I ENCOUNTERED something on this trip to India that I had never met before: a whole new political community — India’s “virtual middle class.” Its emergence explains a lot about the rise of social protests here, as well as in places like China and Egypt. It is one of the most exciting things happening on […]
Gandhi has become, in India and around the globe, a simplified version of what he was: a smiling saint who wore a white loincloth and John Lennon spectacles, who ate little and succeeded in bringing down the greatest empire the world has ever known through non-violent civil disobedience. President Obama, who kept a portrait of […]
Recently, the Japanese government announced that thepopulation decrease for 2012 is expected to be 212,000—a new record—while the number of births is expected to have fallen by 18,000 to 1,033,000—also a record low. Projections by the Japanese government indicate that if the current trend continues, the population of Japan will decline from its current 127.5 million […]
Track II meetings can be useful when participants express their views candidly, without worrying about offending the sensitivities of others. When the event is held in India, visiting think tankers take pain not to upset their hosts. Since most foreigners have rightly concluded that Indians are not only flattery prone but credulous as well, they […]
Shale gas may be sparking an energy revolution in the United States andpotentially even China , but it has attracted relatively little attention in Australia. All that may have changed with a recent announcement by Brisbane-based energy explorer, Linc Energy. Linc shares surged 24 percent after it told the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) on January 23 that its […]
Of all the natural resources on which the world depends, the supply and demand situation is most critical for water. There are replacements for oil, but no substitute for water, which is essential to produce virtually all the goods in the marketplace. Asia, not Africa, is the world’s driest continent. The gap between demand and […]
Don’t look now, but for all the buzz about the Obama administration’s “pivot” to Asia and the Trans-Pacific Partnership, momentum is building on both sides of the Atlantic for a U.S.-EU free trade agreement that could be at least as consequential in shaping the world order. In fact, considering the messy geopolitical landscape with few […]
While India’s relationship with its western neighbor Pakistan has been faltering despite concerted efforts, on the eastern front a new bonhomie is forming with Bangladesh. The recent signing of a new extradition treaty and visa regime between India and Bangladesh, signed by Indian home minister Sushil Kumar Shinde and his Bangladeshi counterpart Mohiuddin Khan Alamgir, […]
Just over twenty years ago, Hindu militants destroyed the sixteenth-century Babri mosque in Ayodhya, northern India, prompting riots around the country that claimed thousands of lives—overwhelmingly Muslim—including nine hundred in Bombay (now Mumbai) alone.* Ten years later, a conflagration of violence in India’s northwestern state of Gujarat killed at least as many Muslims, with the support […]
With bipartisan momentum mounting for comprehensive immigration reform, cautious optimism has emerged that 2013 will be the year for action. Most Americans agree that our immigration system is flawed, but there remains a lack of understanding about the real effects that new immigrants have on wages, jobs, budgets, and the U.S. economy in general. Two […]
looking beyond borders 