Writing is the best way to talk without being interrupted.-JULES RENARD
Writing is the best way to talk without being interrupted.-JULES RENARD
Read MoreAuthor: India Writes Network
A Defining Moment for France and Europe
The future of the French Republic and that of Europe in its present form as the European Union (EU) were at stake in the recent French presidential election. Emmanuel Macron and his movement (not a party as yet) have won. With a voter turnout of 75 per cent, Macron gained about 66.6 per cent of the vote in the second round of this election and his rival, Marine Le Pen, got the remainder.
But figures do not tell us the acute anxiety the French people felt at the time of the election. They felt that it was the future of their republic which was at stake. They voted in fair majority for Macron because they thought he stood for the values on which the republic was founded. Some, about 36 per cent, voted for Marine Le Pen because they thought that she stood for the French Nation whose security was threatened by Muslim immigrants settled in France and their ally, the Islamic jihadists.
Indian soldiers’ killing by Pakistani troops sparks call for revenge
The audacious killing of two Indian security men and mutilation of their bodies by Pakistani troops along the de facto border between the two countries in India’s Jammu and Kashmir state has sparked outrage and challenged New Delhi to walk its tough talk against cross-border terror.
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In Kashmir shadow, India & Turkey join hands against terror, step up trade
India and Turkey, the two G20 economies, have raised the bar for their economic partnership and agreed to intensify their counter-terror cooperation despite differences over issues like the Kashmir dispute.
As Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan wrapped up his two-day visit to India on May 1, there was a clear-cut resolve to build on convergences, especially in the economic arena, and find ways to bridge differences through sustained dialogue.
Mr Erdogan held talks with Prime Minister Narendra Modi under the shadow of discords in the political relationship between the two countries when the Indian media splashed remarks by the Turkish leader in an interview to a TV channel in which he favoured a multilateral dialogue on the Kashmir issue that went against New Delhi’s consistent stand that the issue can only be resolved bilaterally with Islamabad. In response, India conveyed to Turkey that it is ready to resolve all bilateral issues with Pakistan, including Kashmir, said India’s Ministryof External Affairs spokesman Gopal Bagley when asked to comment on Mr Erdogan’s suggestion of a multilateral dialogue. The spokesperson added that India conveyed its position on Kashmir and stressed that it is essentially a terrorism issue.
US NSA’s visit to South Asia: Implications for India
The recent visit of the newly appointed US National Security Adviser, General McMaster, to South Asia was the first high-level visit by a senior figure in the Trump administration to the region. The Trump administration’s regional priorities has been reflected in the pattern of high-level visits in recent weeks: Vice President Pence has visited South Korea, Japan, Indonesia and Australia; US Defence Secretary, having visited Japan and South Korea, is currently visiting Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Israel, Egypt and Djibouti whilst Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson, having visited Japan, South Korea and China, went on to visit Western Europe and Russia.
Following the meeting between him and the Army Chief, the Pakistan military’s press release, in an apparent reference to his Kabul interview, stated, “Pakistan itself a victim of state sponsored terrorism, strongly rejects allegations of employing proxies from its soil. US NSA acknowledged Pakistan Army’s efforts in eliminating terrorism and infrastructure, assuring US support to bring peace and stability in the region and globally.” The Pakistan Army’s officially released video clip of the meeting shows a tense atmosphere at this meeting.
The shifting geopolitics in Southwest Asia could be behind the terse public messaging on the part of the Pakistan military. It could also be their calculation that an increased number of US troops in Afghanistan would imply greater US dependence on the supply routes via Pakistan; the tense relations with Russia might also mean increased difficulty in using the alternate northern supply route. The use of the largest non-nuclear bomb in the adjacent Nangarhar province against the ‘Wilayet-e-Khorasan’ terrorists was a signal not just to Russia but also to Pakistan because of their hostility to the latter. The Congressional requests for funding for Pakistan by the present administration have not shown any reduction from the previous years although the president has the authority to withhold funding if Pakistan does not cooperate in cracking down on terrorists inimical to US operations in Afghanistan.
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India-Cyprus connect: Business bonding and anti-terror solidarity
India’s diplomatic profile in the Mediterranean Sea region became a few notches higher when visiting Cyprus President Nicos Anastasiades sought New Delhi’s support for the reunification of Cyprus, a part …
Read MoreSome Thoughts on the World of Tomorrow -By Hamid Ansari
I am happy to be in this enchanting city and grateful to the Rector and the faculty of the Yerevan State University for inviting me today.
I have come to a land some distance from India but not far from the individual and collective memory of Indians. I myself was born in Calcutta (now Kolkata), and spent many years in the city. Amongst its historic features are Armenian churches and other signs of its Armenian inhabitants. Father Michael Chamich’s History of Armenia was translated and published in Calcutta in 1827. More recently, historians like Mesrovb Jacob Seth and George Bournoutian have recorded the Armenian contribution in India to trade and commerce as to various cultural and charitable activities.
