Look, Too Many Hands
When economists turn administrators, or hope to become one, they start to think with their hands both of them. Their response to problems is nearly always on the lines of: "on the one hand... and then on the other..." The majority of experts in our Planning Commission are economists, making it the largest employer of the Indian Economic [...]
India-UAE: an enduring relationship
If a photograph could capture the rapport between two leaders, the one appearing on the front pages of many newspapers on Friday morning certainly succeeded. It showed His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the United Arab Emirates in animated conversation with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of [...]
Dangers of hubris
First, the mishandling of the Sharm-el Sheikh joint statement issued by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Pakistan Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani. Second, the knee-jerk response to Telangana Rashtra Samiti leader K Chandrasekhar Rao’s feigned fast. Now, making a mess of a long-pending Bill for reservation for women in Parliament. With three [...]
Siddharth Varadarajan: To hesitate now will be fatal for Congress
The disruption of parliamentary proceedings on Monday over the issue of women's reservation is an indictment of not just the misogynous legislators concerned but of the ruling Congress party as well, whose lack of political judgment, if not half-hearted commitment to the cause of women's empowerment, stood exposed. In politics, there is a time [...]
Pakistan Army: the struggle within
“India,” Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari famously said in an October 2008 interview, “has never been a threat to Pakistan.” In his first major interview, given just a month after taking office, he described jihadists in Jammu and Kashmir as “terrorists.” He imagined “Pakistani cement factories being constructed to provide for [...]
Don’t lose the Game
The February 26 killing of Indians in another terrorist attack in Kabul stresses the mounting dangers for India in Afghanistan. Our vulnerabilities will increase as the West prepares to exit and strike a deal with the very forces responsible for this attack — the Taliban. The United States-Nato strategy is to strengthen their ground position [...]
Dilip Hiro: Compete And Cooperate
While there is a broad consensus about the relative decline of the US as a superpower, political commentators have debated about emerging political rivalries. A study of recent events, however, shows that instead of a straightforward bipolar or multipolar relationship, simultaneous cooperation and competition will be the likely template of [...]
Caveat on a promising visit
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's three-day visit to Saudi Arabia, though long overdue, ended on a high note. Dr. Singh and King Abdullah bin Abdul-Aziz covered substantial ground and managed to pin down specific areas for further collaboration. Determined to go beyond their traditional buyer-seller energy relationship, the two leaders opened up a [...]
False hope from the kingdom
Imagine if diplomats could sort out all the problems of the world by winks over a glass of wine (or sherbet, in case you’re in West Asia). All the tedium associated with “talks about talks”, “interlocutors”, “third-party intermediation” and other tiresome routines would disappear. But that’s not how the world works. Even in the [...]
Karel De Gucht: Bowled over by trade
In my first official visit to India as European trade commissioner, I intend to talk to commerce minister Anand Sharma about two of India’s main concerns: cricket and trade. As a Fleming, I was struck to learn that recent research has linked the development of cricket to Flemish weavers who settled in England from the 14th century . Today, [...]