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 …
Putin’s Russia, twenty years on
Twenty years ago, on December 31, 2019, resigning Russian President Boris Yeltsin (R) tapped then Prime Minister Vladimir Putin (L) to be his successor. When I left Moscow after completing my second assignment in the Embassy at the end of 1989, I never imagined that I was leaving the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics for …
US reminds Iran of red line on Iraqi turf
Debris at the headquarters of Iran-backed Kataib Hezbollah militia after the US airstrike, Qaim, Iraq, December 30, 2019 The “precision defensive strikes” by the United States at five targets of Iran-backed Kataib Hezbollah militia in Iraq and Syria on Sunday night can be seen as a new vector of Washington’s “maximum pressure” approach to Tehran. …
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Saudi placates Pakistan. What about India?
Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan received Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan in Islamabad on Dec.26, 2019. The one-day visit to Islamabad on December 26 by Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan bin Abdullah aimed at a reset of the Saudi-Pakistani relationship. What emerges is that Saudis are going the extra league …
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Eastern Mediterranean is big enough for Turkey, Russia
Libyan National Army forces commanded by Khalifa Haftar prepare to advance to Tripoli, November 2019, File photo. Libya’s call seeking military assistance from Turkey and the latter’s prompt announcement on Thursday of its readiness to meet the request as early as next month is no doubt a carefully choreographed sequence of events. Tripoli and Ankara …
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Afghan peace process annoys Modi govt
A soldier deployed to NATO base in Kabul posing for a picture with a Santa in the base cafeteria, December 24 2019 The Modi government’s approach to the transition in Afghanistan bears an uncanny resemblance to the situation thirty years ago, in end-1989. A great power that intervened in Afghanistan was retreating after a bloody …
Why Hindutva is a pariah in world opinion
PM Narendra Modi waits for a meeting with Portuguese PM Antonio Costa, New Delhi, December 19, 2019. Photo: AP This has been an extraordinary period in India’s equations with the international community. The mass agitation against the Modi-Amit Shah plan of action to impose the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and its follow-up, the National Register …
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US-India: Why 2+2 may not always be 4
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo (2nd R, Rear), U.S. Secretary of Defense Mark Esper (1st R, Rear), Indian External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar (2nd L, Rear), Indian Defense Minister Rajnath Singh (1st L, Rear) attended a press conference following their second “2+2 Ministerial Dialogue”, Washington D.C., December 18, 2019. To what extent External Affairs …
Rajapaksa’s ‘nyet’ on Mattala is a bitter pill to swallow
Prime Minister Narendra Modi (R) with newly-elected Sri Lanka President Gotabaya Rajapaksa (L), New Delhi, 29 Nov. 2019 Since the setback in Nepal three years ago when the Indian diktat on the contents of a new constitution for that country was brusquely dismissed by that country’s communist leadership, Modi government faces a similar rebuff from …
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Pakistan at crossroads. Turkish footfalls beckon.
Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan (L) and Turkish President Recep Erdogan (R), Ankara, Oct. 2019. File photo. The Indian establishment, including the political leadership, is running into a strange predicament. Never before has India’s image looked so visibly sullied in comparison with Pakistan’s as much as in the most recent years under the present government. …
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