Introduction
With the advent of globalization, the concept of world society, and of Universality as envisaged by our elders that the entire world is one family – "Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam" has become a virtual reality.

From the time immemorial, we believe in peace and non-violence and have full faith in the philosophy of peaceful co-existence. Indian Constitution also propagates international peace and security and provides for maintenance of just and honorable relations between nations; fostering respect for international law and treaty obligations in the dealings of organized peoples with one another; and encouraging settlement of disputes by arbitration.8 

Indeed the success of our fond hope for a just world with lasting peace, prosperity for all people and equality among nations, will to a large extent depend on our ability to act together, with a holistic vision and commitment. In this paper an attempt has been made to examine various dimensions of globalization and the compulsions and in some cases convulsion of less fortunate people of this planet. The whole discussion focuses on the need for super-national government committed to the just and equitable rules of global governance.

Present Scenario
At the dawn of the 21st century, globalization has demonstrated that economic decisions, must take into account the international factors. While the movement of goods, services, ideas, and capital across national borders is not new, its acceleration marks a qualitative break and change from the past. Today, the world is no longer a collection of relatively autonomous neighborhoods that are only marginally connected and immune to the happenings and events in other neighborhoods. Information and ideas can be accessed from all corners of the globe at the push of a button. Hence international economic order is being evolved into a highly integrated and electronically networked system. So close are its ties that a retailer in one country can describe the products consumers want to produce in several other countries, setting in motion immediate revisions in design and production. So closely interwoven are financial markets that exchange rates, interest rates, and stock prices are intimately linked, and the amount of private capital circulated in financial markets dwarfs the resources of many countries.

Thus, a new kind of global community is emerging where the facts of interconnectedness are well known and unavoidable in the statistics of trade and investment, the diffusion of conflict from country to country, the shared vulnerability to poisoned air and in the fearful antipathies of culture and commerce, identity and technology, democracy and the market. Countries and cultures have always affected one another, not the least by trade and invasion. But today the character of globalization is different, in kind and degree of effectiveness and invasion. The connections and their effects between States and between people are not only enormous but also transforming. They are changing the way people live, behave and govern.

Concerns In Global Governance : Economic Disparities
Globalization has carried with it a remarkably uneven distribution of costs and benefits. The net result, in most cases, has been to exacerbate inequalities of wealth, consumption, and power within and between countries. It is true that globalization entails inter-dependence, in the sense that what happens in one country is influenced by the happenings in other countries, but this inter-dependence is dramatically asymmetric; some are more vulnerable than others. And while some prosper by globalization, many others suffer from it.

More than 80 countries now have per-capita incomes lower than a decade or more ago; the gap between the rich countries and the poor is widening constantly. The income ratio between the fifth of the world’s people in the richest countries and the fifth in the poorest was 30 to 1 in 1960, and 60 to 1 in 1990; by 1997, it had grown to 74 to 1. Far from financing a convergence of fortunes between rich and poor people, globalization has coincided with a decade of increasing concentration of income, wealth, and control over resources, OECD countries, with 19 percent of the global population, account for 71 percent of world trade, 58 percent of foreign direct investment, and 91 percent of all internet users. Such growing disparities, with the social upheavals and discontents they represent, impose real demands on governance—demands that more and more governments are unable to answer in the traditional methods that governments use. Inequalities have always been with us. What confounds the traditional methods of government is that the disparities now afflict far more people. Thanks to the proliferation of media, the disparities are more visible and more intimately understood and thanks to democracy, they are more effectively complained about.10 

Growing Poverty
Over the last 200 years, a large number of countries have achieved a substantial boost to the living standards of their population. The latest testimony to the fact that development is possible has been witnessed in the last half-century by a number of developing countries. East Asia in particular has developed faster than any other region in the world history, doubling gross domestic product (GDP) per capita within a generation or less. Yet while some countries have seen enormous progress, a large number of countries could only witness lesser improvements in living standards and some have even regressed, particularly during the 1970s and 1980s. Many developing countries seem trapped at a low level of income.11 

United Nations from its very inception have shown serious concern for low income developing nations and in the process the world body has recognized the existence of a group of poorest and weakest developing countries that face the biggest obstacles to development in terms of their economic, institutional, technological and human resources. In 1969, the General Assembly adopted a resolution affirming the need to alleviate the problems of the least developed among the developing countries with a view to enabling them to draw full benefits from the Second United Nations Development Decade.12  In 1971, the General Assembly also approved a list of 25 least developed countries which currently include a total of 48 countries.

