Foreign Policies

[By Shashi Tharoor] NEW DELHI – After gaining independence from Britain in 1947, India was something of a poster child for the virtues of democracy – in stark contrast with China, which became a Communist dictatorship in 1949. Until the 1970s, it was widely argued that, while both countries suffered from extreme poverty, underdevelopment, and disease, India’s model was superior, ...

[By Shashi Tharoor] BEIJING – Sailing down the Moscow River on a cool evening earlier this month, I found myself in intense conversation with the chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Chinese National People’s Congress (NPC). Meanwhile, South African and Brazilian parliamentarians were swaying to Russian music and a guide pointed out the sights. The first parliamentary forum ...

[Lynette Molyneaux,The Conversation] “India needs Australian coal” is a view promoted by government and industry alike, most recently in the Institute for Public Affairs’ latest report. The report argues that opening up Australia’s Galilee Basin for the export of coal to India will provide 82 million Indians with electricity to transform their lives. This echoes sentiments previously expressed by the ...

[By Brahma Chellaney] NEW DELHI – China and India have a fraught relationship, characterized by festering disputes, deep mistrust, and a shared ambivalence about political cooperation. Booming bilateral trade, far from helping to turn the page on old rifts, has been accompanied by increasing border incidents, military tensions, and geopolitical rivalry, as well as disagreements on riparian and maritime issues. ...

|By Narendra Kaushik| New Delhi: Walking through the long winding corridor of ziggurat-like red-brick Tribhuvan International Airport in Kathmandu makes you feel like you have come to a school or a bus stop built unpretentiously. The sole international airport of Nepal having an international and a domestic terminus is quite non-descript and apparently a bad advertisement for the country. The ...

|By Narendra Kaushik| The distance between New Delhi and the Gaza Strip is over 4110 kms. During blockade, the kind imposed by Israel till last week (no flights in operation), it may take you over three days to get in or out of the place. Yet the Nashik-size inferno in Palestine which was in the grip of a fierce battle ...

|By Narendra Kaushik| New Delhi: With its obsessive focus on meetings between Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif, the media in New Delhi missed the wood for the trees. It dissected every nuance of the 40-minute long dialogue between the two nuclear neighbours and in the process ignored the real intent of Modi’s ‘out-of-the-box’ thinking ...

By Wali Aslam |  The Conversation The Indian election has been afforded much publicity in the Western media. A record 814 million eligible voters have been expressing their choices in a poll taking place in nine phases. Voting began on April 7 and is due to end on May 12 with results expected on May 16. It is highly likely that ...

By Jivanta Schottli India’s general elections, to be held from 7th April to 12th of May 2014, rest upon some critical features that will have a bearing on the country’s foreign policy. Foreign policy per se is not usually a theme in Indian elections and neither of the two main national parties has unveiled it in any election manifesto yet. Therefore the implications ...