Employees work in the production of Biontech/Pfizer’s Covid-19 vaccine at a facility in Reinbek, Germany The Ministry of External Affairs has welcomed the statement of the US government of 5th May announcing their support for a relaxation in the norms of the agreement on TRIPS, to ensure quick and affordable access to vaccines and medicines …
India will be front-line state in Myanmar civil war
Hakha Town in Myanmar’s Chin State bordering Mizoram was the scene of attacks on the military by rebel fighters on May 5, 2021 How some animals get to sense when earthquakes are imminent remains a mystery. Just before the great Asian tsunami on December 26, 2004, elephants in Sri Lanka moved to high ground …
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Boris Johnson walks away laughing with India’s Serum Institute in tow
UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson coming out of the Intensive Care Unit at St Thomas’ Hospital, London, April 9, 2020 (File photo) Three cheers for the Indian Supreme Court’s suo moto intervention on the issue of distribution of essential supplies and services during the pandemic. India, the “world pharmacy”, is entering shark-infested waters, as vaccine …
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Breakthrough in Afghan peace process!
The “extended Troika” on the Afghan problem comprising the United States, Russia, and China — and Pakistan — have announced in Doha on Friday a road map in consultation with the Ashraf Ghani government and Taliban as regards the way forward in immediate terms for reaching a peace settlement. The announcement followed consultations in Doha …
Post-American Afghanistan through looking glass
Ex-CIA officer Bruce Riedel at Brookings Institution in Washington, DC, whose familiarity with Afghanistan is never in doubt, has held a looking glass to figure out the future course of events even as the US troop withdrawal commences. History doesn’t repeat, but it rhymes. Riedel sees in the haziness old familiar shapes appearing — the …
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Biden chips away at ties with Turkey
People lineup at the monument to Ottoman Turks, Yerevan, Armenia, April 24, 2021. Armenia is praising US’ recognition of deaths of Armenians in Ottoman Turkey as “genocide”. If there is a Nobel Prize for the US president who first recognised the 1915 ‘Armenian Genocide’, that could have gone to Ronald Reagan. But he didn’t make …
Putin recites the distribution of power in central Europe
Russian military’s armoured vehicles roll into landing vessels after drill in Crimea, Black Sea, April 23, 2021 The Colossus in modern European history with whom Russian President Vladimir Putin would draw comparison might be Otto von Bismarck, the first Chancellor of the German Empire who unified his country out of the scattered pieces. Putin is …
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Tradeoff for US vaccine unthinkable
In a sudden change of heart, US President Biden may relent to lift the ban on export of raw materials for India’s Covid vaccine. In the coming week, the commander of the US Central Command Gen Kenneth F. McKenzie Jr. is expected to provide Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin with options for potential future counterterrorism …
Modi Govt’s vaccine diplomacy unravels—within India and abroad
The viral picture that defines India’s Covid distress — an exhausted Chandrakala Singh, sitting stone-faced in an electric rickshaw with the body of her son Vineet Singh (cropped out) by her feet on a busy street in the city of Varanasi in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, emblematic of the plight of Indians trapped …
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Afghanistan: US exit is with caveats
US to withdraw troops from Afghanistan by Sept 11, 2021 The United States and NATO are yet to begin the withdrawal of their forces from Afghanistan but the eyes are cast over the horizon at what lies after the ‘forever war’ formally ends. The US exit strategy in Afghanistan assumes the look of that random …