It was a French philosopher who wrote that “we are never contemporaneous with the present”. The past lingers, even the distant past lingers in the frame, while the present is being considered. When tectonic changes take place in geopolitical plates that affect major changes, if policymakers allow conclusions valid in the past to affect the …
Widen the Elbow-Room with the North East
If there is a veritable Achilles Heel in India then it is truly the 22 Km long Siliguri corridor that connects the North East to the rest of India. In his book Protracted Contest: Sino-Indian Rivalry in the Twentieth Century, John W. Garver writes thus: The Chumbi Valley points south towards the Siliguri corridor. The …
Envisaging India and EU Partnership in the Indo-Pacific
The India-EU Leaders’ Meeting held on May 8, 2021 marked a historic development in India’s relationship with the European Union (EU). The developments represent a significant corrective to New Delhi’s strategic dogma and the strategic shift of the EU towards the Indo-Pacific region. The Bi-polar Cold War dynamics and the North-South divide had prevented Delhi …
Questions on Covid-19: What China Needs to Answer
Since last year I have been writing that the origin of the Chinese Virus was from the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV). It is not a zoonotic transmission from bats to humans in the Wild Life Market at Wuhan – a hypothesis peddled by China. Firstly, virologists need to study the method of such …
France’s Counterterrorism Strategy and Cooperation with India
Introduction India and France have maintained close and friendly relations till date. Apart from the traditional fields of cooperation such as defence, India and France are increasingly engaged in newer areas of cooperation such as counterterrorism, climate change, sustainable development, nuclear energy, and now COVID-19 response, among others. With both the countries supporting a …
India and Global Governance: Lessons from the International COVID-19 Response
For a world order firmly founded on sovereignty of individual states, big and small, the term “global governance” is an idealistic dream at best or simply a misnomer. It is a shadow global government, which seeks to be an international process of consensus building without any erosion of sovereignty of the individual states. The surrender …
Intimidating Moves by China on the Red River
Water—one of the most vital natural resources on earth—has taken centre-stage in the enchanted frontiers and is progressively becoming a weapon of geopolitics. It all began as a mass movement engineered by the legislator-elect (2 May 2021) and leader of the Krishak Mukti Sangram Samiti (KMSS), Akhil Gogoi and his formation’s demand to halt all …
The Adoption of AI Technology: Need for Calculated Risks
History has seen the evolution of society from individual hunters, groups, communities, and to the ‘God’ oriented religions. At last, the modern era witnessed societies oriented to humanist philosophy. Every node at which a significant change took place has a technological advancement. Stone made tools, fire, the wheel, agriculture, and metals led to the formation …
Xi Jinping Banks on US-India’s Systemic Issues to Ensure PRC Success
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 …