Tapestry of India’s rich religious diversity Factually speaking, one must be a cynic to be dismissive about the findings of the annual 2022 report on India in the US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF). In particular, the report recommends that India be designated as a Country of Particular Concern, a country that engages in …
Biden’s Idea of India and Savarkar’s are poles apart
Kamala Harris being sworn in as US Vice-President. At right extreme is President Joe Biden. Washington, DC, January 20, 2021 According to media reports, the US President Joe Biden has picked as many as 20 Indian-Americans for senior positions in his government, and the common thread running through them is that none of them had …
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Joe Biden speaks on India. It’s good on the whole.
US presidential candidate Joe Biden & running mate Kamala Harris. (File photo) The Democratic Candidate Joe Biden’s remarks Wednesday on the US-Indian relationship have elements of the good, bad and the ugly. Biden, a consummate politician, poses an intellectual challenge to foreign observers. The momentous US election on 3rd November brings out his vast experience …
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We are all Americans!
Senator Kamala Harris, the first Indian-American candidate to make a serious run at the American presidency. (File photo) On several templates, the Democratic candidate in the November election in the US Joe Biden’s choice of Senator Kamala Harris as his running mate becomes an extraordinary development. Biden, the consummate politician, has made a thoughtful choice …
Kejriwal bestows a road map on India’s opposition
Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal offering prayers at a Hanuman temple on the eve of Delhi elections, Feb 7, 2020. He said, “What kind of politics is this? God belongs to everyone. May god bless everyone, even those in the BJP.” The meaning of the Delhi state election results will take time to sink in, …
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India’s neighbourhood first policy crumbles
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 …
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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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Afghanistan, Bangladesh deserve our respect
The Kart-e-Parwan Sikh Gurudwara in Kabul, Afghanistan This had to happen: The friendliest and the closest neighbour that India ever had since its independence, Afghanistan, has cast aside diplomatic niceties and unmistakably conveyed its indignation and sense of hurt over the churlish imputation by the Indian leadership of alleged religious / racial persecution of minorities …
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Howdy Modi has an enduring legacy
Prime Minister Modi (R) and President Donald Trump (L) on stage for Howdy Modi event, Houston, September 22, 2019 The scathing attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the recent weeks by two prominent writers in the US — the Washington Post’s Max Boot (here) and the New Yorker magazine’s Dexter Filkins (here) — is …
The ballad of India’s Kashmir and Israel’s Palestine
Palestinian children play outside their dwelling in al-Eizariya town in the Israeli-occupied West Bank with the Jewish settlement of Maale Adumim in the background. “I believe the security situation will improve (in J&K), it will allow the refugees to go back, and in your lifetime, you will be able to go back … and you …
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