Commentries
Is there a trade war in East Asia?

On the margins of the ongoing trade war between China and the United States, Japan and South Korea are also involved in a similar tiff. As in any economic conflict, one country tries to strong-arm the other, Japan has been using its leverage to asser....

US-Pakistan Relations after Imran Khan’s Visit

Media attention and domestic praise aside, Imran Khan’s visit to the US has not really changed Pakistan’s fundamental challenges; its coffers remain depleted and economy stagnant, the country still remains on the UN Financial Action Task Force (F....

Recurring Clashes on Tajik-Kyrgyz Border over Raising of National Flags

On 22 July 2019, the border authorities of Tajikistan informed that a skirmish took place on the border with Kyrgyzstan which resulted in killing of one local resident and several others wounded. According to the Tajik media, this violent conflict is....

No Change in Chinese President Xi Jinping’s Assertive Policies Despite Pressure

Since more than the past 18 months Chinese President Xi Jinping and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) have been under increasing pressure because of the US-China Tariff war. Washington has also been trying to create an adverse international environme....

Crisis in the Inflammable Gulf

We are witnessing a rapidly aggravating crisis that can result in the outbreak of hostilities with consequences, unintended, uncontrollable and possibly frightful for the region and the rest of the world. We have not seen any serious effort on the p....

US Sanctions, Hormuz Strait and Security in the Gulf

The seizure of Stena Impero by Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) on 19th July in the Hormuz Strait follows arrest of Grace 1 off Gibraltar by Royal Marines earlier. This represents an escalation. Incidents of attacks on tankers on 12th May an....

Chabahar Port - A Rethink is Needed

Russian, Chinese, American and Pakistani representatives met in Beijing on the 10th and 11th of July to discuss the situation in Afghanistan. This was the third such consultation between Russia, China and the US, and the first in which Pakistan parti....

Fortnightly Notes from the South Asian Sub-Continent

Bangladesh: No justice in extrajudicial killing
After a murder accused was killed in an encounter with the police earlier this month, Bangladesh’s apex court made clear that it did not approve of such ‘extrajudicial’ killings. The j....

New Breed of Kashmiri Terrorists

The current phase of militancy in Kashmir has a very strong ideological basis. It is completely different from what it was in the early 1990s. Islamist theology originating from Wahabism and Maududism provides the requisite ideological input to the c....

Pakistan Federal Budget 2019-20 - Unrealistic Ambitions

Pakistan’s Federal Budget was unveiled on June 11, 2019, under the looming shadow of International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) conditionalities seeking to curb the consistently misused fiscal space as well as the gloomy growth projection of 2.4 percent....

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