According to Perry Anderson’s new book, The Indian Ideology, India’s democracy — routinely celebrated as the world’s largest — is actually a sham. It is fatally compromised by its origins in an anticolonial struggle led by the “monolithically Hindu” Congress party, which Anderson holds largely responsible for the bloodiness of the partition of the British-ruled subcontinent […]
When India’s supreme court effectively re-banned gay sex, it set aside the ruling of one of its own high courts in favor of a law imposed on India by its British occupiers in 1861. That means it has now re-joined 75 other countries that explicitly punish gay sex with imprisonment. Read Here – The Atlantic
A series of elections in India last week has exposed a major diplomatic problem for the U.S. State Department: The man expected to lead the world’s largest democracy in 2014 is not legally allowed to enter the United States. Read Here – Foreign Policy
China’s growing assertiveness with Japan and the U.S. is helping bring a level of attention to Southeast Asia unseen since the Vietnam War, ushering billions of dollars of investment, wider access to trade and stepped-up military assistance. Read Here – Bloomberg
As US Vice President Joe Biden just discovered on his tour of Japan, China, and South Korea, the American novelist William Faulkner’s observation – “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.” – could not be more apt, writes Jaswant Singh Read Here – Project Syndicate
A new carrier like India’s does more than just denote blue-water capability. Read Here – The Diplomat
As a fiscally constrained and war-weary Washington confronts its foreign policy challenges, events in Ukraine and Afghanistan show that economic incentives can play a major role in addressing them. Read Here – The Atlantic
A string of incidents involving indiscipline and insubordination in the Indian armed forces has set off alarm bells in India’s defense establishment. Read Here – The Diplomat
The Indian financial system suffers from a hangover of cronyism and corruption that have brought the government budgets on the verge of bankruptcy Read Here – The Hindu
Pakistani authorities have long had ties to domestic militant groups that help advance the country’s core foreign policy interests, namely in connection with Afghanistan and India. Read Here – Council On Foreign Relations
looking beyond borders 