The least developed countries and other low-income countries, as they are generally more vulnerable to external shocks, the success of their development policies, is largely influenced by the external economic environment. Recognizing this vulnerability the international community has made special efforts to improve the external environment for such countries, by providing trade preference, priority in the allocation of official development assistance (ODA) and, most recently, a special programme for debt relief. Such efforts must continue, but it is apparent that they must be complemented by action to address key domestic constraints on development of such countries.

Illiteracy
Education, literacy, knowledge are not only a means to achieve productivity growth, but also an end in itself. It expands human capabilities from the ability to undertake the most elementary functions of a human being to the ability to enjoy the greatest fruits of the human mind.13 

In the year 1995, the governments committed themselves, at World Summit for Social Development, to attain universal and equitable access to quality education and primary health care.14  In April 2000, the World Education Forum at Dakar stressed that it was "unacceptable in the year 2000 that more than 113 million children have no access to primary education, 880 million adults are illiterate, gender discrimination continues to permeate education systems, and the quality of learning and the acquisition of human values and skills fall far short of the aspiration and needs of individuals and societies". The Forum reaffirmed the goals of education for all and for ensuring that by 2015 all children, with special emphasis on girls and children in difficult circumstances and from ethnic minorities, have access to and complete free and compulsory primary education of good quality. Other goals are to eliminate gender disparities in primary and secondary education by 2005, and to achieve gender equality in education by 2015 and a 50 per cent improvement in levels of audit literacy, also by 201515 .

These goals are also supported by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights16  and the Convention on the Rights of the Child17 . Governments have an obligation to ensure these rights, and it is emphasized that this should again be stressed at the beginning of the twenty-first century. In the Group of Eight (G-8) Summit in Okinawa in July 2000, the leaders reaffirmed their commitment that no government seriously committed to achieving "Education for All" would be thwarted in this achievement by lack of resources. It was tragic, however, that there was a need to set as goals for the 21st century what should have been accomplished during the twentieth century.

Demographic disparities
About 98 percent of global population growth will occur in the poorer countries of the South, where 80 percent of people now live (and where two billion are classified as mal-nourished). As well, by 2025 the number of people living in urban areas will reach five billion—twice the urban population of 1990. By way of contrast, in 1950 New York and London were the only two mega cities of at least eight million people; by 1995, 23 cities had surpassed eight million, 17 of them in developing countries. By 2015, the UN Population Division expects there will be 36 megacities, 23 of them in Asia.18 

The IDRC study commented that the effects of these disparities on the young are manifold and dangerous as they imperil social peace, exclude millions from a share of globalization’s benefits, and foreclose opportunities for future development. The global disparities are plentiful. Thailand has more cell phones than all of Africa. As for the Internet, North America with 5 percent of the world’s population accounts for almost 50 percent of all Internet users. UNDP makes the reinforcing point that income buys access, and thus the chance for more income. Buying a computer would cost the average Bangladeshi more than 8 years’ income, compared with 1 month’s for an average American.

Global environmental challenges
The dawn of the 21st century, global environmental concerns have acquired a new urgency. Over the past 20 years the content and quality of the discourse on the environment have been completely transformed and in wake of globalization of shared responsibility for the environment has been recognized. Various international, governmental, and non-governmental organizations with a deep interest in environmental issues have made full use of the United Nations system and the abilities of new communications technology to reach people all over the world.

Climate change, the loss of bio diversity, and other issues related to the global commons are being recognized as major concerns which the community of nations must deal with collectively. These issues, if left unattended, will worsen as the planet becomes more crowded and over-population puts increasing pressure on natural resources. Many of these issues are closely linked to the potential success of development efforts in poor countries, and the growing awareness of these linkages is part of the continuing shift in the development perspective. Only a decade ago the development community brushed environmental concerns aside, emphasizing instead the primacy of growth, stability, and poverty reduction. Central to the discussion of environmental sustainability at the dawn of the 21st century is the problem of how to devise mechanisms that distribute the burdens of reform proportionately without discouraging the participation of every country that has caused or has the capacity to cause environmental damage19 .

Escalating Conflicts vis-a-vis Preventive Measures
The conflicts are increasing and have become globalizes. Today, most wars are civil wars fought against civilians and it is mostly civilians who die. No war, no matter how local, can be fully understood or prevented without looking to the local impact of global markets, the global arms trade, the transborder loyalties of kinship and tradition, the fears and interests of other people and governments, and the growing influences of non-state participants. And just as television communicates the wickedness of war to a global audience, norms of human rights and good governance acquire a new and global authority. No government, not even the most powerful, can any longer and by itself ensure the security of its people. The only policy of national security is a policy of international security. Nor can any government defend the claim that whatever happens on its territory is nobody else’s concern. That claim is denied by the UN Charter itself, and by an imposing number of treaties signed by various countries. Deadly conflict, like terrorism, abuse of human rights, ethnic violence have become everybody’s business20  and rampant at large globally.

