There is a strange coincidence, if not synergy, between some Twitter handles calling for a national government to deal with the Coronavirus health crisis even though the central government enjoys a staggering majority, and the sudden exodus of thousands of casual labour from jhuggi clusters across Delhi on Saturday, March 28, 2020. This made a mockery of...
President Donald Trump continues his policy of military withdrawal from the “Broader Middle East”. To this end, he is gradually moving his troops, signing agreements with the forces against which they were deployed (e.g. the Taliban) and negotiating the release of his prisoners. At the same time, the Pentagon called on the United Kingdom to take the lead...
Indiscriminate in targetting its victims, the latest coronavirus (COVID-19) casts a very different light on the need to enforce international law governing wars as well as human and minority rights. It exposes the needs of tens of millions of refugees and displaced persons in destitute camps in Turkey, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and Bangladesh and shantytowns a...
There are moments when life seems an endless series of ordeals. At times, it IS. Now is one of them. First there was primary season – the Great Palaver, full of sound and fury and signifying God knows what. 15 months of it – about the time it took Alexander to conquer the Near East. Even as entertainment it was third rate – unless you get a kick out of watch...
The response of the Indian Government to Corona Virus is creditable. Under Prime Minister Narendra Modi the Government is not hesitating from taking necessary decisions, however difficult and unpopular they may be. Chief Ministers are responding with great commitment; even the Police and administration are working with a sense of purpose. It is being hoped a...
When did you first wake up from the collective sleep? For me, it was right before the Sochi Olympics of 2014. The roll-up blinds turned loose and snapped open, letting the bright morning sun rush into my sleepy brain. I remember thinking, “Wait a minute, us Americans, we’re supposed to be sportsmanlike”. So, something went was all wrong about Russia’s big Wi...
Whereas the US-Taliban ‘truce deal’ is historic in many ways, the fact that real peace in Afghanistan remains hostage to a lot more complex power dynamics than the US war has become sharply evident ever since the announcement of the deal. The Ghani administration has already rejected the part of the deal about the release of 5,000 Taliban prisoners; the Tali...
Erdoğan’s Idlib war has morphed into a new one with the EU, which he can’t win. Is there a method to his madness? I ask because as soon as things calm down in one place, he picks a fight somewhere else. While he advanced into Idlib with a traditional military invasion force minus the air cover to back up his proxy terrorist forces there, he sent a jihadi mer...
“Healthcare is not a right.” This has been a favoured talking point of American conservatives, Libertarians, and advocates of the free market. Roger Stark, of the Washington Times, articulated this concern saying: “If medical treatment is a right, then what exactly does that mean? Does it mean that your neighbours, through the government, are obligated to...
The abrupt and widespread closure of borders and, in many countries, of schools, universities, businesses and public services, as well as the ban on gatherings, is profoundly changing societies. In a few months they will no longer be what they were before the pandemic. Above all, this reality is changing our understanding of Freedom; a concept that the Unit...
In June 2019, the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) issued a notification directing that income tax exemption on disability pension would be given only to such Armed Forces personnel who had been “invalidated from service”. Military veterans in India considered this notification to be discriminatory and approached the Supreme Court for relief. The Supreme...
Julian Assange’s extradition hearing has had very little media coverage. Even The Guardian and The New York Times barely mentioned it, though these newspapers made a fortune publishing Assange-provided cables. Unless you had been looking for it, you wouldn’t even know that on February 24 to 27, the first stage of Assange’s extradition hearing was being adjud...
It’s quite fitting that the – imperially pre-determined – judicial fate of Julian Assange is being played out in Britain, the home of George Orwell. As chronicled by the painful, searing reports of Ambassador Craig Murray, what’s taking place in Woolwich Crown Court is a sub-Orwellian farce with Conradian overtones: the horror…the horror…, remixed for the Ra...
I haven’t written about American electoral politics in a long time – and here we are in the 15th month of the quadrennial slog to the White House. Well, obviously it is not because the health of the Republic is so robust that attention turns toward those matters that reside in the lower orders of significance. You all know them well: did the Astro’s ‘cheatin...
Afghanistan’s peace process has stumbled as talks between the government and Taliban in Oslo, Norway, could not begin on March 10, 2020, as President Ashraf Ghani’s rival, Abdullah Abdullah, held a parallel swearing-in ceremony on March 9, 2020, repudiating the results of the September 2019 election. Abdullah had challenged the 2014 verdict also, but...
Turbulence rising, we are in for a choppy ride, – that’s what our captain should announce. After some fake turbulence supplied by the overblown coronavirus media hype, real things began to add up. They all add up to a great uncertainty and to a deep recession; to a war substitute, from the financial point of view. The world leaders still aren’t ready to go t...
