“It’s the economy, stupid.” That is the message of a just-published survey of Iranian public opinion. However, the substance of the message differs for newly elected hardline Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and the Biden administration as Mr. Raisi toughens his negotiating position and the United States grapples with alternative ways of curbing the Islamic R...
Sharad Purnima celebrated on the Full Moon day in the month of Ashvin is generally believed to be a harvest festival or autumn festival and better known for Krishna’s Rasleela. Though Lakshmi is worshiped on this day, the celebration of this festival mainly in Gujarat and places closely associated with Krishna shows a connection with the life of Krishna. A c...
The Kerala State Chief Minister returned from New Delhi after meeting the central railway minister to get the nod for his pet project, the semi-high speed Silverline rail from Trivandrum to Kasargod. The centre offered a token support of Rs 2150 crores plus Rs 975 crores for the purchase of 185 ha. land, but refused to stand as security for any loan the stat...
Already in the 18th century, British economists of the nascent capitalism were questioning the sustainability of this system around David Ricardo. What was initially very profitable would eventually become commonplace and no longer enrich its owner. Consumption could not eternally justify mass production. Later on, socialists, around Karl Marx [1], predicted...
Indonesian religious affairs minister Yaqut Cholil Qoumas set the bar high for President Joko Widodo as well as Nahdlatul Ulama, the religious backbone of Mr. Widodo’s government, when he laid out the agenda for his country’s presidency of the Group of 20. The G20 groups the world’s largest economies. Speaking to the G20 Interfaith Forum in Bologna [Septe...
The Resistance Front (TRF) is in the limelight for a spate of civilian killings in Jammu and Kashmir. Soon after a famous pharmacist of Kashmir, M.L. Bindroo and two teachers were shot dead in Srinagar, TRF released a statement saying that they had been killed by the group’s “Shaheed Gazi Squad.” The TRF also issued a threat that it would continue to...
The future of US engagement in the Middle East hangs in the balance. Two decades of forever war in Afghanistan and continued military engagement in Iraq and elsewhere in the region have prompted debate about what constitutes a US interest in the Middle East. China, and to a lesser degree Russia, loom large in the debate as America’s foremost strategic and ge...
Rarely has Russia used this sort of language to a top rep of the major Western powers, but she was sorely pushed. Diplomats are usually polite, but Mrs. (“F*ck the EU”) Nuland awoke the beast in her Russian counterparts. Probably it was a mistake to insist that she should be the one to deal with the Russians. As a young woman, Victoria Nuland joined the...
The stakes are higher. The Russia ‘threat’ has been seen in restricted geographical terms concerning mainly Europe and the Middle East, to a lesser extent. China presents a civilizational challenge. American elites see us pitted in an historic contest to determine global supremacy. Whose values, whose interests, whose preferences will shape the...
Not all shared this vision of a Brave New World. They weren’t content to ride the historic wave of liberal teleology – with just a nudge here and a little coup there. These self-declared realists, in truth, thought more like Machtpolitik Europeans than idealistic Americans. The pivot of their thoughts and feelings were power constellations and any devils (re...
- An American orchestrated global Democratization project to shape the future world order is the United States’ strategic imperative. It should maximize its effectiveness by enlisting as many democratic countries as possible in a multifaceted campaign of suasion. This is a moral undertaking whose actions are justifiable, indeed validated in ethical terms. ...
It may not have been planned or coordinated but efforts by Middle Eastern states to dial down tensions serve as an example of what happens when big power interests coincide. It also provides evidence of the potentially positive fallout of a lower US profile in the region. Afghanistan, the United States’ chaotic withdrawal notwithstanding, could emerge as ano...
Life is grim. Young mothers walking their children get slammed to the ground, their clothes stripped over their head, the police rationale being “searched for not carrying proper papers”. People addressing police politely, asking why the police are breaking the law, get slammed to the ground with enough force to split their skulls. Anybody trying to help get...
An interesting coincidence: the beginning of October ushered in a double crisis: the first collapse of the Internet and the final failure of the Green Economy. Facebook employees used saws and axes to get into their working places, for the smart doors stubbornly refused to yield the way and their badges had lost their magic touch. It seems the Internet troub...
The 2021 Nobel Prize for Physics recognising the research of three climatologists, Professors Syukuro Manabe, Klaus Hasselmann and Giorgio Parisi has brought under sharp focus the threat of what is commonly known as global warming, which is nothing but anthropogenic warming. In simple terms, “man made” atmospheric warming. Announcing the prize, Mr. Thor Hans...
