The question of a larger Indian role in securing Afghanistan is expected to figure prominently in the talks between the visiting US Defense Secretary James Mattis and the Indian leadership. That Washington and Delhi are talking about collaboration in Afghanistan marks an important shift in the international relations of South Asia.
Read Here – The Indian Express
Often missed in the larger debate on America’s South Asia policy is how it is moving beyond the Af-Pak narrative and addressing other crucial issues besides terror. Numerous other initiatives include reaching out to Pakistan’s Mohajirs, big-ticket projects for Nepal’s development and the recent attempts to address issues of Maldives and Sri Lanka.
There are six encouraging and bold pillars in the new US strategy on Afghanistan as outlined by President Donald Trump. First, it is an acknowledgement of the fact that Pakistan has been playing a destructive and dubious role in Afghanistan by providing support and sanctuary to terrorists and agents of chaos and that a diplomatic solution must be found for this problem.
Read Here – The Indian Express
Also Read: Pakistan’s New Regional Challenge
Trump said he studied Afghanistan in great detail, and that after Friday’s meeting with his national-security team at Camp David, Maryland, he arrived at three conclusions about U.S. interests in Afghanistan: “First, our nation must seek an honourable and enduring outcome worthy of the tremendous sacrifices that have been made; second, the consequences of a rapid exit are both predictable and unacceptable … third, and finally, I concluded that the security threats we face in Afghanistan and the broader region are immense.”
There is no doubt that as the United States winds down the Afghan war — the longest in American history, and one that has cost half a trillion dollars and more than 150,000 lives on all sides — regional adversaries are muscling in. Saudi Arabia and Pakistan remain the dominant players. But Iran is also making a bold gambit to shape Afghanistan in its favor.
Both Gandhi, for all his saintly status a profoundly sectarian Hindu leader, and Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the leader of the All-India Muslim League and the founder of Pakistan, were dead within a year after partition. If the British government had not been in such a panic-stricken rush to get out of India, there might have been time for more moderate Hindu and Muslim leaders to negotiate a different outcome.
For its part, Sri Lanka appears to have used its political savvy to square the circle for now, but the country will no doubt remain involved in the affairs of India and China in the future. And while being sandwiched between two great powers can be a precarious position for a small nation like Sri Lanka, the country has proved itself adept at playing these powers off one another for its own benefit.
As India and Pakistan celebrate their twin 70th birthdays this August, the frontier post of Wagah reflects the profound dysfunction in their relations. On its side Pakistan has built a multi-tiered amphitheatre for the boisterous crowds that come to watch the show. The Indians, no less rowdy, have gone one better with a half-stadium for 15,000. But the number of travellers who actually cross the border here rarely exceeds a few hundred a week.
Pakistan has found a new ally in its never-ending war against India — and he is the public face of our most ruthless killers.
The brave and fractious anti-British uprising of 1857 was put down with a heavy hand. It took another 90 eventful years for Hindus and Muslims who claimed to have jointly led the anti-colonial showdown to part ways. Anger, acrimony, violence visited both communities and tore up large swathes of their habitats across the subcontinent .
