Donald Trump refused to don the Presidential uniform of his predecessors, and dedicated his speech of investiture to mocking the System and announcing a change of paradigm. He has built his Security team around two themes – the eradication of Daesh and the opposition to 11 September – two characteristics which are aimed at putting an end to the process of...
Just hours ago [20 Jan-Ed] Donald Trump was finally sworn in as the President of the United States. Considering all the threats hanging over this event, this is good news because at least for the time being, the Neocons have lost their control over the Executive Branch and Trump is now finally in a position to take action. The other good news is Trump’s inau...
The ultra-radical group ISIS has left a trail of indescribable brutalities in its march through the Middle East, Nigeria, Tunisia and Libya. … One of their worst acts of brutal savagery was the public beheading of an 83 year old archaeologist, Khalid al-Asaad, in August, 2015. Khalid Assad was a globally respected keeper of the ancient ruins in the Syrian ci...
Even before Donald Trump got inaugurated, his position on the US foreign policy was attracting widespread attention since it has much bearing on other countries. Judging by the amount of attention paid by various analysts, one can safely assume that the most interesting topic concerning Trump’s policies has been the alignment of forces in the triangle of US-...
In a hard-hitting speech on 17 January 2017, British Prime Minister Theresa May clearly spelt out the country’s stand on Brexit. She made it clear that the UK will come out of the single market as well as the customs union and promised to build a truly “global Britain” that would reach out beyond Europe to build “new partnerships with old friends and new al...
The present Indian Republic is the successor entity of the British Empire. The reputed German historians Herman Kulke and Dietmar Rothermund have cited the non-revolutionary and smooth transfer of power as enabling the Indian Republic to continue seamlessly, with the institutions fashioned by the British Empire like the armed forces, the civil bureaucracy an...
The war against Syria is the first to have been waged, for more than six years, in the digital era. A wealth of documents which should have remained secret for many years have already been published. Although they have been released in different countries, so that international public opinion is unaware of them, they already enable us to piece together the e...
Recent years have seen an increase in the biographies of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, but these have failed to examine his contribution as a military leader and strategist, and tacitly treat him as a failure because the Indian National Army’s fate was intricately linked with that of Japan which lost in the Second World War. Maj-Gen G.D. Bakshi has filled...
The Trump era starts now – with geopolitics and geoeconomics set for a series of imminent, unpredictable cliffhangers. I have argued that Trump’s foreign policy guru Henry Kissinger’s strategy to deal with the formidable Eurasia integration trio – Russia, China and Iran – is a remixed Divide and Rule; seduce Russia away from its strategic partnership with Ch...
President Trump’s brief inaugural speech was a declaration of war against the entirety of the American Ruling Establishment. All of it. Trump made it abundantly clear that Americans’ enemies are right here at home: globalists, neoliberal economists, neoconservatives and other unilateralists accustomed to imposing the US on the world and involving us in...
The Syrian crisis is slowly reaching its seventh year. Violence, radicalization, civil displacement, fragmentation and deterioration of the Syrian society are reaching unprecedented levels. International and regional actors, thus far, have largely failed in their attempts to reach a compromise or a sustainable solution in order to control the crisis and quel...
After several rather lame false starts, the Neocons have now taken a step which can only be called a declaration of war against Donald Trump. It all began with CNN published an article entitled “Intel chiefs presented Trump with claims of Russian efforts to compromise him” which claimed that: Classified documents presented last week to President...
Indians are slipping badly in crucial fields like science and mathematics. This is the result of pandering to weakness instead of encouraging excellence. India needs achievers as leaders and role models, not false heroes with false values, says Navaratna Rajaram
If current trends persist India is on the way to becoming a nation of non-achievers and...
In 2012, I voted not so much FOR you as AGAINST Mitt Romney, because he participated in the plunder of Russia and undermining the health of young Russians. Do you not believe me? Then read what two American journalists wrote about Romney’s, and other Americans’ role in Russian reforms: “It was part of a free-for-all that involved wholesale looting...
Thanks for responding to the concerns with the growing tensions in US-Russia relations that I expressed in a short email letter allowed to US citizens by the White House. Both my letter and your response are in English and Russian on the site of Russia & America Goodwill Association of which I...
A recent column by Sandhya Jain [here] asserts, “Demonetisation is the brahmastra (supreme weapon) that has killed or seriously maimed several asuric (demonic) forces tearing into the vitals of the nation. Most obvious is the black economy that has dwarfed the legal economy many times over, and frustrated development goals by denying...
