The challenges facing Indian diplomacy do not change from one calendar year to the next. The opportunities and problems of 2011 will spill over into 2012 as they are not defined by calendar years. The end of the year provides, nonetheless, an occasio
Western criticism of the results of the December 4 parliamentary elections in Russia is not surprising. The West’s fued with Russia’s democracy goes back to Putin’s ascendancy to power in 2000. It is Russia’s veering away under him from globa
It is more practical to limit the review of India’s security mainly to the classic concept of a nations’s security, not its extended definition given today that includes energy, food, water etc. With the end of the Cold War and the lowering of t
For China, which joined the global space league in a modest way with a launch of a lightweight satellite in 1970, the year 2011 is all set to stand out as both “eventful and exciting”. Indeed, for this Asian communist giant, which has set its eye
Public readings of the temperature of the India-US relationship keep fluctuating depending on assessments of the moment. Doubts are being raised again whether the relationship has reached a plateau and enthusiasm has waned on both sides. Lack of deli
The West is describing the current situation in Afghanistan as one of transition. This assumes that the situation is moving from one state of things to another in a planned and controlled manner. It is clear that US and NATO want to reduce their mili
India, on Pakistan’s insistence, was excluded from the International Conference on Afghanistan in Istanbul in January 2010. For the “Process on Regional Security and Cooperation for a Secure and Stable Afghanistan”, the second such conference
How stealthy China’s gigantic river projects will create strategic conflicts in a region suffering from growing water scarcity Brahma Chellaney’s new book examines the water scenario in Asia in the context of the increasing use and decr
US exasperation with Pakistan is mounting, with sharper warnings to it to curb the Haqqani group. The need to repeat such warnings in public also suggests a degree of helplessness in compelling Pakistan to do America’s bidding. Pakistan’s tenacio
India made history when she liberated and recognized the Republic of Bangladesh despite fierce international opposition from some of the cold-war superpowers. India took that strategic step because that was the right thing to do and suited India’s