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 […]
“We will show the courage to try and resolve our differences with other nations peacefully—not because we are naïve about the dangers we face, but because engagement can more durably lift suspicion and fear,”President Obama said in his second inaugural address. How exactly does the international community “engage” hostile states? Take China, for instance. Xi […]
The nature of world politics has changed more rapidly in the past four years than anyone expected. From the fall of the Berlin Wall up to the financial crisis of 2008, the United States had enjoyed a unprecedented period of hegemony. A decade ago, the US defense budget by itself was larger than the combined […]
President Barack Obama’s nomination of Senator John Kerry to be secretary of state won approval today from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. The panel’s action by voice vote sends the nomination to the Senate floor, where a final vote is scheduled for later today. Kerry, a Massachusetts Democrat who is chairman of the committee, showed […]
Almost all ethnic armed groups have successfully signed ceasefire agreements with the Burmese government. The Kachin Independence Organization, with its armed wing, the Kachin Independence Army (KIO/KIA), is the only major armed group still battling the Burmese army. Along with the Chins, the Shans and the Burmans, the Kachins signed the historic Panglong agreement to […]
Two fundamental beliefs have driven economic policy around the world in recent years. The first is that the world suffers from a shortage of aggregate demand relative to supply; the second is that monetary and fiscal stimulus will close the gap. Is it possible that the diagnosis is right, but that the remedy is wrong? […]
China, long a bystander to the conflict in Afghanistan, is stepping up its involvement as U.S.-led forces prepare to withdraw, attracted by the country’s vast mineral resources but concerned that any post-2014 chaos could embolden Islamist insurgents in its own territory. Cheered on by the U.S. and other Western governments, which see Asia’s giant as […]
Whatever may be said about India, it is obvious that no structural transformation of our largely poverty-stricken economy has occurred and what is more, none seems very likely in the immediate future. Not only have three decades of high GDP growth gone unaccompanied by a societal transformation, we seem to have regressed on certain fronts. Read […]
