COMMENTARIES
  • The Oil Payments: New Twist in India-Iran Relations
    Uddipan Mukherjee    ·   13 Jan, 2011    ·    #3316    ·    Commentary    
    A fresh spin was provided to the turbulent India-Iran bilateral relations when India’s Central Bank issued a directive on December 27 2010, regarding the payment mechanism for trade with Iran. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) announced that: ...
  • Japan’s New Policy Defense Program Guideline and Japan-India Security Cooperation
    Kei Koga    ·   13 Jan, 2011    ·    #3315    ·    Commentary    
    On 17 December 2010, the Japanese government produced a new National Defense Program Guideline (NDPG). Japan’s defense objectives consists of the defense of Japan, regional security and stability and world peace and human security, and its...
  • Reading Pakistan-II: Four Implications of Salman Taseer’s Assassination
    D Suba Chandran    ·   10 Jan, 2011    ·    #3314    ·    Commentary    
    A voice of reason against the abuse of blasphemy law in Pakistan has been brutally silenced. What are the implications? If his assassination is a loss to the moderate voices in Pakistan, who stands to gain? What does this loss and gain mean for ...
  • China’s Longjiang Dam: Concerns for Myanmar
    Panchali Saikia    ·   10 Jan, 2011    ·    #3313    ·    Commentary    
    As divergence continues over river-water sharing between China and lower riparian countries in the Mekong subregion, a new concern has emerged over the Longjiang dam on the China-Myanmar border. With a considerable increase in trade and Chinese in...
  • Reading Pakistan-I: Who Killed Salman Taseer?
    D Suba Chandran    ·   07 Jan, 2011    ·    #3312    ·    Commentary    
    Yes, of course the security guard pumped bullets into Salman Taseer, the Governor of Punjab, who stood against the Blasphemy laws in Pakistan. But, did he really kill Taseer? Or is he only an expression and an instrument of a larger narrow relig...
  • The P-5 Visits and India’s Nuclear Energy Programme
       ·   04 Jan, 2011    ·    #3311    ·    Commentary    
    The race to enter India’s nuclear power market is on. India has been gaining recognition as a responsible nuclear weapons power and, more significantly, expanding its nuclear commerce. Not all the deals that India wanted have fructified; b...
  • New START Ratification: Future Possibilities?
    Maj. Gen. (Retd.) Dipankar Banerjee    ·   04 Jan, 2011    ·    #3310    ·    Commentary    
    The US Senate approved the ratification of the New START Treaty at a lame duck session on 22 December 2010. The President signed it the following day. This successful ratification was the major foreign policy achievement of the Obama administrat...
  • Obama’s Annual Af-Pak Review: Need for a Reappraisal
    Maj. Gen. (Retd.) Dipankar Banerjee    ·   03 Jan, 2011    ·    #3309    ·    Commentary    
    President Barrack Obama released another review of the Af-Pak situation on 16 Dec 2010. Weeks in formulation and after careful deliberations by top officials, the summary still leaves too many questions unanswered. Unlike the Bruce Riedel report...
  • “Kashmiri Goods Ought to Reach Rawalpindi and Karachi”: Abdul Hameed Punjabi
    Nadir Ali    ·   30 Dec, 2010    ·    #3308    ·    Commentary    
    Nadir Ali: What is your assessment of intra-Kashmir trade over the last two years? What is the estimated worth of daily transactions? Abdul Hameed Punjabi: We have an unofficial graph according to which the estimated value of trade is around...
  • “Remittance is the Way Forward for Cross-LoC Trade”: Shakeel Qalander
    Nadir Ali    ·   30 Dec, 2010    ·    #3307    ·    Commentary    
    Nadir Ali: What is your assessment of the cross-LoC trade over the last two years? What are the problems and prospects associated with this trade? Shakeel Qalander: Cross-LOC trade was initiated as a Confidence Building Measure (CBM) in 2008, w...
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