India-China Relations: Complex and Out-of-Step

Canberra, 8 August 2017 On 15 May 2015, India and China came out with a joint statement acknowledging the simultaneous re-emergence of both the nations as major regional powers. This event was termed as heralding the beginning of the Asian Century in international geo-politics. The bilateral relationship between India and China influences and has repercussions […]

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India: Seeking Its Place in the Sun

Canberra, 4 January 2017 India initiated an economic evolution in the 1990s, which gathered sufficient momentum to become a revolution that propelled India into the thick of international power play. The geo-politics and circumstances of international power balance are ever-changing and have their own ways of creating ups and downs that in turn revamp the […]

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Afghanistan – A Long Way from Anywhere

Canberra, 20 September 2016 Afghanistan has been teetering at the edge of a precipice ever since the US-led invasion of the country in 2001. The situation has become further precarious, if such a thing is possible at all, after the current President Ashraf Ghani took over the reins of government two years back. The embattled […]

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Pakistan: Painting Itself into a Corner

  Canberra, 11 July 2016 Pakistan is a land of contrasts. The disparity between the haves and the have-nots in all aspects of normal life stands out as a prime example. However, the most starkly visible contrast is the two very different conceptual understanding within the nation of the role of religion in the State. […]

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AFGHANISTAN: FRAGILE AND FORGOTTEN

Canberra, 8 September 2015 Deliberate and repeated insurgent attacks, endemic corruption within the governing polity, a shrinking ‘formal’ economy, the end of a development boom as a more than decade long international war draws to a close that in turn has created unemployment levels of 35 to 40 per cent and a deteriorating security situation […]

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SAUDI ARABIA: CHARTING A COMPLEX COURSE

Canberra, 11 July 2015 From the very beginning of their rule of the Saudi kingdom, the al-Saud family has embraced the principles and practices of the Wahabi ideology, an extreme and strict version of Islam. The support for the extreme variety of Wahabi teachings increased in 1979 after Ayatollah Khomeini came to power in neighbouring […]

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PAKISTAN: STUCK IN A CUL-DE-SAC

Canberra, 22 June 2014 Pakistan, a state created in the name of Islam, is today divided along linguistic, ethnic, tribal and sectarian lines. It also claims to be the ‘heart of Asia’, making any observer want to ask, ‘a wounded, bleeding heart?’ While it is beset with domestic issues that directly threaten the well-being of […]

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BANGLADESH: BEING SWALLOWED BY INACTION

Canberra, 4 June 2015 Ever since it’s tumultuous birth in 1971, Bangladesh has been caught in an identity trap. The nation’s linguistic, secularist and, most importantly, its religious identity have often been in conflict with each other, preventing the nation and the people from forging a clearly defined identity of its own. In fact the […]

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YEMEN: WHO IS FIGHTING WHOM, AND WHY?

Canberra, 29 April 2015 All the nations of the Middle-East are now at war—against one another or against undefinable entities who are pursuing their own warped agenda—ruthlessly attempting to shore up lost prestige, struggling to retain power and influence, and to regain long lost command over the region. The rationale put forward is the necessity […]

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THE KING IS DEAD-LONG LIVE THE KING – SAUDI ARABIA: A LEGACY OF FOREIGN POLICY BLUNDERS

Canberra, 11 February 2015 Much is being written about the ‘peaceful’ transition of power and the rapid administrative overhaul that has been undertaken by King Salman in the fortnight or so that he has been in power in Saudi Arabia. The Saudi newspapers are trumpeting the changes as heralding a new era within the kingdom. […]

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