COMMENTARIES
  • Socialist Vietnam Demands Market Economy Status
    Vibhanshu Shekhar    ·   13 Oct, 2009    ·    #2984    ·    Commentary    
    Amidst the euphoria over the ASEAN-India FTA, Vietnam’s refusal to sign the FTA was received with a great deal of surprise, especially among the advocates of the Look East Policy. Why would Vietnam, India’s strategic partner and one ...
  • The ‘Pause’ in India-Pakistan Dialogue
    Ali Ahmed    ·   13 Oct, 2009    ·    #2983    ·    Commentary    
    India-Pakistan relations are once again in a trough, perhaps this is fallout of the terror unleashed by the jihadis on 26/11. While cutting off of the dialogue can be seen as fallout of their action, persisting with the ‘pause’ has m...
  • Disarmament in South Asia
    Firdaus Ahmed    ·   13 Oct, 2009    ·    #2982    ·    Commentary    
    President Obama chaired the UN Security Council meeting that resulted in Resolution 1887 calling on states to abide by obligations under NPT. This presumably includes those under Article VI regarding ‘negotiations in good faith on effectiv...
  • Aerial Support for Countering Naxals
    Radhakrishna Rao    ·   12 Oct, 2009    ·    #2981    ·    Commentary    
    India’s Home Minister P Chidambaram has made it plain that security forces would engage Naxalite groups till they abjure violence and surrender arms. Without divulging details of the proposed plan to involve the Indian Air Force (IAF) in t...
  • Pakistan’s Divide and Rule Policy in Gilgit-Baltistan
    Senge H. Sering    ·   09 Oct, 2009    ·    #2980    ·    Commentary    
    With an aim to annex the Gilgit-Baltistan region of Jammu & Kashmir, the Prime Minister of Pakistan recently announced the Empowerment and self-governance Presidential Ordinance 2009, which was rejected by the natives as it fails to grant th...
  • 16th ASEAN Regional Forum: Has It Gone Beyond Rhetoric?
       ·   08 Oct, 2009    ·    #2979    ·    Commentary    
    Twenty-seven countries across the Pacific Ocean gathered in Phuket, Thailand towards the end of July on the sideline of ASEAN Summit and the subsequent East Asia Summit. The week long event concluded with the annual ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) me...
  • The McChrystal Report and India
    Uddipan Mukherjee    ·   06 Oct, 2009    ·    #2978    ·    Commentary    
    Is the inexorable march of the NATO-led coalition forces through the cobweb of insurgency in Afghanistan, coming to a grinding halt? That this appears to be inescapable for the US-spearheaded International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) is a p...
  • China’s Space Programme
    Radhakrishna Rao    ·   06 Oct, 2009    ·    #2977    ·    Commentary    
    Even as India’s maiden lunar probe Chandrayaan-1 launched in October last created a space history by providing the strongest evidence ever for the presence of water on the moon, China put in place a high resolution, three dimensional atlas...
  • Pokharan II: The Incestuous Debate
    PR Chari    ·   01 Oct, 2009    ·    #2976    ·    Commentary    
    Santhanam’s disclosure that the thermonuclear (hydrogen bomb) test in 1998 failed to reach expectations was known earlier. Initial doubts emerged among weapons designers abroad whether Indian nuclear scientists could have contained the yie...
  • Engaging Iran: “Bigger Carrots and Bigger Sticks”
    Tara Sarin    ·   25 Sep, 2009    ·    #2975    ·    Commentary    
    After almost a decade long struggle to engage Iran, the international community seems prepared to offer an ‘extended hand’ to Iran by finally launching a direct diplomatic dialogue combined with employing a new strategy of ‘big...
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