Heightened tension in Kashmir and evidence of a Chinese military presence on the Tajik and Afghan side of their border with China’s troubled north-western province of Xinjiang are putting on display contradictions between the lofty principles of the People’s Republic’s foreign and defense policies and realities on the ground. The escalating tension between P...
Kashmir has been witnessing unrest for the past few days! People have started hoarding essential supplies on the premise that something unprecedented is expected to happen shortly. The feeling has come due to rationing of supplies and also the arrest/detention of certain elements known to leverage incidents like the Pulwama terrorist attack to ferment troubl...
There is a great deal of controversy about the true shape of the Venezuelan economy and whether Hugo Chavez’ and Nicholas Maduro’s reform and policies were crucial for the people of Venezuela or whether they were completely misguided and precipitated the current crises. Anybody and everybody seems to have very strong views about this. But I don’t simply be...
For the first time, India has seriously hinted at using the only weapon that can really raise hackles in Pakistan. Not the bomb, but water. That is the significance of Nitin Gadkari’s (Minister for Road Transport & Highways, Shipping and Water Resources, River Development & Ganga Rejuvenation) statement that India is exploring options to block even...
The media is flooded with highly provocative stories of ‘fire in Kashmir’, which is in Jammu and Kashmir, which acceded to India on October 26, 1947. It is unfortunate that well known writers, authors, jurists, and politicians have not cared to explore the historical background of the State. J&K proper includes the present Indian State as well as Pakistan Oc...
In perhaps the most significant condemnation to date of China’s brutal crackdown on Turkic Muslims in its north-western province of Xinjiang, Turkey’s foreign ministry demanded this weekend [Feb 10 - Ed] that Chinese authorities respect human rights of the Uighurs and close what it termed “concentration camps” in which up to one million people are believed t...
Continued, albeit slower-paced US and Turkish leaks potentially provide insight into far more than the circumstances of the October [2018] killing of Saudi journalist and Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi. They focus attention on crown prince Mohammed bin Salman’s strategic thinking as well as his tightened control of the kingdom’s media. In the late...
While the Pentagon is withdrawing from the “Greater Middle East” to invest in the “Caribbean Basin”, the White House is getting ready to reorganise its allies in the region. To this aim, a “Ministerial to Promote a Future of Peace and Security in the Middle East” will be held in Warsaw on the 14 and 15 February. All the allies of the USA will be participatin...
Media is agog with speculative articles on the next presidential election after President Maithripala Sirisena completed four years in office on January 8, 2019. According to the Constitution, the President may at any time after four years from “the commencement of his first term of office by proclamation declare his intention of appealing to the people for ...
As Government unravels the conspiracy behind the horrendous car bomb attack on February 14, 2019, that has taken the lives of 49 Central Reserve Police Force jawans, it must consider civilian supporters of terrorists, especially stone pelters who hurt the Forces, as accomplices. Pulwama has shaken India’s soul; we can no longer tolerate human rights...
In Washington, the struggle between the Jacksonians (represented by Donald Trump’s team) and the Imperialists (in other words the traditional political class) may well seduce the 116th Congress into not only harassing the President, but also playing a much greater role in foreign affairs. This Congress has just elected James Risch (Republican, Idaho) to the ...
The suicide attack on Revolutionary Guards in Iran’s south-eastern province of Sistan and Baluchistan (Feb. 13-Ed.), the second in two months, could not have come at a more awkward moment for Pakistani prime minister Imran Khan. The assault on a bus carrying the guards back from patrols on the province’s border with the troubled Pakistani region of Balochist...
The terrorist attack on a CRPF convoy at Pulwama, Srinagar, is a tragedy of monumental proportions. It was a cowardly act of mindless violence that has left the entire nation aghast and horrified. The foreign hand is well established since the terrorist involved had allegiance with the Pakistan-based terrorist organisation, Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM). As...
President Ashraf Ghani on Thursday [Feb. 7] expressed serious concern over the violence perpetrated against peaceful protesters and civil activists in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Baluchistan and warned that it could have “long-standing negative consequences”. Pakistan’s civil and military establishments have been resorting to violence and state terrorism to crush...
