US Acting Asst Secy of State Alice Wells met Pakistan’s Interior Minister Ijaz Shah, Islamabad, Jan. 20, 2020 The media reports that in the Indian estimation there is “a 75 per cent chance” of Pakistan exiting the ‘grey list’ of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) at the plenary of the international body on February 16 …
Continue reading “Pakistan’s exit from FATF list puts India on the spot”
The departure of the former Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani is beginning to be felt in Iraq. The two meetings that the US President Donald Trump had with the leader of Iraq’s Kurdish Regional Government Nechirvan Barzani and the president of Iraq Barhem Saleh in Switzerland on Wednesday on the sidelines of the World Economic …
Continue reading “US plotting return of ‘strongman’ in Iraq”
Massive anti-CAA rally at Kochi, Kerala, on New Year Day Two of South Asia’s most prominent national figures have made critical remarks regarding India’s Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and related issues. The criticism is striking not only because it is unprecedented but both Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and former Afghan President Hamid Karzai have …
Continue reading “India’s neighbourhood first policy crumbles”
Chinese President Xi Jinping held talks with Myanmar State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi in Nay Pyi Taw, Jan. 18, 2020. The state visit by Chinese President Xi Jinping to Myanmar on January 17-18, the first of its kind in nineteen years, has been a transformative event in regional politics from the perspective of China-Myanmar …
Continue reading “China, Myanmar to build shared future. What’s there for India?”
US President Donald Trump and Chinese Vice Premier Liu He, sign the China-US phase-one economic and trade agreement in a ceremony at the East Room of the White House in Washington, DC, January 15, 2020. The signing ceremony of the China-US phase-one economic and trade agreement at the East Room of the White House in …
Continue reading “Trump, the deal maker, blinks before China”
The Cold-War hypothesis that the Soviet Union was hoping to “wet its toes” in the Indian Ocean was in reality an extension of the geopolitical construct known as the “Anglo-Russian Question” that was written about by Lord Curzon, onetime viceroy of British India (1899-1905). We now know that the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan was due …
Continue reading “Russians are coming — to the Indian Ocean”
Satellite images show extensive damage to Ain Al Asad air base in Iraq which was hit by Iranian missiles on Jan 7, 2020 President Trump’s credibility is so low that it is difficult to contest the perception that he blundered into the recent confrontation with Iran by ordering the killing of Qassem Soleimani, the head …
Continue reading “Iran: Nothing is forgotten, nothing is forgiven”
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei leading the prayer before the coffin of Qassem Soleimani, Tehran, Jan. 6, 2020. To his right, President Hassan Rouhani, Speaker of Majlis Ali Larijani and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Commander Gen. Hossein Salami. A new dynamics is forming in the week since the assassination of the charismatic Iranian …
India-Iran Joint Commission meeting co-chaired by Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif (L) and Indian counterpart S. Jaishankar (R), Tehran, December 22, 2019 Sometimes a crisis is needed to judge the efficacy of a country’s regional policies. The US-Iran confrontation is one such moment for Delhi. In retrospect, the India-US meeting of foreign and defence ministers …
Biographies stand apart as literary genre for three reasons. One, they are a branch of history and yet are literary works in their own right. Two, biography is a craft rather than art where general rules of testing evidence apply. Three, importantly, reading a biography can be an intensely personal journey as it holds the …
