Int’l Affairs

Bihar, the Indian state where Buddha attained enlightenment, where the civilization’s greatest empires sprang from, and which saw the world’s first residential university, delivered a sharp blow to the ruling BJP. The election loss in the heartland state came after a period of intense debate over tolerance and India’s national identity. The fear and intimidation that has permeated India is …

The question that has been arising since the outbreak of the current flare-up in the Occupied Palestinian Territories is still looking for an answer. With the brutal Israeli response to Palestinian demonstrations in occupied Jerusalem and elsewhere in the area, people keep asking: Is it the third intifada (uprising), will it be a long sustainable one? The bloody events brought …

From Palestine to Syria, from Iraq to Nigeria and from Afghanistan to Kashmir, the whole Muslim world is ablaze. Conflicts, external interventions, foreign occupations and all such factors are adding fuel to this already burning fire. This grave state of affairs warrants a serious introspection and amelioration of policies so as to transform the Muslim lands into peaceful territories. And, …

Once again, the United States has delayed the withdrawal of its troops from Afghanistan — prolonging the United States’ longest war. Despite an earlier promise to remove US troops from the war-torn country, President Barack Obama announced on October 15 that he will keep military combat troops there at least through the end of his administration in 2016. And in …

People, who believe that the European Union is a monolithic entity that conducts business that benefits individual European nations, have made a huge mistake. Today, the EU is a crumbling bureaucratic intergovernmental organization with several centres of power serving their own interests. All of these are seeking to convert the EU into a super state, controlling Western Eurasia, exploiting its …

“The sovereign is he who decides on the exception,” said Carl Schmitt, Nazi Germany’s chief jurist, in 1922, meaning that a nation’s leader can defy the law to serve the greater good. Though Schmitt’s unwavering support for Hitler damaged his reputation for decades, today his ideas have achieved unimagined influence. Indeed, Schmitt has influenced American politics directly through his intellectual …

Despite Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s unrelenting overtures for peace between India and Pakistan, the two nuclear-armed neighbours remain inextricably tied together in a straight jacket with each mostly looking in the opposite direction while crying hoarse at each other. They just cannot unbuckle themselves in this traditionally “knotty” love affair, and are today the only two countries in the world …

President Obama recently came closest to securing the biggest legacy any US president can ever hope for. The United States, Japan and other ten countries, on 5th October 2015, concluded negotiations on the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) — the biggest regional free trade deal in history. If approved, it will set new terms for nearly $28 trillion in trade and investment …

South Asia is a region locked up in several conflicts and disputes that have resulted in wars between India and Pakistan; the two nuclear neighbours and archrivals. The region is the most volatile and unpredictable security complex. There are several states in it and all of them have different patterns of relations. India, being the most populated country and an …

Recently, the United States welcomed the first state visit of a new Chinese leader at a time when the presidential election campaign in the country has started, and the US-China relationship is at an important inflection point. Nearly four decades after the normalization of relations between the two superpowers, new realities in China, the United States and the international community …