2016

“Few individuals significantly alter the course of history. Fewer still modify the map of the world. Hardly anyone can be credited with creating a nation-state. Mohammad Ali Jinnah did all three.”  — Prof. Stanely Wolpert All nations pay rich homage to their heroes to mark their outstanding services but for us, the services of the undisputed leader of the South …

Background Marshall Islands is a small state covering an area of 70 square miles and having population of less than sixty thousand people. It is located in the Pacific Ocean and was occupied by the United States in the Second World War. After the establishment of the United Nations, the Security Council, through its Resolution 21 of 1947, placed it …

A new World Bank report suggests that South Asia is the world’s fastest growing economic region  2016 and is expected to hold this spot at least through to 2017. With growth in the offing, a young population of 1.6 billion people, and a burgeoning consuming class, every global producer is eager to trade with South Asia now, and subsequently, the …

On July 15, 2016, a group of Turkish military officers, and soldiers under their command, staged a coup to oust President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and take over the country. Their principal focus was on Ankara and Istanbul; taking control of Istanbul’s bridges, airports, the Turkish parliament, and some police stations. The coup was either ill-planned, badly executed or it was …

In his ‘war on corruption,’ Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi took a strange decision on November 8 when he announced that the government would get rid of the 500- and 1,000-rupee notes, which together make up about 80 percent of currency in circulation, and replace them with new 500-, 1,000- and 2,000- rupee notes. The decision seems to be poorly …

The Oxfam report “An Economy for the 1%,” which was released in January this year, showed that the richest 1% of the world have more wealth than the rest of the world combined. Power and privilege is being used to skew the economic system to increase the gap between the richest and the rest. Although world leaders have increasingly talked …

On October 21, South African government shocked the world with the announcement that it is pulling out of the International Criminal Court because the institution was exclusively prosecuting Africans and ignoring Western injustices done to the people of Africa. South African Justice Minister Michael Masutha said that the ICC was “inhibiting South Africa’s ability to honour its obligations relating to …

Amidst the growing populations and fewer resources to feed them, the increasing conflict in the world has given rise to the phenomenon of migration that has become the most contentious political issue of our times. Advanced economies, like Europe and the United States, are coming under mounting pressure of the influx of the refugees from war-torn regions of South Asia, …

In the recent past, there has been much debate on the concern of nuclear weapons going into the hands of terrorists. After the recent terrorist attacks on European cities, the issue is again in vogue and concerns are being expressed that the recent attacks in almost all parts of the world — from Belgium to France, from Germany to Turkey …

On November 8, 2016, Donald Trump managed to pull the biggest upset in US politics by tapping successfully into the anger of white voters and appealing to the lowest inclinations of people in a manner that would have probably impressed Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels himself. Some years ago, public intellectual Noam Chomsky warned that the political climate in the US …