The meeting between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and President Obama on the sidelines of the Nuclear Security Summit last week, seems to have produced positive results for India. The US ambassador to India, Tim Roemer will be travelling to Afghanistan to view first-hand the “critical” work being done there by India. He told the Times News Network, “India’s […]
30,000 Red Shirt Protesters Thailand: Over the last week the situation in Thailand has deteriorated, with as many as 24 people dead and over 800 injured since the new round of Red Shirt protests begin over 2 weeks ago. A protest that started off with a festive atmosphere slowly descended into violence, with grenade attacks, […]
Black helicopters, U.N. conspiracies and shadowy cabals of all-powerful financiers – this is the stuff that fixates in the feverish imagination of a certain segment of the American populace. In one of those wonders of globalization (and ideological indoctrination), those same shadowy cabals do double duty as the object of much Chinese paranoia. This is […]
100 mile per hour winds hit parts of the Indian states of Bihar, Assam and West Bengal and claimed at least 130 lives. Bangladesh wasn’t spared. The raging cyclone hit Rangpur and killed at least five people and injured over 200 people. Meanwhile, over 100,000 houses have been demolished by the storm throughout the effected […]
The government of Bangladesh will not register the Rohingya who are currently living in squalor outside the bandustani refugee camps in Cox Bazaar. There are already some 28,000 registered refugees in the two camps that comprise the state sanctioned shelter that has been provided the Rohingya. That space–whatever its hue–has been set aside for […]
First, please understand that it does not matter if you are pathan or belong to Hazara. It is not a linguistic issue – it has become an ethnic issue. So, not everyone living in Hazara speak Hindko and there is a respectable chunk of population that converses in Pushto, but, these Pushto speaking people too […]
It has been known for a while that people in Hazara are not going to accept the proposed name Pukhtoonkhwa and they made it clear, repeatedly, that the people of Hazara don’t consider themselves to be Pukhtoons, and residents of Hazara are interested in protecting their language, their culture, and their heritage and any attempt […]
The Nuclear Security Summit has opened on a positive note. Ukraine has volunteered to get rid of its stockpile of highly enriched uranium. The bold and applaudable decision by Ukraine is sure to help global non-proliferation efforts and bring optimism into the Summit. However, it is sad that Pakistan was given the opportunity to be the lead speaker and demand a nuclear deal from the […]
The High Court declared in a ruling on Thursday that “if any person tries to compel a woman to wear a veil against her consent … that would amount to a violation of her fundamental rights as enshrined in the Constitution,” The Times published a Reuters piece that reports: “The verdict came in response to […]
On April 6, in the Mukrana forests of Chhattisgarh’s Dantewada district in India, 72 members of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) and one member of the District police force were killed in a gruesome attack by the Naxalites. In addition to the number of causalities, the planning and precision of the Naxal operation stunned the […]
The BDR Special Tribunal convicted 29 BDR members for mutineering and committing reprehensible acts that really just begin at murder. The Times has published a Reuters piece that runs through a good chunk of the relevant facts and the pertinent history behind the mutiny. The verdicts were expected, and I might even think less severe […]
The Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) has just released its annual Bluebook, which is available in Japanese here. (Unfortunately, if past years are any indication, it will be months before a proper English language translation comes out.) [Clarification: what I’m discussing here is the executive summary of the Bluebook, not the 200+ page report. […]
General V.K. Singh assumed charge as India’s new Army Chief last week. Though appointment of Army Chiefs in India does not attract as much media, the trend is gradually changing. The Indian Army continues to remain apolitical but has gained greater visibility in the public domain recently. Comments by military men and issues of corruption […]
The rating agency Standard & Poor’s gave Bangladesh its first BB sovereign credit rating. More specifically the S&P assigned Bangladesh its first BB- for long term international credit and a B for short term credit. This means that S&P thinks the outlook for long term international credit to Bangladesh is fairly stable, second in South […]
