If anybody asked me what is wrong with our judiciary, I wouldn’t reply with ‘please do not ask me what is wrong, ask me what is right; it will be a shorter list,’ because in both cases the reply would be: everything and nothing! The problems start with Articles 129 and 215 of the Constitution which empower the apex court and high courts to punish for contemp...
It is a little known fact that until the end of the First World War, Mahatma Gandhi was a strong supporter of both the British Empire and the military. He became the Apostle of Nonviolence only after Bal Gangadhar Tilak died and he became leader of the Congress and began to fanatically advocate what he called nonviolence, to the point of surrender to evil.
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Take out Western or Muslim Punjab from the map of South Asia and the region will be one of the most peaceful regions on earth? No jihad in Afghanistan and Kashmir, no crimes against humanity in France-sized Balochistan. It is all a sad story. As many as 170 Pashtun, Baloch and Seraiki students of Punjab University, Forman Christian College, Government Colleg...
While NATO was busy setting up a vast network with which to accuse Russia of perpetuating propaganda from the Soviet era, Washington was suddenly swamped by a wave of hysteria. In an attempt to discredit the new US President, the dominant media accuse him of talking rubbish - in response, the President accuses them of propagating fake news. This cacophony is...
My father migrated from Balochistan because of the oppression and persecution, soon after my grandfather was poisoned by the enemy for being a Baloch freedom fighter. I grew up abroad and learnt the Arabic language. When I was young, the kids did not allow me to play with them as they would say, “You are a Pakistani; go and play with the Pakistanis”. When I ...
Ever since coming to power, the US president Donald Trump has been doing his best to live up to his promises and election pledges. This has already led to the US’ exit from the Paris agreement, the scrapping of the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) deal, and review of the US-Iran nuke-deal. One of the most important pledges Donald Trump had made during his cam...
In recent months the US President has reversed yet another campaign pledge to pull out of Afghanistan, America’s longest war, and instead has begun to deploy an added 3,000 troops there. At the same time he has lashed out at the government of Pakistan accusing it of aiding the Afghan Taliban and pledging to cut all US military aid to that country as reprisal...
Russia avoided the Syrian quagmire despite dire predictions. Putin minimised his footprint, his war is almost over, ISIL has been defeated. Trump could also exclaim “Mission is completed!” – and fly home. But it seems he is eager to rush in where angels fear to tread. Trump does not mind doing for the Israeli Prime Minister what his predecessors, whether Dem...
Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra has taken charge of the case of the allegedly mysterious death of Special CBI judge Brijgopal Harkishan Loya after a bench headed by Justice Arun Mishra recused itself over perceived slights from members of the judicial fraternity. It is surprising that the apex court has chosen to hear a case based on media...
Law makers without any prescribed qualities, qualifications or experience, their men Fridays (popularly known as bureaucrats, who are required to help them in decision making by collecting and collating data and maintaining records) without any accountability and a judiciary which has the scope for the most whimsical decision making being held not only witho...
As is well known, both the geographical position of Japan and its need for the import of hydrocarbon fuels have facilitated the development of relations of that country with Russia. Only the long-standing Kuril Islands dispute stopped Japan from becoming one of the main Russian economic partners even several decades ago. Not having their own hydrocarbon...
What was caused by basic economic concerns was deliberately projected by the mainstream western media as the ‘making of a rebellion’ and possible revolution in Iran against Iran’s Islamic leadership itself. What was limited to certain regions only was hoped to spread to other parts of Iran and thus undo the Iranian regime. This has, obviously, not happened, ...
In mid-January last year, Tamil Nadu was paralysed when people rose up in massive protest against the Supreme Court ban on Jallikattu for reasons of cruelty to bulls. To the uninitiated, Jallikattu is a traditional bull-taming or racing sport, organised in different forms in mid-January in parts of Tamil Nadu. Some of the other Southern states also indulge i...
As is well known, Southeast Asia is one of the world’s centers of drug production. We are talking about the infamous “Golden Triangle”, located in the remote mountainous areas of the Indochina Peninsula, at the point where Laos, Thailand and Burma (which since 1989 has been known as Myanmar) intersect. At the end of British colonial rule in the mid-twentiet...
While almost 85% of Syrian territory has now been liberated from ISIS and other terrorist groups, according to Russian Ministry of Defense, and dialogue on political settlement and reconciliation is going on at a steady pace, the question of economic reconstruction is such that is going to leave a paramount impact on the ultimate outcome of the Syrian end-ga...
