When Nepal’s current Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) Prime Minister Baburam Bhattarai assumed office in November 2011 to head a coalition government with the Madhesi Front as partner, many in Nepal were cautiously optimistic about him bringing an end to the disillusionment brought by four failed governments in four years- owing to delay in the […]
Here are the most recent updates from four of the eight SAARC nations. For news from the rest of the countries, please visit their respective national pages. … MALDIVES – A top US diplomat arrived in the Maldives on February 11 to help resolve a deepening political crisis sparked by the ousting of the Indian […]
Part 3 – The Innate Stalemate Also Read – Part 1: Many Barrels of a Gun Part 2: Mood on the Ground Amid a general socio-political churning brought about by rising expectations of people in many South Asian nations, the 17th SAARC Summit in Maldives in November culminated with the ‘Addu Declaration’ (named after Addu […]
Part 2 – Mood on the Ground Also Read: Part 1: Many Barrels of a Gun “There’s this contagion of protest,” Richard Stengel, managing editor of TIME, told NBC television as he discussed the naming of “The protester” as Time magazine’s person of the year, 2011. “These are folks who are changing history already and […]
Part 1 – Many Barrels of a Gun South Asia is often described as the most dangerous place on earth and the most promising emerging market – both in the same breath. The year 2011 illustrated in ample measure the implausible irony. The biggest international story of the year, according to The Associated Press’ annual […]
The eyes of the nation were glued on the Narayanganj City Corporation elections these past few days. Many wondered why this particular mayoral election of a newly formed city corporation near the capital was of such great significance. The reason for this election’s socio-political significance was it would give everyone an opportunity to see if […]
Osama bin Laden: killed and al Qaeda: on the run. That’s the balance sheet — more or less — that the U.S. has to share with the world. Meanwhile, its biggest ally in the War on Terror — Pakistan — has nothing to present except that its own people have been terrorized by militants, with […]
As things stood on the evening of July 26, 20011, Prime Minister Jhala Nath Khanal’s five-month-old government could collapse by the weekend, thereby giving serious headache to India, which has serious stake in the peace process and drafting of a new constitution. The present Communist Party of Nepal – Unified Marxists Leninists (CPN-UML)- is Nepal’s […]
Former Sri Lankan President (from November 12, 1994 to November 19, 2005) Chandrika Kumaratunga recently charged her successor and present Sri Lankan President, Mahinda Rajapaksa, of adopting “authoritarian” policies and warned the latter against clubbing Tamil civilians with the now vanquished LTTE/Tamil Tigers. She accused the government of projecting Sinhala Buddhist as the dominant force […]
During the 4th meeting of SAARC Home/Interior Ministers recently in Thimpu, Bhutan, India has proposed regular direct contact among police chiefs of SAARC nations to fight terrorism and other trans-national crime, and formation of a regional organization on the lines of Interpol, called SAARCPOL. Underlying that fighting terror and other trans-national crimes in a unified […]
More than 52.6 million* domestic workers across the world, including South Asians employed in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) region, are set to get more protection through a landmark treaty. Adopted on June 16, 2011 by the International Labour Organisation (ILO), the ILO Convention on Decent Work for Domestic Workers would ensure domestic workers enjoyed […]
From the days of the massacre of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics to the boycotts of 1980 Moscow and 1984 Los Angeles Olympics by the ‘NATO aligned’ and the ‘Warsaw Pact nations’ respectively, whenever sport has got affected, it has more or less indicated of a conflict larger than that confined to the […]
One of the key resolutions of 16th SAARC Summit held in Thimpu, Bhutan, in April 2010 was about the establishment of a South Asia Forum (SAF) consisting of diverse stakeholders from all member-countries, to generate ideas to further links. Pioneered by India, which emphasized the need to develop a ‘Vision Statement’, the member states of […]
Nepal, erstwhile Monarchy and once the only ‘officially Hindu nation’ of the world, may have seen much greater challenges in its journey, but May 28, 2011 would still go down as an important date in the fledgling democracy’s patchy calendar. Forestalling a major Constitutional crisis, Nepal’s key parties recently struck a last-minute deal to extend the […]
Chapter 3: Indian Riddle and the SAARC Ripple Nothing sums up the Indian context to the UN Report (“Advisory Panel of Experts on Accountability in Sri Lanka Allegations”) on Sri Lankan war than the two widely-held beliefs that lie at the opposite ends of the spectrum viz., India helped the rise of LTTE and India […]