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 …

Bereft of soft power, India stands diminished in Hindu Kush and Central Asia

Bagh-e Babur (Garden of Babur) in Kabul, Afghanistan The dichotomy between the regime policy and public opinion is nowhere near as sharp as in the world of diplomacy. And nowhere in the contemporary situation is this maxim so sharply visible as in the dalliance of the West Asian oligarchies with Israel. The romance began at …

Expectant hush in Delhi as Sri Lanka chooses president

Top presidential candidates Sajith Premadasa (L) and  candidate Gotabaya Rajapaksa (R) greeted each other at a chance encounter in Colombo, October 7, 2019   An engrossing presidential election is due to take place in Sri Lanka on November 16. Considering that this is the first major election in Sri Lanka following the ‘regime change’ in …

Passage to the door opening to Kashmir Valley

Prime Minister Narendra Modi with a delegation of  European Parliament MPs, New Delhi,  October 28, 2019. The government’s initiative to sponsor the visit to J&K by a 28-member delegation of the members of the European Parliament (MEPs) is a belated step in the right direction. It is a modest step, likely tentative and probably intended …

Kashmir: Bipartisan consensus in US is in meltdown

For an Indian who ever had anything to do with the making or implementation of India’s Kashmir policy, listening to the 2-hour long Congressional hearing in Washington, DC, on October 22 would have been a scandalous experience.  There has never been such scathing criticism of our Kashmir policies in the recent decades voiced so openly …

China displays rock-solid support for Pakistan’s “core issue” of Kashmir

Chinese President Xi Jinping (R) received Pakistan PM Imran Khan (L) in Beijing on October 9, 2019   The visit by Pakistan PM Imran Khan to Beijing on October 8-9 has been a runaway success from Islamabad’s perspective. It revved up the dynamics of the China-Pakistan Economic Cooperation projects, will most certainly intensify China-Pakistan defence cooperation …