Dhaka needs to regain control over its security apparatus "They are firing rifles, machineguns, artillery and all sorts of weapons," one police officer near the scene said. The Bangladeshi army called on the attacking troops to "surrender arms and go back to the barracks." So who just attacked the Bangladeshi army? It’s own paramilitary wing, ...
Watch out for the LTTE’s mischief in Tamil Nadu The LTTE leadership probably calculates that destabilising Tamil Nadu by inciting widespread political violence will serve its interests. If you think that lawyers in the Madras High Court turned into violent mobs, torched police stations and got into street battles with riot police just like that, ...
Pakistan’s strategic retreat will be irreversible…unless the military establishment is transformed First the facts: the Pakistani government has struck a deal with Maulana Sufi Mohammed, who heads an organisation called the Tanzim Nifaz Shariat-e-Muhammadi (TNSM) to impose Nizam-e-Adl regulations, which are based on Sharia law, in the Malakand Division of the North West Frontier Province ...
India shouldn’t expect that it can defeat Pakistani terrorism on the cheap So little do people expect out of Pakistan that when it did admit that the terrorists who attacked Mumbai came from Pakistan, it was seen as major step in a good direction. That step, we are told, was due to pressure from the ...
NATO’s supply route through Pakistan is a gravy train for the military establishment…and the Taliban Western troops fighting in Afghanistan depend on the Karachi-Khyber-Kabul supply route for 70 to 80 percent of their needs. While its importance to US and NATO forces has received considerable coverage in recent months, there has been less attention given ...
the nuclear factor thus calls for both the declaration of a line of succession as well as ensuring that key cabinet portfolios are entrusted to separate individuals. It renders unacceptable practices that have either become norms or are compulsions of coalition politics. Parties preparing for the coming general election, therefore, would do well to go ...
Martin Sherman’s lowdown of the Israeli general elections General elections in Israel have thrown up what Indians know as a hung parliament. Tzipi Livni’s Kadima and Binyamin “Bibi” Netanyahu’s Likud have 28 and 27 Knesset seats respectively, which will require them to form a coalition with Avigdor Lieberman’s Yisrael Beitenu (16 seats) or Ehud Barak’s ...
Some Taliban are allied with Pakistan, against America. Other Taliban are against Pakistan because of America. None of them are ‘moderate’. Choose your pick: aspirin or scotch. You’ll need help to cope with this week’s news from Pakistan. First, there is Mullah Omar and his shura, all but openly operating out of Quetta in Balochistan, ...
…and holding them to account by threatening to bomb them from the air Bill and Bob’s Excellent Afghan Adventure rips apart Anatol Lieven’s op-ed in the Financial Times advocating a US pullout (linkthanks Joshua Foust). Among others, Dr Lieven recommends that “the aim should be a radically decentralised Afghanistan in which the Taliban can be ...
Perspectives on finance, economics and policy V Anantha Nageswaran joins us on INI, with The Gold Standard, where he intends to “improve the information to noise ratio in the world of finance and economics while having some fun and learning in the process.” The blog will cover issues such as “if all currencies have some ...