As I wrote a couple of weeks ago, India is a critical part of the equation in solving the climate crisis, but is extremely sensitive to suggestions that it needs to quantify emission reduction targets. The Environment Minister, Jairam Ramesh, has been keeping to a very hard line. “Treehugger” reports here that India Says Yes […]
A meeting between Pakistani Prime Minister Gilani and Indian counterpart Manmohan Singh at the Non-Aligned Summit (NAM) resumed cooperative talks since they had stalled after the Mumbai atrocities. The summit marked a breakthrough in Indian-Pakistani relations when both sides decided to bracket issues of terrorism from future peace talks, by signing an agreement that identifies […]
The secretary of state finally gets a platter of her own at ITC Maurya’s Bukhara restaurant in New Delhi. The Hillary Platter–urgh malai kabab, seekh kabab, paneer tikka, tandoori aloo, sikandari raan, dal bukhara, tandoori jinga, mixed raita, naan, rasmalai and kulfi–joins the Presidential Platter and the Chelsea Platter. At the town hall meeting at […]
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is off to India to talk of many things, not the least of which is climate change. In a session at the Council on Foreign Relations earlier in the week, she said “We know that India and China have understandable questions about what role they should be expected to play […]
Is Aung San Suu Kyi’s star power waning after nearly two decades of political and social isolation under house arrest? What affect is this having on the countries democracy movement? These questions are explored in a recent New York Times article. There is no way to tell how representative this person is, but… “I […]
Notwithstanding the paralysis of the World Trade Organization’s Doha Round and the current global economic recession, bilateral and regional trade deals have continued to progress in Southeast Asia. Over the last decade, ASEAN has negotiated free trade agreements (FTA) at breakneck speeds, signing deals with Japan, Australia, and New Zealand. It is also in the […]
Newly elected and unburdened by clamoring communists and coalition politics, the Congress government will make bold economic reforms. At least that’s what the markets and analysts figured. All last week, the markets in India climbed up the hill in anticipation. Then on Monday came the budget speech. And the markets came tumbling after. The reactions […]
Memo to Obama Administration: Now would be a good time to re-hyphenate your India policy, less India-Pakistan more India-China. Rising Sino-Indian tensions are causing people, including this blogger, to wonder whether Obama has a plan to deal with a pivotal security challenge of the 21st Century: the management of Chinese ambitions and Indian anxieties. It […]
A lot. India has come under increased fire by international human rights groups for its lack of action during Sri Lanka’s war against the Tamil Tiger rebels (LTTE). Some have even called India complicit in the killing of 20,000 Tamil civilians in Sri Lankan due to its provision of arms to the Sri Lankan government, […]
This past weekend brought news of a mega business deal in India. Tech Mahindra was the highest bidder (at $1.2 billion) for Satyam Computer Services, a large and fraud-ridden information technology/outsourcing company that had been taken over by the Indian government after a series of scandals. Tech Mahindra is set now to become India’s 4th […]