India should refrain from taking sides in Colombo
Sri Lanka, as the Indian Express put it, “seems to be on the brink of a new political fracture.” It is unclear why Mahinda Rajapaksa had to resort to highly draconian measures after his electoral victory. Putting his defeated challenger under arrest and on trial on ostensibly flimsy [...]
First check if there is better than here
The professor has set the question paper. And it’s not an easy exam.
The desirability of a world without nuclear weapons, Thomas Schelling argues in a brilliant essay in Daedalus, is being treated as axiomatic, and “hardly any of the analyses or policy statements that I have come across [...]
What would India’s soft power be without Bappi?
In its June 2009 edition, the Proceedings of the Centre for Soft Power Studies reported how Jimmy Zingchak holds sway over the people of Kazakhstan. Today it brings to your attention the wonderful Tajik Jimmy—whose career mirrors that of the Jimmy incarnation. Baimurat Allaberiyev, who herded sheep for [...]
The Indian prime minister is going to places he shouldn’t. And not going to places he should.
It’s becoming a pattern. First, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh attends a summit of an international grouping that has little relevance to India’s foreign policy priorities. Then, at the “sidelines”, he meets the Pakistani leader who happens to be there [...]
Three big steps against nuclear weapons—and one big one towards removing the poison in the India-US strategic relationship
Here are two ironies: First, that the political establishment around the US Democratic Party should think (via Atanu Dey’s blog) that the Obama administration ought to deliver ‘a tough message’ to India on nuclear weapons. Ironic, because India [...]
India should do business with whoever is in power
Why, many readers ask, has this blog been silent on the extraordinary events in Iran. Vacations and workloads aside, shouldn’t we be discussing the biggest stirring in Iran in three decades?
Yes we should. For whatever might be the immediate political outcome of the May-June 2009 presidential election [...]
China must act forcefully to stop North Korea and Pakistan from expanding their nuclear arsenals
The Obama administration tasted its first—and crunching—diplomatic defeat at the hands of the North Korean regime last week. After threatening to interdict North Korean ships, just about the only action the US government will take in response to North Korea’s nuclear [...]
Looks like there been a change at South Block
Dr Manmohan Singh should not have attended the summit meeting of the Shanghai Co-operation Organisation (SCO) at Yekaterinberg not only because India is formally only an ‘observer’ at that outfit, but also because it is not a club that India ought to join. The co-location of the [...]
Regaining lost ground on China, re-engaging the United States
Mint’s Samar Srivastava & Tanmaya Kumar Nanda have an opinion round-up on the prospects for India’s foreign affairs under the second UPA government. They find that the “UPA win (is) good for foreign policy, but (there are) clouds ahead”, and that the biggest of those clouds is [...]
With great power comes a Great Power
It warms the cockles of The Acorn’s cotyledons when people say things like “India’s unflinching defence of its narrow interest is cause for deep frustration among its interlocutors in the corridors of international power” and that it must “embrace a sharing of the burdens as well as the rewards [...]
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