When a 70-year-old Indian grandmother decided she wanted to spend the rest of her days living with her sons in the disputed province of Kashmir, she probably had no idea that she was about to spark a potentially catastrophic clash between two of the world’s most implacable nuclear foes. For it now appears that an […]
Diplomatic historians may mark the 1962 war as the beginning of India’s slow ascent to great power status and a force to be reckoned with in 21st century Asian power politics. Yet, to this day, India’s foreign policy is – more than most other emerging titans – constrained by a quest for internal security and […]
The validity of our strategic objectives towards Pakistan should not be allowed to be distorted by any jingoistic reaction to the incident in Jammu & Kashmir on January 8, 2013, in which two Indian soldiers were killed well inside Indian territory by a Pakistani Army group and where one of them was allegedly decapitated. While Pakistan has […]
MARGARET THATCHER said that you cannot buck the market. But if the experience of India’s government over the last few months is anything to go by, you can charm the pants off it. My e-mail inbox is overflowing with missives from the finance ministry that promise a bounce in the economy, assert a step change […]
A controversy erupted recently over Track Two discussions regarding the Siachen issue. “Track Two Diplomacy” is a term with which much mythology is associated. Some proponents believe that it can cut through the red tape of conventional diplomacy and resolve intractable problems. Critics argue that it is both a useless waste of time and a sinister plot […]
The heads of nine of the ten member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations traveled to New Delhi two weeks ago to celebrate 20 years of ties between their organization and India. At the two-day “Commemorative Summit,” ASEAN leaders toasted Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and signed a free-trade pact covering services and […]
Ever since President Barack Obama announced on 21 December that John Kerry would succeed Hillary Clinton as the new US Secretary of State, much has been written in the Indian sub-continental press that the 69-year-old five-time Senator from Massachusetts has a tilt towards Pakistan and won’t be India’s friend. One reason given to “prove” this […]
Last month the United Nations published a highly critical internal report in which it admitted it didn’t do enough to protect Tamil civilians in the final months of the Sri Lanka civil war. In late 2008, the UN had withdrawn staff from the northern part of the country in anticipation of the Sri Lanka government’s bloody military […]
The 2008 Indo-U.S. Civilian Nuclear Agreement was supposed to mark a watershed moment for India – U.S. relations, ending the two democracies long-standing estrangement and ushering in a new era where New Delhi and Washington would be “indispensable partners.” But four years after the deal came into effect, much of the initial enthusiasm that it […]
The just-concluded 13th Indo-Russian summit between visiting Russian President Vladimir Putin and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was much bigger and important than envisaged so far. Two reasons why: (i) The two sides went ahead in signing defence deals worth $5 billion, defying the impression that Russia, which still takes care of almost 70 percent of Indian defence […]
