President Hamid Karzai’s visit to India comes at a time when his nation’s future, more than at any point since 9/11, is shrouded in a fog of fear. This weekend, shells fired by his troops were reported to have killed five civilians in Pakistan’s South Waziristan agency, the latest in a series of cross-border skirmishes. […]
IN SEVEN weeks America‘s federal budget will self-destruct and plunge America back into recession unless Barack Obama can persuade the Republicans in Congress to raise taxes, which they have vowed never to do. So what is he doing between now and then? He’s heading off to visit south-east Asia and attend the East Asian Summit. […]
President Barack Obama will visit Myanmar (formerly known as Burma) later this month and meet President Thein Sein, who is trying to steer the country toward democracy. Yet sectarian strife could still deal a setback to the government’s significant political, economic, and social reforms that have been made since the democratic transition began in 2011. […]
In the run-up to the U.S presidential polls, when bilateral diplomatic activity was expected to taper off, South Block logged as many as a dozen delegations from Washington between September 25 and end-October. Four of these were headed by cabinet minister-level officials. Even just a couple of days before the Americans went to the polls, […]
Every schoolboy used to know that at the height of the empire, almost a quarter of the atlas was coloured pink, showing the extent of British rule. But that oft recited fact dramatically understates the remarkable global reach achieved by this country. A new study has found that at various times the British have invaded almost […]
China will overtake the US in the next four years to become the largest economy in the world, says a leading international thinktank. The Paris-based Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) said China’s economy will be larger than the combined economies of the eurozone countries by the end of this year, and will overtake the […]
After years of “estrangement,” the United States and India have transformed their relationship at a breathtaking pace since 1998, and grown it into a wide-ranging strategic partnership. The speed and scope of these changes initially led to highly positive reviews of India and its potential contributions to American interests by U.S. commentators, gushing with praise […]
The tenuous nature of Pakistan’s democratic transition was put on display this Monday when the country’s army chief and Supreme Court chief justice appeared to warn one another to not transgress their constitutionally-defined roles. Pakistan’s Army Chief Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani decried what he claimed were attempts to create divisions between the Pakistani military and its […]
It was the talk of teaching Hindi to schoolchildren down under that grabbed all the headlines in India, but Canberra’s White Paper Australia in the Asian Century merits wider attention because governments today rarely state far-reaching plans of any kind, let alone those involving an epochal reorientation of political sensibility. Prime Minister Julia Gillard, who commissioned the […]
Indeed, enthusiasm for India in Washington may wax or wane over the next four years, but arguably this will depend less on who occupies the White House than on who occupies the prime minister’s residence at 7 Race Course Road. Over the past two years, faced with a global slowdown and a lack of reforms, […]
