The Modi government’s approach to the transition in Afghanistan bears an uncanny resemblance to the situation thirty years ago, in end-1989. A great power that intervened in Afghanistan was retreating after a bloody conflict that lasted a decade and was washing its hands off its client state; the puppet regime in Kabul was hanging over…
To what extent External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar’s cancellation at the last minute of the scheduled meeting on Thursday with a Congressional panel in Washington, DC, was with an eye on Nagpur one doesn’t know. He is an ambitious media savvy politician with an IQ by far higher than of anyone else in Prime Minister Modi’s…
For Tokyo, the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership is a major political tool that would advance broader regional integration and act as a roadmap for good governance. For New Delhi, though, RCEP is first and foremost an economic deal that could hurt its more vulnerable industries and lead to near-term pain. *** India’s decision to pull…
The year is 2007. The monsoon had just arrived in Mumbai and it was pouring cats and dogs. The windows of the Premier Padmini kaali-peeli I am in are stuck and don’t go up beyond a point. By the time I reach the Taj Mahal Hotel in Apollo Bunder, near the Gateway of India, my…
India discredited its own policy of supposedly seeking a rapprochement with China after its navy sent a series of hostile signals to the People’s Republic earlier in the month confirming that the South Asian state regards its communist neighbor as a serious security threat on the high seas. *** India’s policy of so-called “multi-alignment” suffered…
If there was any doubt over the intentions of the right-wing Hindu government in India, the events of the past week have laid these firmly to rest. Last week, India’s parliament passed a law that categorically excludes Muslim immigrants and refugees living in India from obtaining citizenship. A ‘new’ India The Citizen Amendment Act (CAA)…