Less known but nevertheless a part of spiritual history of my land is the personality of Armenian descent known in medieval chronicles as Sarmad, a mystic of who travelled from somewhere in this region to India, led an unconventional life and was executed for blasphemy in 1660 because he espoused a creed that distinguished between states of ‘negation and affirmation’. One of the leaders of our freedom movement and a close aide of Mahatma Gandhi, Abul Kalam Azad, was deeply influenced by Sarmad’s free thinking and humanitarianism.
It is thus evident that well before modern times; the flow of people, trade and ideas was not an unusual occurrence. My purpose today, however, is to talk about the future, not the past.
The older generation in this audience knows and the younger ones have been told that the 20th century was a period of organized insanity characterized by metamyths and megadeaths. These led an eminent historian to conclude that ‘our world risks both explosion and implosion;’ hence ‘it must change’.
The expectation that the changes in the last decade of the century would bring forth a more harmonious world in which international cooperation in solving international problems would be addressed by peaceful means in conformity with the principles of justice and international law did not materialize. On the contrary, older patterns of thought and practice persisted and, aided by newer technologies, resulted in explosions as well as implosions in different parts of our world. The promise of globalization also showed its limitations; the financial crisis of 2008 demonstrated, in the words of one analyst, a ‘systemic vulnerability to unregulated greed.’ Both, in the final analysis, exhibited failures of governance at national and global levels.
Read MoreIndia’s military strike power gets a missile boost
India’s military strike capability of hitting land targets from the sea has received another dose of much-needed firepower with the successful test-firing of the supersonic land-attack cruise missile from a stealth frigate in the Bay of Bengal. The land-attack variant of the BrahMos missile, a joint product of India-Russia collaborative effort, was tested in March this year with an extended range of 450-km from the earlier 290-km. And on April 21 this year, it was fired from an Indian Navy frigate INS Teg, giving it the power to precisely hit targets from the sea deep into the enemy land,
“The land-attack variant of BrahMos provides Indian warships the capability to precisely neutralize selected targets deep inland, far away from the coast, from stand-off ranges at sea,” said an Indian Navy Officer. The land version of the missile has been built keeping in mind the steep mountains and gorges which characterize the topography of the Himalayas dividing India and China and India and Pakistan.
H-1B visa: Trump trouble for Indian IT industry
Looking to fulfil one of his major election promises, US President Donald Trump has signed an executive order to revamp a temporary visa programme that allows foreign workers, mostly Indian IT professionals, to find jobs in the US, a move that is set to hit the Indian IT sector.
Riding on his rallying cry of “Buy America, Hire America,” Mr Trump visited a manufacturing firm in Kenosha, Wisconsin, a state he snatched from Democrat rival Hillary Clinton in the presidential election last year, before putting his signature on the order that would seek to address alleged abuses in the H-1B visas which are used largely by the tech industry. H-1B visas allow 65,000 workers and another 20,000 graduate student workers each year.
The Associated Chambers of Commerce cautions the Indian IT industry to brace for taking a hit by Mr Trump’s signing the executive order pointing out that nearly 86 per cent of H-1B visas issued for workers in computer space go to Indians. This number is expected to dip to 60 per cent or even less, an ASSOCHAM study says.
US NSA targets Pakistan, focus on scaling up counter-terror cooperation with India
US National Security Adviser H. R. McMaster is known for his plain-speak. And he did precisely that by sending out a tough message to Pakistan for its sponsorship of cross-border terror, ahead of his visit to New Delhi during which he focused on expanding counter-terror and defence cooperation with India.
In New Delhi, Lieutenant General McMaster held a series of meetings with the top leadership, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, National Security Advisor Ajit Doval, and Foreign Secretary Subrahmanyam Jaishankar. “NSA McMaster emphasized the importance of the U.S.-India strategic relationship and reaffirmed India’s designation as a Major Defense Partner,” said a statement from the US embassy. “The two sides discussed a range of bilateral and regional issues, including their shared interest in increasing defense and counterterrorism cooperation.”
In Kabul, just before he reached Islamabad, McMaster had some blunt talk for Pakistan. “As all of us have hoped for many, many years, we have hoped that Pakistani leaders will understand that it is in their interest to go after (militant) groups less selectively than they have in the past and the best way to pursue their interest in Afghanistan and elsewhere is through diplomacy and not through the use of proxies that engage in violence,” Mr McMaster told an Afghan news channel in Kabul.
What is equally significant is that he nudged Pakistan to abandon the path of selectively targeting terrorists, a blunt message which found resonance in New Delhi. The US Embassy in Pakistan said as much in a statement that Mr McMaster “stressed the need to confront terrorism in all its forms.”