Takshashila Shala // Pune 2011 – Attendee Geography According to EventBrite’s estimates, here’s where Shala participants are coming from. It’s guessing the location based on IP addresses, so those who registered from corporate networks might show up as being at their network gateway locations. Still, it gives us a fair sense of attendee geography. The ...
A government that can’t prevent women from being molested on the streets is unlikely to do better against criminals and terrorists. Excerpt from today’s DNA column: Imagine the Indian Army begins to conduct training camps to train all of us on how to use firearms to defend ourselves against foreign attacks. Imagine they provide booklets ...
Why India must try to bring the United States, Iran and Russia together over Afghanistan Imagine Afghanistan without extra-regional powers like the United States, NATO and others. Its stability would depend on the stability of the balance of power between Saudi Arabia, Iran, Russia, China, Pakistan and India. The external actors would broadly fall into ...
Regarding Tahawwur Rana’s trial in Chicago Here are some comments I made in response to questions asked by a British journalist regarding the the trial of a Chicago businessman of Pakistani origin, on charges related to the 26/11 terrorist attacks on Mumbai. Q: How important is this trial for those who watch the India-Pak relationship. ...
Between the military-jihadi complex and the putative Pakistani state Excerpts from today’s Pax Indica column: …What this means for the rest of the world is that it is a challenge to implement policies that distinguish between the military-jihadi complex and the putative Pakistani state. This is because the effects of policy are fungible between the ...
The larger significance of Samoa’s plan to advance its clocks An excerpt from today’s Asian Balance column in Business Standard: In 1892, a powerful American corporation convinced the king of Samoa of the advantages of being on the same side of the world map as the United States of America. Robert Louis Stevenson’s mother, then ...
The old, failed and corrupt political economy of poverty alleviation fights attempts at reform Jean Dreze, member of the influential, unaccountable and extra-constitutional National Advisory Council, has launched a pre-emptive attack against conditional cash transfers in the pages of today’s Indian Express. It provides an excellent example of how rank paternalism and contempt for the ...
Getting people excited about public policy We had two excellent sessions of the Takshashila Roundtable Conclave Programme in Bangalore and Hyderabad. We had extremely high quality discussions and a good mix of participants. This format, however, restricts the number of participants to 50 (26 actually, if my colleagues would allow me to have my way). ...
A live, online interactive programme on strategic affairs, public policy and governance Here’s the recording of today’s INILive pilot. Update: Edited transcript of the initial remarks: In today’s programme I will analyse the issues related to the killing of Osama bin Laden by US special forces in Abbottabad, Pakistan last week. I will also try ...
The military-jihadi complex is likely to grow stronger In today’s Pax Indica column on Yahoo, I warn that India has at best two summers before cross-border militancy and terrorism rise again. You might remember a Shekhar Suman gag on Zee TV’s Movers and Shakers several years ago: An angry George W Bush announces that the ...