What is it with South Asia’s strongmen and top judges? Only five years ago General Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan found he had bitten off more than he could chew when he tried to sack Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhary. Now President Mahinda Rajapaksa wants Sri Lanka’s Chief Justice out, but like her Pakistani counterpart, Shirani Bandaranayake […]
t every South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) conference member states advocate strengthening regional integration through the creation of some kind of common economic union, expanding people-to-people contacts, and reclaiming South Asia’s shared heritage. No doubt engagement between these eight nations has increased over the years. Trade between the bloc and people to people contacts have […]
Hillary Clinton will be missed by India as she makes room for Senator John Kerry to replace her as secretary of state for President Barack Obama’s second term. There are many reasons Clinton will be missed, not the least because she maturely accepted that India and the US will not see eye-to-eye on all issues, […]
As secretary of State, Hillary Rodham Clinton has boogied the night away in Bogotá, chatted about life’s dreams with schoolgirls in India, and fended off one persistent African goatherd’s proposal to take her daughter as his next bride. When Sen. John Kerry (D) of Massachusetts replaces Secretary Clinton as secretary of State – the job that President Obama nominated Senator Kerry for on Friday – expect […]
In the United States, it’s the Kennedys and Bushs; in South Korea, it’s the Parks. On December 19, South Korea elected Park Geun-Hye as president — but she’s not just the country’s first female head of state, she’s heir to a controversial political legacy. Her father, Park Chung-hee, was South Korea’s dictator in the 1960s […]
As the war in Afghanistan winds down, with the withdrawal of American combat troops scheduled to be completed by the end of 2014, there’s a modest ratcheting up of movement towards a reconciliation with the Taliban. Though many analysts are skeptical a deal can be reached within the limited amount of time before the withdrawal, and though […]
To say that corruption is endemic across Pakistan is neither new nor an understatement. But last week, a statement by President Asif Ali Zardari’s handpicked head of the main anti-corruption body stunned even those Pakistanis who have become relatively immune to graft. According to an estimate by the so-called National Accountability Bureau (NAB), led by […]
BANGLADESH suffered a violent birth. In the last days of 1971 the country then called East Pakistan was engulfed by torture, rape, mass-killing and other acts of genocide. The main perpetrators were Pakistani troops bent on preventing secession from “West Pakistan”. But the army had the support of many of East Pakistan’s fundamentalist groups, including […]
China has huge and long-term presence in Gilgit-Baltistan and is building extensive road, bridge and telecom networks to sustain it. The drivers compelling China to develop Karakoram Corridor are diverse and mainly pertain to its economic, strategic and political ambitions. However, the projects, which currently serve the strategic and economic interests of the investor, need to […]
New dynamics are emerging in the crucial Sino-Indian relationship. The two Asian giants are developing deeper global cooperation, while at the same time remaining stuck in a pattern of regional rivalry. Their disputed border, India‘s involvement in the growing confrontation in the South China Sea, and the US “pivot” towards Asia steer the Sino-Indian dynamic […]
looking beyond borders 