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 […]
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 […]
Jaffna, the capital of Sri Lanka’s Northern Province and once the bastion of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), is once again experiencing unrest. Violent clashes broke out on November 27, Martyrs’ Day for Tamil, between students of Jaffna University and Sri Lankan security forces. Each year Tamils use Martyrs’ Day to honor friends […]
The growing focus of Indian companies, including government ones, on emerging markets across Asia and Africa, and the attendant political risks of doing business in a dynamic policy regime—a problem that several Western multinationals have encountered in India—has highlighted a new challenge for New Delhi: protecting the overseas investments of Indian firms. Earlier this week, […]
Pervez Musharraf was on the verge of a major accord with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh before things turned sour for him at home in 2007. He says the Indian premier shouldn’t now visit his country without the assurance of a resolution to pending disputes. The General hasn’t changed much since his hey days. But he […]
n November 2010, President Obama visited India for three days. In addition to meeting with top Indian business leaders and announcing deals between the two countries worth more than $10 billion, the president declared on several occasions that the US and India’s would be the “defining partnership of the twenty-first century.” Afterward, Obama flew straight […]
It’s time to think legacy. For the last four years, President Obama has had plenty of reasons to pull his punches: at first, he was a new and inexperienced president, relatively unversed in how to make Congress and the executive branch work, and he mostly avoided going out on limbs. Then it was time to […]
The impending withdrawal of NATO troops from Afghanistan in 2014 has seen increased efforts being made by Russia and China to gain influence in the region. As a part of their strategy to secure its interests in Central Asia, Russia has been attempting to foster a relationship with Pakistan. Although, the first visit by any […]
In 1889, two years after an eccentric American millionaire established the European edition of The New York Herald, the precursor of the International Herald Tribune, Rudyard Kipling dined with some British businessmen in Hong Kong. The imperial rulers of China, most recently humiliated by France, had reluctantly started to modernize their vast domain; and British […]
Two new books about the May 2, 2011, raid in Abbottabad, Pakistan, that killed Osama bin Laden are scribbling in the margins of the first draft of history. No Easy Day, written by Matt Bissonnette (under the pen name Mark Owen), a Navy SEAL who participated in the operation, offers a fresh accounting of what will […]
looking beyond borders 