Protests have been reported across several cities in Iran over the last several days of December 2017. Protesters allegedly decry Iran’s economy as well as the nation’s involvement in nearby Syria. The Western media has attempted to cultivate two narratives – one focused on portraying the protests as widespread, spontaneous, and having focused first on “econ...
A major security fiasco involving a major China state company and a Hong Kong-based corporate security company is emerging. It could potentially open up the massive Eurasian project of China, its Belt, Road Initiative (BRI), to major covert sabotage directed out of Langley Virginia CIA headquarters and carried out by a “Trojan Horse” the Chinese have hired t...
The two-decade long wait of thousands of fans of Tamil cinema’s superstar Rajinikanth ended on New Year eve when he announced his entry into politics is certain. To the roaring approval of thousands of fans attending the six-day interaction with the Thalaiva (as they lovingly call him), he added, “I will form my own political party and contest from all 234 s...
Israel Shamir and the Palestinian and Jewish Group (PAJU) in Montreal, Canada have brought to the world’s attention the brilliant ideas by Edward Said in his January 10, 1999 article in New York Times Magazine, proposing “The One-State Solution” to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict over control of what members of Judaism, Christianity and Islam have called “T...
As it is known, all the states bordering with India are the zones of the Indian-Chinese struggle for the economic, political, and military dominance (except for Pakistan - a traditional opponent of India either with or without China). Even those that have traditionally cooperated with India, such as Bangladesh, the Maldives Republic, Nepal, and Sri Lanka, ar...
For some time now, US and its vassal states and Russia are engaged in an economic war. The first salvo was when VISA and MasterCard – which are US based banking institutions – were forced to stop accepting transactions performed by cardholders of certain Russian banks. The latest indication, as Saker has mentioned in the near past is that the US government i...
Breaking with the habits of his predecessors, Donald Trump’s National Security Strategy abandons the management of world affairs and lays out the path to the economic and social recovery of the United States. This project, which is perfectly coherent, represents a brutal change that his cabinet will now have to impose on the whole of his...
As there was advance information that an annual gathering at a memorial of the East India Company in Pune would be attended by rabble rousers like Gujarat MLA Jignesh Mevani and Umar Khalid of Jawaharlal Nehru University, the administration should not have been so unprepared for mischief by agent provocateurs. We are witnessing the invention of a New Subalte...
One of the most prominent election advertisements of Donald Trump’s campaign called on voters to “join the revolution”. Of course, in the context of American political rhetoric, anything passes as a “revolution”. However, many of Trump’s appeals indeed sounded extremely radical and resembled more the demands of the left than the usual agenda of Republican po...
Sri Lanka is expected to hold the nation-wide local government (LG) elections on February 10, 2018. Usually, local body elections are low key affairs. However, this election is important as a mid-term appraisal of the performance of the President Maithripala Sirisena- Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe government. It would also provide an indication of the ...
The new 55-page “America First” National Security Strategy (NSS), drafted over the course of 2017, defines Russia and China as “revisionist” powers, “rivals”, and for all practical purposes strategic competitors of the United States. The NSS stops short of defining Russia and China as enemies, allowing for an “attempt to build a great partnership with those...
I am on vacation and trying to stay away from politics to recharge my batteries, but a sane voice on Iranian politics in English is almost impossible to find, so…. Despite the Western media’s slobbering at the minor protests in Iran, there is no need to fear that Iranian democracy is about to “fall”. Allow me to get right to the heart of the matter and prove...
As it pretty much always the case, the ruling Middle Eastern elites have once again failed to stop the beginning of yet another “color” revolution, or an attempt to trigger one. This time it was Iran that found itself staring down the barrel. This development could easily have been predicted as the wave of “color revolutions” swept across Tunisia, Egypt, Yem...
So here is what India will be faced with in the not too distant future. The state we now call Pakistan will be whittled down to Punjab and the regions east of the Indus River, struggling to protect itself from the forces of unruly frontiers controlled by warlords great and small in search of loot. This is what institutional meltdown will amount to. By one...
Reports from Pakistan indicate that institutions of the state are heading for collapse. There are powerful forces at work that may soon redraw boundaries in the region. To see that, we need first to recognize that Pakistan is a geographical anomaly in which a vast and turbulent frontier is being controlled by a much smaller Punjabi interior. The Indian polit...
In its latest report, the Parliamentary Standing Committee (PSC) headed by Major General B.C. Khanduri of the Bharatiya Janata Party, slammed the government for simply not doing enough to ensure military modernization despite India being confronted with a clear two and one half-front threat from China, Pakistan and numerous insurgency threats. In...