Covering Policy Issues from South Asia
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Atal Bihari Vajpayee – the Quintessential No One’s Man but His Own0
- Blog
- August 16, 2018
16 August 2018 Wire India Often called the ‘right man in the wrong party’, he accepted this sobriquet not because it was the true depiction of his political orientation but because it enabled him to ride two boats simultaneously. File picture of Atal Bihari Vajpayee. Credit: PTI Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay Before he slipped out of the
By the Numbers: Is Afghanistan’s Democracy at Risk?0
- Blog
- August 16, 2018
August 15, 2018 By Mohammad Shoaib Haidary FacebookTwitterGoogle+LinkedInEmailPrintShare Today, the Taliban continue to fight government forces in Afghanistan, recently launching major attacks such as those in Ghazni and demonstrating the persistence of the challenges at hand. But recall that after the Taliban government was ousted in 2001, Afghanistan made great strides towards democratization, rebuilding its political
The Price of Power: The Political Economy of Electricity Trade and Hydropower in Eastern South Asia0
- Blog
- August 16, 2018
August 15, 2018 By Aditya Valiathan Pillai, Sagar Prasai FacebookTwitterGoogle+LinkedInEmailPrintShare Grand experiments in geopolitics often begin by cautiously testing new ways of doing things. Sovereign states calibrate and then recalibrate their visions by expanding and aligning interests with their neighbors, with the hope that the sum of what is achieved is greater than its parts. Recent actions
VS Naipaul: a man who cast doubt on post-colonial liberal certainties0
- Blog
- August 16, 2018
VS Naipaul after receiving the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2001. EPA Dilip Menon, University of the Witwatersrand No author in contemporary times more wilfully damaged his reputation with cantankerous observations as did VS Naipaul. He had extreme and contrarian opinions on the big issues of the day, from colonialism to Islam and the travesties
Pakistani elections are flawed, but poor rural voters are taking control0
- Blog
- August 16, 2018
Power to the people. Benny Lin via Flickr, CC BY-NC Shandana Khan Mohmand, Institute of Development Studies Despite being dogged by allegations of electoral engineering and vote-rigging, this year’s hotly contested general election in Pakistan should be – cautiously – celebrated. As a new government is sworn in, the country is marking a milestone in
Bangladesh Detains 42 People in Expanding Crackdown after Student Protests0
- Blog
- August 13, 2018
By Pulack Ghatack on Aug 10, 2018 07:30 pm Bangladeshi police have arrested at least 42 people in connection with recent mass protests demanding road safety, officials said Friday, amid growing international calls for the release of those detained, including renowned photographer Shahidul Alam. Law enforcement officials said they were on the lookout for “instigators”
Commentary
‘NRC crisis’ can throw up the largest chunk of ‘Stateless people’ in the world0
- Commentary
- August 16, 2018
N Sathiya Moorthy 16 August 2018 Independent of the promises of a fair and transparent verification of the draft list of four million people now left out of Assam’s National Register of Citizens (NRC), the situation can deteriorate unless wholesale solutions are found, before it became too late. If nothing else, if the Governments
Will the Trump Administration Renounce American Geopolitical Interests Pursued by Preceding US Administrations in Afghanistan?0
- Commentary
- August 16, 2018
Dr. Manoj Kumar Mishra 16 August 2018 The peace process in Afghanistan is likely to be a complicated and long drawn-out affair as has been indicated by the Taliban again escalating violence in the Afghan city of Ghazni in contradiction to their willingness to pursue talks evidenced in their observance of Eid
Pakistan not a Threat for Israel: Clearing Misconceptions0
- Commentary
- August 16, 2018
by Uzge A. Saleem 16 August 2018 Ever since 1998; the beginning of Pakistan’s nuclear age, the state’s self-defense mechanism has been a source of worry and unrest for India and the US. Both these states never really accepted that a small country like Pakistan could develop the prestigious asset and was now
Americans are not likely to leave Afghanistan without Interests Protected: Lessons from Cold War Geopolitics0
- Commentary
- August 14, 2018
Dr. Manoj Kumar Mishra 14 August 2018 Afghanistan’s sensitive geo-strategic location caught attention not only of regional powers but also the extra-regional powers like the British Empire in the nineteenth century and the US in the twentieth century. Its prized location instead of being a boon for Afghanistan has become a bane
Amid ethnic protests, Iran warns of foreign meddling0
- Commentary
- August 14, 2018
By James M. Dorsey 14 August 2018 Iran has raised the spectre of a US-Saudi effort to destabilize the country by exploiting economic grievances against the backdrop of circumstantial evidence that Washington and Riyadh are playing with scenarios for stirring unrest among the Islamic republic’s ethnic minorities. Iran witnessed this weekend minority Azeri
Sri Lanka: What next after ‘Panda Bonds’?0
- Commentary
- August 13, 2018
Sathiya Moorthy 14 August 2018 Living beyond one’s means is something that parents, family and religion condemn in people. The West-induced ‘credit card culture’ aimed at promoting consumerism and with it the ‘capitalists’ near-exclusively, may have changed it all, yet more and more people are finding the truth in the ancient wisdom even more.
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Bangladesh: Will this country become Pakistan or Kashmir?
1. A political group is spreading the perception that the country will again become Pakistan if Awami League loses control of Bangladesh. They even suggested a label “Banglastan” for this supposed nation which transforms into an improvised Pakistan in the East. But symptomatically it appears to become another Kashmir, or in a classical sense