The Covid-19 pandemic provided an opportunity for China to overtake the US in comprehensive global power, given that Xi Jinping has managed the aftermath of the pandemic much better than the leaders of the major countries of North America, Europe and Asia. US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken very quickly echoed Henry Kissinger’s recent lament …
Dialogue with ULFA: Need for Circumspection
Formal dialogue with the ULFA (Pro-Talk)—which began in 2011 (but had stalled)—is reportedly going to kick start after the elections of 2021. By all accounts, the last round of talks ended on a positive note with the organisation expressing its satisfaction about the initiatives, which New Delhi had taken. According to an earlier press statement …
Bridging the Digital Divide: Promoting Inclusiveness and Connectivity for Sustainable Development
The COVID-19 pandemic has wreaked havoc on every aspect of life, including education, in an unexpected and long-lasting way. To keep our economies from coming to a halt, governments are maximizing online employment practices and improving e-health and e-learning capabilities. Academic institutions all over the globe have embraced online education as a way to make …
India should learn from Rodrigo Duterte’s Unrequited Love
Around 200 PRC ‘fishing boats’ have entered Philippines waters and despite love calls from Duterte to his counterpart in Beijing, refuse to leave. President of the Philippines, Rodrigo Duterte may have his faults, but a lack of confidence is not among them. So convinced was he of the persuasive impact of his charm that …
Resetting Japan-Russia Relations: Opportunities and Challenges
Owing to a longstanding territorial dispute over the Kuril Islands (also known as northern territories) Russia and Japan, haven't established a peace treaty 75 years after WWII. The return of the islands had been historically important to Japanese leaders. The new Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga acknowledged the dispute in his first speech in the Parliament. …
Revisiting Operation Neptune Spear: Lessons for India
Almost a decade ago, on 10 June 2011, a Tier One United States’ Naval Special Warfare Development Group, namely DEVGRU or Seal Team Six assassinated Osama Bin Laden in the heart of Pakistan. At the time, counter terrorism apparatus around the world had geared up for what most analysts had prophesised would be Islamist reprisals …
Indian ‘Ambivalence’ on Myanmar: Prudence is Key
In November 2014, this author was a member of the Indian delegation for a Track II Dialogue with Myanmar. The delegation had among others, a very senior former diplomat who had headed a particular prime minister’s Policy Planning Committee in 1984 and a former Army Commander. The author had earlier represented India in Track II …
Ambivalence is neither Strategic Ambiguity nor Autonomy
Nehru believed that he was neither ambivalent nor ambiguous, but on the side of ‘non-alignment’, whatever that was intended by him to be in practice. Friendship is tested in times of stress. In the1962 Sino-Indian conflict, offers of assistance came only after the PLA had demolished the illusion of Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and …
China’s Belligerence over Arunachal Pradesh: Imperatives for India
The issue of China’s bizarre visa policy towards a section of India’s citizenry had come to the fore almost a decade ago when two sportsmen from Arunachal Pradesh were prevented by Indian immigration authorities from boarding a flight from New Delhi to Beijing in order to attend the Weightlifting Grand Prix that was to be …
Peace and Stability in Bangladesh are Tenuous
Even as Bangladesh completed thirty glorious years of independence on 26 March this year, the issue of the erstwhile East Pakistan’s relationship with its biggest neighbour remains complex. To that end, the single most pertinent question pertaining to Indo-Bangla relations that continues to be raised is as to how a country whose liberation was ably …