As election fever overwhelms India we have, in Punjab, a complete void in political leadership; the problem has attained critical dimensions. All parties are putting their best foot forward; selecting the best candidates and launching aggressive election campaigns. Punjab too is in the fray, but here the scenario is a bit different; parties are finding it di...
The United States have become the leading world producer of hydrocarbons. As from now, they are using their dominant position exclusively to maximise their profits, and do not hesitate to eliminate their major rivals in oil production, plunging their citizens into misery. Although in the past, access to Middle East oil was a vital necessity for their economy...
The floods that ravaged Kerala in August 2018 are now history. Most of the dams had been filled to capacity by the first week of August itself and the Met people had been predicting continuous rains. But those who were to take decisions to avert any crisis didn’t see eye to eye. There were talks of conflict between the Minister for Electricity, who wanted to...
One of the most remarkable features of this year’s general elections is the failure of the opposition parties to stitch a “grand alliance” to challenge the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)–National Democratic Alliance (NDA). Even more inexplicable is the Congress Party’s sudden dysfunction, when it should have been upbeat after staving off the BJP challenge in...
Chinese nuclear bombers. Chinese hypersonic missiles. Chinese carrier killer missiles. Chinese cyberattacks. Chinese anti-satellite weaponry. Chinese militarization of the South China Sea. Chinese Huawei spying. So many Chinese “malign intentions”. And we’re not even talking about Russia. Few people around the world are aware that the Pentagon for the moment...
“Perhaps if the BJP - a right-wing party - wins, some kind of settlement in Kashmir could be reached.” This statement has been made, not by a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate in election mode, but by Imran Khan, Prime Minister of Pakistan. Khan made this observation to a small group of foreign journalists in an interview on April 9. He further...
“I fired and continued to fire until the crowd dispersed, I consider this is the least amount of firing which would produce the necessary moral and widespread effect it was my duty to produce if I was to justify my action.......It was no longer a question of merely dispersing the crowd, but one of producing a sufficient moral effect from a military...
The legendary secret agent James Bond (007) played by Sean Connery once observed, if something bad happens once it is happenstance, twice it may be coincidence but if it happens third time, we must see it as enemy action. Let us apply this to post Independence India. In 1946, at the transfer of power, nationalistic firebrand Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose was ma...
Much of the Middle East’s recent turmoil stems from internecine Middle Eastern rivalries spilling onto third country battlefields and Saudi and United Arab Emirates-led efforts to roll back the achievements of the 2011 popular Arab revolts and pre-empt further uprisings. This week’s successful toppling of ailing Algerian president Abdelaziz Bouteflika (April...
Short of a decade after the Anna Hazare-led anti-corruption movement took the nation by storm from Jantar Mantar, the Lokpal is a reality. As soon as the agitation began to gather momentum, the then UPA government brought in a Bill in 2011 that was derided by activists as Jokepal. They came up with a draft bill touted as Jan Lokpal. After some stalemate, the...
The decision of President Maithripala Sirisena and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe to bury their political hatchet, at least temporarily, appears to have helped Sri Lanka to gain two more years to fulfil its commitment made at UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) to promote accountability and human rights in 2015. The 40th session of the human rights body una...
A few days ago, an Ilyushin IL-62M liner carried over a hundred Russian soldiers and officers to Caracas. Symbolically, they made a stopover in Syria, as if saying that Venezuela is the next country after Syria to be saved from ruin and dismemberment. The military mission was led by the Head of General Staff, General Tonkoshkurov (“Thin-Skinned”, a name that...
A draft US resolution that would designate a Pakistani militant as a global terrorist threatens to be China’s, and possibly Pakistan’s showdown at the OK Corral. The draft is supported by Britain and France. The resolution, if formally tabled in the full United Nations Security Council, could force China to justify its ten-year long blocking of efforts to de...
Kashmir, despite being in the throes of a very unfortunate environment of violence, has witnessed a steady improvement in literacy levels over the last few decades. The 2011 census recorded a whopping 13 percent increase in literacy levels across the state from 55 percent to 68 percent. Female literacy showed an increase from 20 percent in 1981 to 58 percent...
Former CPI(M) general secretary and ideologue, Prakash Karat, said in 2012 that Christianity and communism shared many similarities. He quoted Fidel Castro who told the Church, in 1971, that Communism and Christianity had 10,000 times more in common than Christianity and Capitalism. (Comrade Karat gives red salute to Christianity, The New Indian Express, Feb...
Balochistan should be oozing with optimism as Chinese and Saudi investment pours into the troubled Pakistani province. It is not. Instead, Balochistan, a key node in China’s Belt and Road initiative that borders Iran, is gripped by anger, fear and uncertainty. Local residents are hardly awaiting with baited breath for Pakistani prime minister Imran Khan’s vi...
Yes, the latest research confirms that Venezuela is so rich in natural resources that it could single-handedly satisfy all global demand for oil, for over 30 years. And it has much more than oil to offer, in its Orinoco basin and in other areas of the country. But it is not all ‘about oil’; actually, far from it. Those who believe that what propels the sprea...
The collapse of the Samjhauta Express bomb blasts case against anti-conversion crusader Aseemanand and his “co-conspirators” Lokesh Sharma, Kamal Chauhan and Rajinder Chaudhary, on March 21, 2019 has trounced attempts by a previous regime to establish the bogey of “Hindu terror”. Aseemanand allegedly mentored persons seeking revenge for attacks on Hindu...
March 10 saw the publication of the official schedule for the elections to the lower house of India’s Parliament, which are an extremely important event in the country’s political life. They may well have a determining impact on the ongoing process of redefining the geopolitical status quo in the region and in the wider world. For the foreign policy implicat...
It’s another election season in the country. I have heard it being described as the dance of democracy. But the reality is far from it. It is my belief that party-based democracy has failed in this country. Can the Presidential system, as in the US, work in our context? No guarantee, there. But can’t we think afresh, keeping in mind the lessons we have learn...