General Kayani’s moves suggest that he sees the final lap
President Barack Obama gave his Af-Pak speech at West Point on December 1st, 2009 where he announced his intention “to begin the transfer of our forces out of Afghanistan in July of 2011.” General Ashfaq Pervez Kayani signaled his policy by the end that month when [...]
Getting Saudi Arabia to take responsibility for Pakistan’s actions is in India’s interests
At a recent conference in Abu Dhabi on emerging powers and the Middle East, one of the arguments I made was that a stable Afghanistan requires a balance of two distinct sets of powers—India-Iran-Russia on the one hand, and China-Pakistan-Saudi Arabia on the [...]
The mutual popularity of India and United States
Results from Gallup’s latest Country Favourability poll (linkthanks Rohit Pradhan) show that India continues to be among the most popular countries in the United States. There’s been a slight decline in percentage of respondents who rated India positively—from 69% in 2008 to 66% in 2010—but this is part [...]
Talks will call the bluffs in Rawalpindi, Islamabad & Washington
The sudden and unexplained manner in which the UPA government offered to resume talks with Pakistan has injected a lot of confusion in the public discourse. The confusion—and the political & strategic costs arising from it—must be blamed on Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. A move as [...]
“Failure of governance is as much a failure of the government as it is of the governed to be engaged”
In today’s Mint V Anantha Nageswaran and I renew our call for citizens to set aside civic apathy.
That leaves the middle class as the key catalyst for change. But it is focused on inflation in goods [...]
Why India’s offer of talks with Pakistan might not be that bad
So India has offered Pakistan “open-ended talks on all outstanding issues affecting peace and security”, emphasising counter-terrorism, at the level of the foreign secretaries. The offer was made two weeks ago and Pakistan is yet to respond. Also, Siddharth Varadarajan reports that “this is [...]
In today’s Indian Express, Rohit Pradhan and I renew our call for India to send troops to stabilise Afghanistan. It summarises the arguments we have made in on INI and Pragati and addresses the most popular objections to the proposal.
Excerpts:
Over time, a co-operative arrangement between India, Iran and Russia could form the bedrock of [...]
It is in India’s interests to be the subcontinent’s talent magnet
If you have been reading this blog for some time you might have noticed that The Acorn has consistently been against any measure that falsely conveys an impression that Pakistan is no longer a sponsor of international terrorism in general and proxy-war against India in [...]
The fault, dear Mr Naik, is not across the Himalayas
Mint has a very good editorial in response to the accusation that China is “systematically killing” Indian manufacturing.
Admittedly, there are geopolitical considerations at stake for India. But as the trade deficit with China widens over the last few years, it’s giving vent to populism, not some [...]
An Australian view of the attacks on Indian students
Over at The Lowy Interpreter, Rory Medcalf writes:
Even if most of the violence against Indian students has been opportunistic street crime, some of it no doubt has had a racial edge. And if any of the latest attacks on Indians in Australia are proven to involve motives [...]
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