India’s ascent up the great-power ladder is one of the signal developments of the 21st century. But as two new reports make plain, the country is making the climb with its hands restrained.
India’s ascent up the great-power ladder is one of the signal developments of the 21st century. But as two new reports make plain, the country is making the climb with its hands restrained.
The Finance Ministry has released the projected budget for the 2010-2011 fiscal year. The budget has been revealed as two counter-vailing currents are flowing in somewhat cross-cutting directions. In the first cut, the budget has been released in the aftermath of encouraging IMF reports on Bangladesh’s macroeconomic health and stability. Remittance inflows have increased. The […]
There’ll be an election for mayor in Chittagong on June 17th and already the BNP has announced ultimatums should any so-called vote rigging occur. This is a two candidate race now that the major candidates who might have otherwise split the right and left tickets have pulled out of the electoral contest. Instead of placing the […]
The proposed budget for fiscal year 2010-2011 has been delivered to parliament. One of the brightest lights of the budget is the proposed 13.5% increase in allocated education expenditure. The Finance Minister has argued that the increase is the largest of any other sector in the budget. The lion’s share of the allocated funds is […]
On June 7th Prime Minister Manmohan Singh addressed the convocation ceremony at the Sher-e-Kashmir University in Srinagar. The thrust of visits by India’s various Prime Ministers to Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) primarily revolve around issues of terrorism, peace talks with separatists, development packages and omissions and commissions of Pakistan. P.M. Manmohan Singh’s recent visit addressed these […]
The Obama administration proffered a two-part message at last week’s U.S.-India Strategic Dialogue meeting in Washington. The first part is that, after more than a year of treading water in bilateral affairs, the administration is re-focusing its attention on New Delhi. This signal, which was repeated loudly by U.S. officials starting with President Obama, received […]
As the recession hit; the jobless rates soared to 10% and more, banks at the brink of failing, stock exchange plummeted, and economy was left paralyzed. All this happened in United States, which sparked a global recession, bringing down Europe and Asia along with it. This global recession was worst on developing nations, as they […]
The latest row between the battling Begums and their parties is over budget proposals and procedures. On Monday, during a press conference Begum Khaleda Zia offered proposals for an alternative budget. However Begum Zia only announced these proposals outside the parliamentary session. This even though the ruling Awami League had offered and welcomed BNP proposals […]
At present, there is a debate in India about the action to be taken against the Naxalities/Maoists who have increased their operations against the Indian government and civilians over the last few months. In the month of May, Naxalite attacks killed around 175 people including 29 security personnel. Prior to that in April, they carried […]
This is an update to an earlier blog post concerning the Burmese Junta’s nuclear ambitions and the aid it might be receiving from North Korea. Last year, the Japan Times ran an article on this topic, now Al-Jazeera has aired an investigative report. In the strategic footsteps of North Korea, Myanmar’s leaders are also building […]
After 25 years and an alleged human toll of 25,000, an Indian court today convicted seven former Union Carbide (UC) officials of negligence for their role in the Bhopal gas tragedy. The former employees, all of them Indian, were sentenced to two years in prison and fined more than $2,200 each. The verdict has enraged […]
Using data from population surveys from 1982 to 2005, an international group of researchers estimated that in Bangladesh, losing a mother implies that a child has about a 25% chance of reaching 10 years of age. The numbers speak for themselves. Those who did not lose their mothers had an 89% chance of reaching the […]
Jamaat-e-Islami has hitched up with the BNP again and has endorsed the much bandied program of strikes and protests against the sitting government. Jamaat has agreed to join the June 9th sit-in and has promised full-throated support of the planned late June “peoples” strike. Though the ostensible reason that a Jamaat spokesperson offered was “to […]
The government of Bangladesh has decided to unblock Facebook access. Even though the government has been more militantly aggressive with its stance on critical media projects and outlets, this outcome was inevitable. Facebook has no interest in witnessing more Muslim majority countries like Bangladesh and Pakistan block access to tens of millions of users–really, […]
The Daily Star reports that a little more than half the funds allocated for the annual budget has been spent in the nine months of the current fiscal year. The reason? The government had lower subsidy and interest payments this fiscal year than was projected. The Daily Star fails to report the reason why this […]
