Two years ago, President Vladimir Putin decided to wait out Western attempts to isolate Russia economically and politically. This year’s St. Petersburg Economic Forum — an annual event informally known as Russia’s Davos — showed that his patience is gradually paying off, but business as usual still isn’t within reach. Read Here – Bloomberg
Since the conclusion of the Iranian nuclear deal last July, the perennial antagonism between Riyadh and Tehran has reached a dangerous pitch, fuelling the violence that rages in Syria, Iraq, and Yemen and the undercurrent of instability that saturates the region. Read Here – Brookings
The price stabilization may have precluded a true test of the Saudis’ future strategy, though there is ultimately little reason to believe that maintenance of high supply has been abandoned; it has merely been recalibrated to make the Kingdom a price taker rather than maker. Read Here – The National Interest
Hillary Clinton triumphantly claimed the Democratic nomination for president on Tuesday, calling for party unity to stop Donald Trump as she became the first woman in U.S. history to lead a major-party ticket. Read Here – Politico
A little more than two years ago, the U.S. wouldn’t let Narendra Modi into the country. This week, India’s prime minister will have the honour of addressing a joint meeting of Congress. Read Here – Bloomberg
Despite the many issues of human rights abuses, censorship and suppression of dissent, China has managed a great victory by diverting the world’s attention to itself as a strong economic, political and cultural power. Read Here – Swarajya
For years now, Donald J. Trump has been sounding the alarm on China, calling it an economic bully that has been “eating our lunch.” The crux of Mr. Trump’s attack is that Beijing manipulates its currency to keep it cheap and give Chinese exports an unfair advantage. But that narrative is so last decade. China […]
From the San Francisco Bay area to Sao Paulo to Riyadh, water shortages increasingly cloud economic forecasts. But nowhere is the risk greater than in South Asia, where India, the largest economy and most important regional power, faces crippling shortages and a lack of consensus on what to do about them. Read Here – Foreign […]
For over ten years, the construction of the Salma dam has stretched the capacity of Indian diplomacy, administration and engineering to its limits, as New Delhi kept track of competing warlords on one side to maintain security, and the finance ministry’s beancounters on Raisina Hill. Read Here – The Wire
These gathering clouds over Afghanistan mean that traditional partners such as India must get involved in ways that they chose not to earlier. The danger of a re-emergence of warlordism is now a very likely possibility if the Afghan security forces are not helped in their task of taking on the Taliban. Read Here – The Wire
looking beyond borders 