The US attempt to hammer a peace deal with the Taliban has proved to be a non-starter in bringing peace and stability to war-ravaged Afghanistan. The deal with Taliban has no meaning unless a similar bipartite agreement is signed between the militant organization and the Afghan government. The drama in Doha followed US President Donald Trump’s visit to India...
As the coronavirus spreads, so does its likely political fallout. For authoritarians and autocrats, the fallout is likely to be a mixed bag. Some will benefit from invasive tracing and monitoring of those affected by the virus that is likely to boost the evolution towards a Big Brother and surveillance state as well as nationalist economic policies propagate...
At the start of their discussion marathon in Moscow on Thursday [March 5-ed], Russian President Vladimir Putin addressed Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan with arguably the most extraordinary diplomatic gambit of the young 21st century. Putin said: “At the beginning of our meeting, I would like to once again express my sincere condolences over the death...
Following 6 hours of grueling negotiations [March 5-Ed], including direct negotiations between Putin and Erdoğan, the parties have finally agreed to the following: 1) A ceasefire will begin at midnight. 2) Russia and Turkey will jointly patrol the M4 highway (M5 now belongs to Damascus). A 6-km buffer zone will have to be created and enforced on each side of...
A scandal is unfolding in the intelligence world today, this time connected to the illegal activities of a Swiss company which used encryption technologies for a global wiretap of over a hundred nations. According to a journalistic investigation conducted by the Swiss TV program Rundschau, the German TV channel ZDF and The Washington Post, American and Germa...
This time of the year, in 2019, witnessed great tension between India and Pakistan. The terrorist attack on a CRPF convoy at Pulwama, Kashmir, on February 14, elicited a strong riposte from India. The Indian Air Force carried out a very successful air strike on a terrorist camp at Balakot, deep in Pakistan-held territory on February 26. More than 300 terrori...
Lately we have, with increasing frequency, been witness to fairly significant events. However, those involved in them usually attempt to hide what is happening behind a wall of secrecy. For instance, at the end of last year, the process of moving Polish gold reserves from Great Britain back home was completed in secret. G4S plc, a UK security services compan...
As tens of thousands of refugees shiver in the cold on Turkey’s borders with Europe and a new phase of the brutal Syrian war erupts, Russia, Turkey, the European Union and the international community are being presented with the bill for a flawed, short-term approach to the nine-year old conflict that largely lacked empathy for millions of victims and was li...
The Russians feel fighting Turkey is below their dignity, and prefer to keep the fighting in Idlib as a proxy war. The dignity point is important: traditionally, the Russians go to war only with great powers. Smaller military encounters are a matter for a local commander. Even cruel Winter Campaign 1940 against Finland had been conceived as a decision of Len...
The epidemic caused by a new strain of Coronaviruses, called “2019-nCOV” by the World Health Organization (WHO) on January 30, is becoming a crucial factor in the current phase of ongoing political and economic processes. Although the author lacks the expertise to discuss either the origins or the spread of the viral outbreak, he feels it prudent to admit t...
After the formal treaty disintegrating the former USSR was signed at Belovezhskaya Puschcha on December 8, 1991, multi-billionaire comrade George Soros stepped in. As early as 1993, Soros announced that he was setting up a new foundation with hundred million dollars of his personal wealth to support basic research and science education in Former Soviet Union...
After two dismal failures, Bibi Netanyahu had won the third time. Israeli general elections three times in one year turned the country into Groundhog Day; all polls predicted the third time will be a perfect re-run of previous two runs. But elections are unpredictable: people say what they think the interviewer wants to hear, or what is generally...
When Vinayak Damodar Savarkar passed away on February 26, 1966, at the ripe age of 82, despite health wracked by the dehumanizing conditions in Cellular Jail, Andamans (July 1911-May 1921), further imprisonment in Alipore, Ratnagiri and Yerawada jails (till January 1924), some stalwarts remembered his contribution to the freedom movement. Prof. Hiren...
Parliament has enacted the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019, (CAA), with the noble, justified and righteous intention of easing the process of grant of citizenship to the persecuted religious minorities of Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh. The merits or otherwise of the Act, that are been deliberated across the nation, have led to many discussions and i...
What a wonderful enchanted life we boomers have had! Living was easy, accommodation plentiful and inexpensive, salaries were high, girls willing. The world was offered to us like a heap of pearl oysters on the silver tray. We could travel, change our countries and jobs as we liked, we could fight for justice and mercy for others, we could seek our own way to...