1.0 Background The Communist Party of Nepal (Maoists) started 'People's War' in Nepal in 1996 with the twin objective of abolishing monarchy and establishing a communist republic. During this conflict, the nation bleeded and suffered heavy ....
VIF organized a round table discussion focusing on Afghanistan on 11th October 2013. Participants in the discussion included Mr. Ajit Doval, KC, Director VIF, Gen. (retd) N. C. Vij, Lt. Gen. (retd) Ravi Sawhney, Amb G. Parthasarathy, Amb S....
Afghanistan was the main focus of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit held in September this year at the Kyrgyz capital of Bishkek. Though there was some distraction caused by the Syrian crisis with all the members supporting non-inter....
Lt. Gen Ravi Sawhney, Distinguished Fellow and Sushant Sareen, Senior Fellow, VIF, were invited by the Afghan Institute of Strategic Studies to attend the prestigious Second Herat Security Dialogue on 5-6, October, 2013. Around 80 foreign delegates f....
Mentioning toned down expectations from his meeting with his Pakistani counterpart at New York, Shri Manmohan Singh gave an advance signal that nothing substantial would emerge from it.Until almost the last moment, we let uncertainty hang over the de....
The run-up to the summit between the Indian and Pakistani Prime Ministers had seen a serious debate on the wisdom or otherwise of such high-level contact. The way events have unfolded, it is clear that the sceptics had it right. But this is too serio....
On 22nd September, 2013, two suicide bombers targeted a church in Peshawar, killing over 80 people and injuring nearly 150. Entire families were wiped out. Many Christian households, who in any case barely eke out an existence in a country....
After weeks of delays and dithering, hemming and hawing, and some political bargaining, point scoring and grand-standing, the newly elected PMLN government in Pakistan finally managed to hold the much touted All Parties Conference to evolve a consens....
On 23rd August 2013, VIF invited the High Commissioner of Bangladesh to India, H.E Mr. Tariq A. Karim for an interaction on the present state and future prospects of India-Bangladesh relations. Ambassador Karim began his talk by first brie....
Whether the Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, should meet his Pakistani counterpart, Nawaz Sharif, in New York in September has become a politically controversial issue. The government is being cautious in not ruling in or out such a meeting at this....