In this regard the Report of the Commission on Global Governance showed serious concern and said:

A disturbing feature of the contemporary world is the spread of a culture of violence. Civil wars brutalized thousands of young people who are drawn into them. The systematic use of rape as a weapon of war has been an especially pernicious feature of some conflicts. Civil wars leave countless weapons and a legacy of continuing violence. Several political movements ostensibly dedicated to the liberation of people have taken to terrorism, showing scant regard for the lives of innocent civilians, including those in whose name they are fighting. Violence is sometimes perceived as an end in itself.21 

As the line between foreign and domestic begins to lose usefulness, so also the old distinctions between intrastate war, interstate war, and the non-state violence of terrorism. Terrorists are paid and receive the protection of states. If globalization tends to make conflicts more lethal to more people in more states, it also intensifies the urgency of prevention. As the causes and effects of conflicts are rarely confined to the territory of one country, the prevention of conflict must be a collaborative effort. Nobody can do it alone, but nobody can evade the obligation of doing it together.

Persisting disparities, a more squalid poverty, environmental destruction as millions more people deplete the land for food and fuel, escalating conflicts are the terrible implications of mis-governance. There are practical, affordable and effective preventive remedies, but they are not available to any government acting alone. They require the collaboration of governments with others in the global community, and a modest commitment of political will. It is articulately observed:

The entrenchment of poverty is borne out by the fact that the number of people falling the World Bank’s category ‘the absolute poor’ had climbed to 1.3 billion in 1993. This level of poverty spells acute destitution; it is life at the edge of existence. For the absolute poor, for example, a nearby source of safe drinking water is a luxury; in several countries – Bhutan, Ethiopia, Laos, Mali, Nigeria–less than half the population has even this.22 

Need For World Government
Does a territorial system of governance work well in an increasingly globalizes world? If globalization creates new challenges for nation states, what options can they pursue to transition to new forms of international cooperation and how can new international institutions be designed to ensure both their own effectiveness as well as their acceptance by the nation states? As the intensity and extent of global interaction increases, the demand for new international institutions or rather World Parliament, with universally accepted governing principles cannot be overstated.

The last five decades have witnessed dramatic growth in various measures of international cooperation and institution-building including an increase in intergovernmental exchange, treaties, and the establishment of international governmental organizations. The last decade of globalization brings with it speculations about the demise of the nation state and the need for certain new forms of international cooperation and institution building.

We should therefore expect international institution-building to occur through a process of punctuated equilibrium. The transition from a system of State dominance to one based on nation-state authority to one based on global institutions has in many respects already begun. Nevertheless, it will also take more time to get in to proper shape. Although the compulsions and conversions of globalization increasingly call for intensive cooperation among the nations and delegation to international institutions, any transition to a "new world order" will not be a smooth one. However, during the course of time, it is expected that arrangements will emerge striking the appropriate balance, which will ultimately lead to creation of the World Parliament, with a holistic approach towards peace, prosperity, growth and sustainable development and all roads leading to serve the causes of humankind.

Summing Up
The globalization is driven by market forces, but the challenges lie in devising rules and institutions for stronger governance to preserve its advantages and to ensure that it works for people, particularly less advantaged and not just for profits.

The globalization, besides making the world economy more unstable, has failed to spread its advantages equitably. The world has become more unequal, with widened disparities. The marginalisation of poorest people has been exacerbated. Notwithstanding, increasing poverty, inequality and marlginalisation, official assistance for developments in poor countries has continue to fall.

There are various social, economic and developmental issues which call for serious global attention. To emphasize that there is a gap in the structures of world governance, which are tilting towards the developed few. Therefore, there is need to bridge this gap by establishing a World Parliament to govern the world as one family. It is earnestly hoped that the world community will eventually be prudent to welcome such an institutional innovation. The Report on Global Governance suggestively well said:

The time is now ripe – indeed, overdue – to create a global forum that can provide leadership in economic, social, and environmental fields. It would be more broadly based than the G7 or the Bretton Woods institutions, and more effective than the present UN system. While not having authority to make legally binding decisions, it would gain influence through competence and relevance, and acquire the standing in relation to international economic matters that the Security Council has in peace and security matters.

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