Évolution et progression ( texte en anglais)

The notion I’m going to deal with is the idea of progress. To begin with, I’m going to give a definition of this notion. Considered as a principal means of orientation in a complex world, the concept of progress has accompanied the greatest moments in history. It informs and overthrows heritage and traditions, bringing with it a great variety of evolutionary processes as well as resistance to change. The acceleration of advanced sciences and technologies and the cult of innovation and progress have been, for several decades, the reason for an increased awareness of the possible consequences of such technologies.

To illustrate this notion, I have decided to present India. This very old society has been able to evolve throughout periods. I’m going to talk about today's India, a country on the move, a changing India, an India which is becoming a powerful country.

We can wonder how could India evolve despite its most ancient traditions?

There are 1.1 billion of inhabitants in India. India has the world’s 11th largest economy, yet it is home to more than a quarter of the world’s poorest people. India is a land with a lot of traditions. Indeed the population is divided in castes. The caste system in India developed more than 3 000 years ago this sharing out is very uneven and it is a rigid system. Dalits or untouchable, the lowest class, judged impure and the Brahmans, the highest class, considered as pure. The population is discriminated on the basis of caste.

Moreover there are inequalities between men and women. The document India’s girls go missing and another girls show us these inequalities. India is becoming an increasingly male-dominated society as the latest census shows, the number of girls born there is at an all-time low level. Families are desperate for sons as they are financially far more attractive than daughters because they can work and that’s resulting in a rising number of gender-selected abortions. Sons can look after the family business, the family name and them parents when they’re too old. The dowry tradition could also explain this discrimination. In the dowry tradition, the family of the wife-to-be gives a dowry or gift to the future husband’s family on marriage. Today, men have difficulties to choose a partner because there are not enough women.

The first signs that, India was rising came about eight years ago. In India, three types of progress have been observed. The first one is social progress. We can see this progress…………………The women have become emancipated financially and sexually. The second one is financial progress. The appearance of micro-credits is a revolution. Thanks to micro-finance and decentralized manufacturing, women have access to jobs and earn their own living. The purchasing power appears stronger and stronger as the increase of cell phones used by young people shows us. In addition, farms are being replaced by factories and car factories are building cheap cars which means people are buying cars. Women began to work in factories and become employees and thus breadwinners..

The last type of progress is the technological and scientific progress studied through an extract of the novel “Brave new world”. This text deals with a dystopia where the scientific progress goes too far. The system involves creating a multitude of clones.

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