There is compelling evidence that trauma as a result of neglect and abuse has negative impacts on development, including, for the very youngest children, measurable effects on processes of brain maturation.

Article 5 draws on the concept of evolving capacities to refer to processes of maturation and learning whereby children progressively acquire knowledge, competencies and understanding, including acquiring understanding about their rights and about how they can best be realized.

The Nehruvian consensus facilitated India s democratic maturation and accommodated the country s many diverse interests, without permitting any one group or section to dominate the nascent nation state. It is fashionable today to decry Nehruvian socialism as a corrupt and inefficient system that condemned India to many years of slow economic growth.

Indeed, there is evidence from many fisheries of earlier maturation such changes take place fast enough to be detected over the decades. For example, early in the twentieth century, you would not find a mature cod in the North Sea less than about 50 centimeters in length, whereas by the 1980's mature cod were as small as 15 centimeters.