John Clarke Adams

The Implementation of the Italian Constitution.

The new Italian Constitution was written by the 556 deputies the Italian people elected to their first Constitutional Assembly on June 2, 1946. The Assembly approved the Constitution on December 22, 1947, by a vote of 453 favorable, 62 opposed, and 31 absent. After this approval the Constitution was promulgated by the Provisional President of Italy, Enrico de Nicola, and became effective ten days later, on January 1, 1948. Numerous evaluations of the Constitution are available, and it is not our purpose here to duplicate this work. We are concerned solely with discovering to what extent the Constitution was actually in effect during the four and one-half year period following its promulgation and with explaining, if possible, why there has been so much delay in implementing some of its basic provisions. What we shall find is that some enabling legislation was passed by the Constitutional Assembly in the interim period between the effective date of the Constitution and the election of the first Parliament in April, 1948. Parliament has implemented a few more constitutional provisions, but vast and basic sections of the Constitution are still ineffective, owing to Parliaments inaction. To a lesser degree the administration and the courts are in a position to implement the Constitution.

India's Foreign Trade and Payments Since 1965: Managing the Nation as a Peasant Household

I N THE PAST TEN to fifteen years Indias foreign trade and balance of payments have experienced profound change. This change has taken the form of variations in the level and composition of exports and imports, in trading partners, and in the institutional organization of trade. In addition, the interaction between the foreign sector and the domestic sector has intensified and altered in character. It is not an exaggeration to say that Indias external sector has experienced a revolution as significant as the green revolution in agriculture, although this foreign sector revolution has been much less remarked. It is noteworthy that both of these revolutions arrived unheralded. The green revolution caught the industry-firsters and those who believed in the taciturn immovability of Indian peasants almost completely unawares. The foreign sector revolution has similarly arrived without warning, judging by professional writings reaching back to the 1960s. Both the green revolution and the foreign sec-

Agricultural Growth and Rural Change in India in the 1960s

F ROM THE VANTAGE POINT of I970 it is possible to look back on the decade of the i96os as a time in which Indias rural development accelerated noticeably.* Yet, throughout this period, the dominant tone of interpretive writings was pessimistic, and this impression still lingers. The Ford Foundations Ig59 report, entitled Indias Food Crisis and Steps to Meet It, created widespread alarm-perhaps more abroad than in India itself. Indias 500 million people were alleged to be on the brink of a serious food crisis. The impression of chronic food shortages was further heightened in the early i960s when two of the most severe monsoon failures in recorded history depressed cereal output below national needs, and large-scale foodgrain (P.L. 480) assistance from the U. S. was required. To explain how the farming sector had failed, two complementary reasons were advanced. First, it was hypothesized that the Indian peasant was encased in a mesh of customary economic and social relationships, which prevented him from changing crops, raising his production, and adopting new technology. Second, because no one could reasonably expect the peasant to embark autonomously on an upward development course, the blame for agricultural failure was placed on the Indian governments rural programs. It was argued that the governments emphasis on heavy industry had shortchanged agriculture. The resources that were being committed to agriculture, it was said, were being wasted in poor administration and by being diffused on a nebulous community-development program, rather than being applied single-mindedly to raising total farm output. My intention is to show that this set of hypotheses, which constitutes a common interpretation of Indias rural development and agricultural progress since i947, is erroneous in every regard. An alternative interpretation of recent rural development has more validity: since Independence, India has avoided a secular food crisis with some margin for error. The last two decades have not been characterized by a lack of rural economic respon

Indinavir Pharmacokinetics during Different Phases of the Menstrual Cycle in HIV-Infected Women

AbstractObjective: To characterise the pharmacokinetics of indinavir during different phases of the menstrual cycle in HIV-infected women. Design: Open-label study. Setting: The immunodeficiency clinic at Erie County Medical Center, Buffalo, New York. Patients: Ten HIV-infected women were enrolled in the study. Eligibility criteria included an acceptable medical history, chemistry profile, complete blood count with differential, lymphocyte profile, urinalysis and history of a regular menstrual cycle. Patients had to be on a stable antiretroviral regimen that included indinavir 800mg taken every 8 hours. Interventions: Blood sampling over an 8-hour period following an 800mg dose of indinavir during the menstrual, follicular and luteal phases of the menstrual cycle. Main outcome measures: Pharmacokinetic parameters in ten HIV-infected women adherent with indinavir 800mg every 8 hours during the menstrual, follicular and luteal phases of the menstrual cycle. Serum estradiol and progesterone levels were also obtained during each menstrual cycle phase. Results: The peak plasma concentration, plasma concentration 8 hours after administration of a given dose of indinavir, elimination half-life and oral clearance of indinavir were not significantly different across the menstrual cycle phases. Indinavir exposure varied among the female patients with some individuals having similar areas under the concentration-time curve (AUCs) during the three phases while others had notable differences in AUC. Maximum plasma indinavir concentrations were highest during the follicular phase in four subjects, highest during the luteal phase in two individuals, and highest during the menstrual phase in three patients. Conclusions: No differences were found in indinavir pharmacokinetics during the menstrual cycle phases. Significant intra- and interpatient variability in indinavir pharmacokinetics were observed; however, indinavir exposure in women did not appear to be excessive compared with pharmacokinetic data obtained from prior studies conducted in men.