP have undergone significant structural changes during these two and a half a decades (1990–1991 to 2014–2015). It is in this context this chapter evaluates the evolution of two and a half decades of India's BoP in the context of global changes and exchange rate fluctuations and instability.

The catch word “Globalization” has been defended by advocates for lifting people out of poverty and the inequality in the world. But it has been criticized by opponents for failing to solve the problem of poverty, inequality, and for increasingly creating wealth disparity. This raises the question. The fact is that the contemporary world exhibits very high levels of inequality of income and wealth both between countries and within countries. Wealth inequality is more pronounced than that of income inequality across the globe and within-countries. Evidence suggests that rising inequality and wealth disparity arising out of globalization drive is choking off the potential benefits to the poor. In this backdrop, a composite assessment has been made in the present chapter to answer the question “whether globalization with its particular ideology, the market fundamentalism has benefited many and whether the performance on the distributional front has really been impressive.” From facts and evidence, the study finds that inequalities in income and wealth, also in wages have widened in many developed, developing developed, and developing countries. Technological change and globalization are their main sources.

Trade war among the nations dates back mainly to the nineteenth century. Some of the trade wars may be cited as (i) The First and Second Opium War Empire between 1839 and 1842; (ii) The Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act, 1930 signed by US President Herbert Hoover; (iii) Chicken wars in the early 1960s; (iv) The US–Japan automobile trade war in the 1980s; (v) 1985 Pasta War between America under the Regan Administration of United States and Europe; (vi) The Banana wars. However, trade becomes more intense in the present century with the increase of the economic trade instruments. Under the Obama Administration, currency war and tariff war both became strong between the United States and China with intense effect over the globe. After the Obama regime, came Donald John Trump with a number of controversial (aggressive) trade protectionism plans saying thereby “China’s accession to the World Trade Organization has enabled the greatest jobs theft in history” and “Trillions of our dollars and millions of our jobs flowed overseas as a result.” Even during the COVID-19 period in the 2020s, threats and counter-threats have been on the ascend. It is in this backdrop the present chapter mainly traces the history of trade wars in the twenty-first century, touching upon the nineteenth and twentieth century trade battles.

The present century is an age of knowledge-based economy. Higher education is in the process of transformation and thereby challenging the traditional system of education in India. The present paper reviews the current conditions of ICT use by the students in higher education in India. The major objectives of the study are (1) assessment of the use of computer and Internet by the students of higher education in India and (2) to find the determinants of use of ICT by the students in India. The study uses the NSSO 71st Round Unit Level Data on Social Consumption: Education Survey (71st Round, 2014). The present paper is based on 6,035 students from all the regions in India out of which 3,127 students were from the rural area and 2,908 from the urban area. The findings from logit analysis suggest that the determinants of ICT use by the students in higher education in India are regional disparities, gender, education levels of households, type of courses pursued by the students, type of institutions, access to computer and Internet facility, consumption levels of households, and students' residence type.