Two separate developments involving improved relations between Sunni and Shiite Muslims and women’s sporting rights demonstrate major shifts in how rivalry for leadership of the Muslim world and competition to define Islam in the 21st century is playing out in a world in which Middle Eastern states can no longer depend on the United States coming to their de...
Speaking to the UK media this week, Britain’s most infamous jihadi bride, and allegedly ‘reformed’ Terror’s sympathiser called on her fellow Brits to let her back in on compassionate grounds. Shamima Begum, who left the UK at the age of 15 to join ISIS (banned in Russia) in Syria now claims her youth, naivety and altogether lack of foresight led her to stray...
“Fear” is the primary instrument to sustain terror. Terrorists depend upon their ability to instill fear to further their unholy activities, be it the wanton killing of innocents, recruitment into their fold or seeking administrative support. As the terrorist diktat in Kashmir wanes, they have once again resorted to the fear factor to keep themselves afloat....
The lighting up of the state-of-the-art New Kelani suspension bridge, linking Colombo and Katuanayake airport, was perhaps the only bright spot in Sri Lanka during the month. The country reeled under shortage of essential food items due to runaway inflation and President Gotabaya Rajapaksa declared an economic emergency on September 1. This is not surprising...
In recent days, various media outlets have pointed to a very noticeable aggravation of the situation on the border between Afghanistan and Tajikistan. The border between the two States is more than 1,400 kilometers long. Mutual threats are heard from both sides, and military units are being brought to the border from both sides. According to reports, the onl...
Some wind is being taken out of the sails of German political parties, especially the Greens, by the pending energy crisis facing both Germany and much of Europe. This will have far reaching implications, not only in domestically but in Germany’s relations with The Russian Federation and various NATO and EU members. Germany foresaw this, and thus turned to r...
Scientific studies done until now had shown that analytical thinking always discourages belief in God. As per this a scientist cannot be expected to be a believer of God whereas the available data shows that nearly 90% of the Nobel laureates had faith in God. It has always been believed or rather hypothesised that the brain has two conflicting centres of fun...
When Qatari foreign minister Sheikh Mohammed Abdulrahman Al-Thani this week [October 1] described the Taliban’s repressive policies towards women and brutal administration of justice as “very disappointing” and taking Afghanistan “a step backwards,” he was doing more than holding Qatar up as a model of Islamic governance and offering the militants cover to m...
The consequences of the Geneva Accords - known as “Yalta 2” (June 16, 2021) - for the wider Middle East are about to reach a new stage: foreign forces occupying parts of Syria are about to withdraw. After 12 years of massacres, the war against the Syrian Arab Republic is ending. President Bashar al-Assad went to the Kremlin. Nothing transpired from his m...
This affair should be viewed as a school-boy prank rather than a serious, consequential strategic move. The United States, as currently constituted and led, is incapable of designing and executing a serious strategy of scope and sophistication. The initiative came from Boris Johnson whose tousled head is full of sepia-tinged fanciful visions of how to r...
A year of diplomatic relations between the United Arab Emirates and Israel has proven to be mutually beneficial. The question is whether the assumptions underlying the UAE’s initiative that led three other Arab countries to also formalise their relations with the Jewish state will prove to be correct in the medium and long term. UAE Crown Prince Mohammed bin...
The announcement of the Australian-British-US (A-UK-US) pact [1] was like an earthquake in the Indo-Pacific region. There is no doubt that Washington is preparing for a long-term military confrontation with China. Until now, the Western deployment to contain China politically and militarily has involved the United States and the United Kingdom as well as Fra...
The 20th anniversary summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) in Dushanbe, Tajikistan, enshrined no less than a new geopolitical paradigm. Iran, now a full SCO member, was restored to its traditionally prominent Eurasian role, following the recent $400 billion-worth trade and development deal struck with China. Afghanistan was the main topic – w...
With Iran’s arrival, the SCO member-states now number nine, and they’re focused on fixing Afghanistan and consolidating Eurasia. The two defining moments of the historic 20th anniversary Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit in Dushanbe, Tajikistan had to come from the keynote speeches of – who else – the leaders of the Russia-China strategic partne...
Saudi and Emirati efforts to define ‘moderate’ Islam as socially more liberal while being subservient to an autocratic ruler is as much an endeavour to ensure regime survival and bolster aspirations to lead the Muslim world as it is an attempt to fend off challenges rooted in diverse strands of religious ultra-conservatism. The Saudi and Emirati efforts ...
During his Independence Day speech at the Red Fort, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced that the Government of India is rolling out a scheme for the extensive cultivation of palm oil crop in India. Three days later, the Cabinet approved a Rs 11,040 core outlay over five years for the National Mission on Edible Oils-Oil Palm, based on the argument that Ind...