Int’l Affairs

Global Peace and Security World Leaders Betray the Canons of Truth, Wisdom and Humanity Dr Mahboob A. Khawaja Today’s Political World at a Glance Global politics is overwhelmingly becoming robotic when question of safeguard of the mankind comes up. Global political leaders are fast becoming actors on stage – issuing abstract statements of outrage and expressing phony sense of grief …

China’s Belt and Road of Science BRI is also about building knowledge, not just things Aftab Abbasi The ancient silk routes were not for trade only, they boosted flow of knowledge as well … Through these routes, Buddhism, Islam and Arab astronomy, calendar and medicine found their way to China, while China’s four great inventions and silkworm breeding spread to …

OIC’s Makkah Summit Objectives, Achievements and Challenges By Mairaj ul Hamid Nasri Inaugural meeting of the 14th Summit of Millat-e-Islamia’s sole representative “Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC)” was held on May 31st in the holy city of Makkah. The summit ended up with the signing of an MOU among the heads of states/governments of Muslim-majority countries. OIC, the second largest …

US Containment of China America has High Expectations for India. Can New Delhi Deliver? Paul Staniland  India is a big deal in Washington these days. A wave of think tank reports, books and op-eds identify India as a key component of US grand strategy. Former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and the US National Security Strategy heralded an important Indian …

Russia-China Bonhomie at St. Petersburg International Economic Forum The 23rd St. Petersburg International Economic Forum was held on June 6-8, 2019 with the motto ‘Creating a Sustainable Development Agenda’. This year’s forum was the largest in terms of a number and composition of participants. According to the SPIEF organizing committee, the event was attended by over 19,000 participants from 145 …

Neo-liberalism The lesson we never learned The triumphant march of neo-liberalism that has dominated the world over the last 40 years is rapidly fading after the costly defeat in the 2016 elections. It leaves behind a history of several major economic disasters, a dubious legacy of globalism, the erosion of the middle class, the widening gap between the rich and …

Looming Economic War Nothing is agreed until everything is agreed!  The tariff war with China unleashed more than a year back by the Trump administration in the United States threatens to turn into full-fledged economic war. The US claims that China is engaging in unfair trade practices and adopting coercive measures against US firms, undermining US economic interests. China not …

Indian Election 2019 The Rise of the Rightist Dr Muhammad Kaleem The contemporary is witnessing the meteoric rise of populism, nationalism and religious intolerance. This phenomenon has engulfed the whole world in general, and in the West in particular with the rise of Donald Trump and British exit from the European Union, i.e. Brexit. In India, Modi government, which first …

How compatible are democracy and capitalism? Economic stress and demographic change are weakening a symbiotic relationship Of late, the world’s older democracies have begun to look more vulnerable than venerable. America seems destined for a constitutional showdown between the executive and the legislature. Brexit has mired Britain in a constitutional morass of its own. Such troubles could be mistaken for …

   European Elections Young people chose Europe! The European Parliament elections are over, with the liberal wing sighing with relief, while the right wingers can smugly point to the increase to 25% of representation in the world’s second largest democratically-elected parliament. The good news is that the elections gained something of a new momentum. Since its first-ever direct elections in …