So, right in the heart of Bali, spellbound after a serious conversation with a dukun — a spiritual master — it struck me: this should be the new Yalta, the perfect setting for a Trump-Xi-Putin summit setting the parameters ahead for the ever-evolving New Great Game in Eurasia. Balinese culture makes no distinction between the secular and the supernatural — ...
The high regard for the traditional Caliphate in the hearts of Muslims worldwide has been capitalized upon by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. Under his charismatic leadership ISIS has become the world’s most successful terrorist group, financially secure and militarily quite powerful. It must be admitted that Baghdadi has managed...
If President Ghani’s undercover alliance with Pakistan has been veiled, the change of heart vis-à-vis the Taliban by the big power to Afghanistan’s north, Russia, and Moscow’s establishment of a closer relationship with Pakistan, is now out in the open. Recently Russian Ambassador to Kabul Alexander Mantytskiy made clear that his government maintains ties wi...
Kabul was not initially upset by the influx of muhajer families, numbering more than 2,000 according to an Afghan government estimate. The authorities believed that these militants would work against the Afghan Taliban operating in the area and fight back against Pakistani infiltrators. However, that did not happen. Although some of the fighters who had fled...
Locked in fierce battles with Russia, Iran, Syria and a hesitant United States and trying to protect the territory it seized in the Levant, the so-called Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) is losing ground rapidly. According to an IHS Markit report released on Oct. 9, the Islamic State’s caliphate shrank during 2015 from 90,800 km2 to 78,000 km2, a net l...
Almost coinciding with the Election Commission of India’s announcement of dates for elections to five State Assemblies, the Supreme Court’s interpretation of Section 123(3) of the Representation of People’s Act (RPA) in Abhiram Singh v/s C.D. Comachen (dead) by Lrs and Ors. (Civil Appeal No. 37/1992) seems destined to be honoured more in the breach. The Supr...
From this it is clear that what governs a revealed religion is not God but the founder who claims to be God’s intermediary. (The clergy acting in the founder’s name becomes the enforcing authority or the thought police.) A believer is one who accepts the intermediary as the savior. God is irrelevant. He is even dispensable but not the intermediary who is...
Many Hindus, including some who see themselves as leaders and thinkers are stumped when asked to describe what they see as the essential features of Hinduism. This being the case, it is not surprising that young people should be confused— mistaking ritual and traditional practices for the essence. What is given here is a rational description that does not re...
President Vladimir Putin has announced that he has concluded a cease-fire agreement for Syria, with Turkey, which until now has been the main operational support for the jihadists. How may we explain this astonishing turn of events? Will President Erdoğan be able to turn his country away from the influence of the United States and towards that of Russia? Wha...
A coup has been underway to prevent President-Elect Donald Trump from taking office and fulfilling his campaign promise to improve US-Russia relations. This ‘palace coup’ is not a secret conspiracy, but an open, loud attack on the election. The coup involves important US elites, who openly intervene on many levels from the street to the current President, fr...
The passing away of Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa on December 6, 2016 has cast a pall of gloom over the state. At 68, she was relatively young and had lot of public service left in her. But fate willed otherwise. The passing away of Jayalalithaa signals a phase of uncertainty and tumultuous changes over the coming days that can recast Tamil Nadu pol...
India’s exports are facing the challenges of global recession and protectionist measures in the developed world. After two consecutive years of drought, this year’s good monsoon rains came as a blessing to farmers. Farm production revived, but farmers could not get the advantage as the domestic prices of produces have fallen and particularly after government...
When two movies of King Khan (as Bollywood actor Shahrukh Khan is sometimes called) flopped (less successful than expected at the very least - Dilwale in 2015 and Fan in 2016), in succession, it sent shockwaves around Bollywood and beyond. While the poor box-office receipts could be attributed to the movies themselves, many nonetheless attributed at least...
At the time of this brouhaha over Aamir Khan’s controversial remarks and calls for SnapDeal to drop him as brand ambassador, this writer had attempted to understand and explain the perils of celebrity brand endorsements. I noted that celebrity brand endorsements were a double-edged sword for companies, and they could not expect to bask in the glow of celebri...
Now that it is clear that Aamir Khan’s latest movie, “Dangal”, is a blockbuster hit (it’s already recorded the second-highest opening of any movie in 2016), and with significant financial contributions in the form of ticket sales from the so-called right-wing brigade, it is time to go back in time a little and look at lessons learned and not learned. Lessons...