Solzhenitsyn knew that his immediate task was to free his fellow Soviet citizens from Fear: the fear to be deprived of social privileges, to lose job, even to be imprisoned. For, as soon as one expressed doubt about the official Marxist-Leninist ideology which had a very special status as the official faith of all Soviet people as well as the guiding star fo...
On October 2, 2018, the world honored Mahatma Gandhi’s 150th Birthday Anniversary. Few weeks later, on December 11, there was Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s first Centenary. At about the time of Mahatma Gandhi’s martyrdom by a bullet of an overzealous Hindu nationalist in January 1948, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn had just begun his Via Dolorosa going through all the...
Despite the emergence of the five-nation BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) group and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization - a regional security organization that includes Russia, China, India and Pakistan, as well as the ‘stan’ nations of Central Asia, except Turkmenistan - it is likely that each country in the region will continue to de...
In the midst of a rapidly changing world, South Asia has not remained static. The rise of two large Asian powers, China and India, and increased transport connectivity within the South Asian region lead one to expect a significant improvement in the living conditions of the people of the region, in turn ensuring better security in the coming years. It is fai...
Recently India’s Indian Ocean neighbours – Sri Lanka and Maldives – witnessed political crises after heads of state attempted to tinker with the constitution to suit their political ends, plunging the country into chaos and uncertain future. This was due to fractious and personality driven domestic politics practiced in both countries. However, they have man...
China has dramatically reduced its trade with Iran in line with US sanctions, raising questions whether Iran will remain committed to an international agreement that puts severe limits on its nuclear endeavours. Reduced Chinese trade also suggests that Iran is likely to face increased obstacles as it seeks to blunt the impact of the harsh US sanctions impose...
“Fear” is the primary instrument for the sustenance of terror. Terrorists depend upon this element to further their multifarious activities, be it wanton killing of innocents, recruitment into their fold or seeking administrative support. Quite naturally, “informers” are considered to be the worst possible traitors by terrorists and for them is reserved the ...
This interesting finding of the research on temples as generators of negative ions is further probed to understand why the ancients thought of doing this at a time when pollution, particularly man-made pollution, was not an issue. The choice of place for building the temples as given by sages Garga and Manu and enumerated by Varahamihira reveals that those...
With the hearing of the review petitions on Sabarimala due to commence, the restriction on women of menstruating age is once again going to come under the scanner. Also in focus will be the ‘right to pray’, gender equality and non-discrimination owing to biological characteristics. No sensible person would deny all these, but in the context of temples of Hin...
Prime Minister Narendra Modi largely stuck to his developmental agenda on his visit to Jammu, Srinagar and Leh on February 3, 2019, inaugurating projects worth Rs 44,000 crore, but disappointing the faithful in Ladakh and Jammu by failing to address their core anxieties. Ladakh was expecting grant of Divisional status to redress decades of neglect, but...
The interim budget for 2019-20 is Narendra Modi’s bold gambit to win the perception war ahead of the Lok Sabha elections. If ever there was a pure Politically Correct budget, this is it. Designed as pro-poor, anti-corrupt and growth-oriented, it has something for every influential section of the society, and that too without any additional tax burden. There ...
Sri Muruga or Somaskanda has been the popular and presiding deity of cultural Tamilakam. Tradition eulogizes Murukan as ‘Tamizh Katuvul’ or Lord of Tamil and head of the second Sangam. Although Agastya is designated head of the first Tamil Sankam, it is traditionally believed that Murukan imparted Tamil to Agastya. The concept of the deity that is...
Fakirs playing their flutes to fearsome cobras, a native dentist with his nasty-looking tongs and a jar of extracted teeth, drummers in colourful national garb, stalls serving spicy food in bright tagines: the main square of Marrakech, the old capital of Maghreb (that is North Africa west of Egypt and North of Sahara, presently and mainly Morocco, Algeria an...
The battle lines in the 21st century’s Great Game aimed at shaping the creation of a new Eurasia-centred world, built on the likely fusion of Europe and Asia into what former Portuguese Europe minister Bruno Macaes calls a “supercontinent,” are all but cast in cement. For now, the Great Game pits China together with Russia, Turkey and Iran against the United...