Afghans celebrating the US-Taliban agreement of 29th February 2020, Jalalabad, Nangarhar province, Afghanistan In an extraordinary statement titled On the Political Impasse in Afghanistan, Washington has admitted the failure of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s mission to Kabul on Monday to heal the political rift among Afghan politicians and to urge them to form an …
Turkey, Iran and Malaysia spoke up on J&K. Here’s why.
Panorama of an endless Oil Palm plantation in Malaysia (File photo) The report in the Economic Times that India has signed a contract with a Turkish firm to build fleet support vessels for the Indian Navy at the Vizag-based Hindustan Shipyard Limited gives much food for thought. Prima facie, the report is a motivated one. …
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Compassion in the Time of Coronavirus
A public notice circa 1832, as ‘Asiatic Cholera’, the first truly global pandemic, gripped New York A thought was bugging me in recent days that Delhi increasingly reminded me of a distant place I knew but couldn’t place. Then it suddenly dawned yesterday when the maid who came to clean the apartment began narrating excitedly …
India braces for coronavirus spike
A laboratory technician prepares Covid-19 patient samples for testing at Northwell Health Labs in New York, USA. (AP) Watching the interview of Dr. R. Laxminarayan, director of the Washington-based Center for Disease Dynamics, Economics and Policy and lecturer at Princeton University, with Karan Thapar on the coronavirus epidemic has been a most edifying experience. A …
Trump samples democratic socialism. Hmm, it’s good.
US President Donald Trump at the White House announced that he signed into law the Families First Coronavirus Response Act, Washington, March 18, 2020 The responses of the Trump administration and the US Congress to meet the socio-economic challenges posed by the onslaught of the coronavirus constitute a marker in American politics — how in …
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SAARC can learn from China to fight Covid-19
WHO image of the new coronavirus (Source: Department of Microbiology, University of Hong Kong SAR, China) What prompts me to write this blog is the stunning, horrifying report in the Daily Telegraph, that I read in the inhuman beauty of today’s spring morning. The report forewarns that the currently fashionable “social distancing” methods to ward …
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Oil price war is more about market share
Red Cross medics waiting to check the temperature of participants at the OPEC+ meeting in Vienna, March 6, 2020 for coronavirus. None was found infected, but the meeting ended in disharmony. The common refrain is that Saudi Arabia has launched an oil price war against Russia by boosting production and selling at discounted price, …
India revisits SAARC to fight COVID-19. Scepticism is in order.
Coronavirus pandemic is on the rise in India The teleconference today at 5 pm IST between the leaderships of the SAARC countries is a rare event in regional cooperation. After an interlude of nearly six years, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is once again networking with India’s neighbours in a SAARC setting. He had sprung a …
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Putin keeps us guessing on his future plans
What happened in the Russian parliament on March 10 wore the look of a pantomime but took everyone by surprise. President Vladimir Putin made a surprise visit to the Russian Duma and in his very presence, a constitutional amendment was mooted which was passed on the same day which limits the presidential terms to two …
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Russia cannot do without Turkey’s cooperation in Syria
People fleeing the conflict zone in Idlib, northwest Syria. File photo. The former Soviet Union was a satiated world power. It didn’t have to prove anything. The Great Patriotic War (1941-45) spoke for itself. Thus, triumphalism was never a diplomatic tool in the Soviet inventory. The removal of the US nuclear missiles from Turkey in …
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