Int’l Affairs

Iran has positioned itself as an important regional actor in Central Asia and is committed to playing a role in neighbouring Afghanistan. As US troops draw down their numbers in Afghanistan, Washington should consider how improved US-Iranian relations could further long-term US policy goals in Afghanistan and in the region.

Seldom, if ever, has a rookie political party’s success in assembly become such a talking point and a cause for nationwide euphoria… But that’s exactly what activist Arvind Kejriwal’s Aam Aadmi Party’s stunning show felt across India’s impressive showing — winning 28 out of 70 seats in the Delhi polls — seems to have done.” Times of India.

During my last visit to the US, I found from a ‘trash yard sale’ a book entitled “America’s Stake in Asia” written in 1968 by Drew Middleton, a renowned foreign correspondent, first for Associated Press, and later for The New York Times who covered the World War II from D-Day to V-Day and several subsequent developments in Africa and Asia …

China’s party leadership just announced the country’s reform agenda that will guide government policymaking and implementation for the next decade. Like previous such plenum documents, the announcements outline only broad priorities. If Beijing is serious in implementing the third plenum document’s central message on the decisive role of markets, then this may well prove to be a pivotal moment in …

Over the last two decades, numerous analysts have hailed India as the next global power. This resulted partly from the marked acceleration in India’s economic growth rate following reform process initiated in 1991. India’s GDP grew at 6% per year for most of the 1990s, 5.5% from 1998 to 2002, and soared to nearly 9% from 2003 to 2007, before …

The success of Daesh — erstwhile ISIS or ISIL — against the Iraqi military and the success of the Taliban in Afghanistan apparently look two different cases; however, they have something in common which glaringly shows the ultimate failure of the twenty-first century grand strategy of the US. As a part of its strategy, the US aimed at first destroying …

Ever since the demise of the Communist threat in 1991, the leading scholars have been proliferating their visions as to how the world politics would reshape. Amongst all, Samuel P. Huntington’s ‘Clash of Civilizations’ theory has been ruling the academic debate for past two decades. According to Huntington’s hallucination, the conflicts of post Cold War era would occur along the …

A little more than a year after it was broached, a new multilateral bank in Asia — the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) — was born in Beijing on Oct 24, 2014, signalling in the process the failure of hectic lobbying by the United States against the move. The AIIB, along with the other new China-based institution, the BRICS Bank, …

Kashmir, indubitably, is the most beautiful and the serenest place on the planet. It is often referred to as the ‘Switzerland of the East, and “Paradise on Earth.” One would not imagine that such beauty could be beset by years of conflict, war and oppression. And yet, the people of Kashmir have endured such troubles since 1947, when India and …

Chinese President Xi Jinping’s three-day visit to India — from 17-19 September — generated a lot of interest, even anxiety. Indian Premier Narendra Modi rolled out the red carpet for the visiting president. The two sides signed as many as 12 agreements committing $ 20 billion Chinese investment in India over the next five years. China is to help India …