Play It Straight
A week after a British tabloid reported the alleged collusion of some Pakistani cricketers with a London-based bookie in spot-fixing, there's more proof in the public domain regarding betting, which should make cricket lovers worried. Yasir Hameed, a colleague of the three tainted Pakistani cricketers, reportedly said the players have been doing [...]
Ajai Shukla: The shadow of Xinjiang
The recent brouhaha over Beijing’s refusal to issue a regular stamped visa for an official visit to China by Lt Gen B S Jaswal, India’s top military commander in J&K, bore the familiar stamp of our public overreaction to Chinese provocation. But there was something remarkable this time. Alongside the “dragon is coming” rants on TV news, [...]
Tentacles of the ISI
WHO’S afraid of Pakistan’s ISI? Everyone, if you heed the nervous Western press. The ISI is the ultimate rogue super-organization serenely pursuing its sinister Islamist agenda regardless of common sense or tender international sensibilities. Sounds plausible in the spooky way all accusations against secret agencies seem sane. Someone must be [...]
China’s presence in POK
Rajinder Puri Credible media reports from America have revealed China’s latest thrust in the Gilgit-Baltistan region of Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (POK). China has tightened its grip on this region that was illegally ceded to it by Pakistan in 1963 in violation of UN Resolutions on Kashmir. China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has [...]
Throwing it all away
The allegations of ‘spot-fixing' in the fourth cricket Test between England and Pakistan — a decade after Hansie Cronje's confessions shattered the game's credibility — are both an eerie reminder of the dark days and an explicit threat to the sport's future. They show that the tumour of match-fixing, which erodes the fan's faith, hasn't been [...]
Without Afridi?
Even by Pakistan cricket’s stratospheric standards of unpredictability, there was something reckless in the disciplinary action announced on Wednesday. After the disastrous tour of Australia, something had to give. It did, and how. In essence, the Pakistan Cricket Board has deprived itself of its most talented players. While players could yet [...]
Mind the geography
As it affirms the commitment to stay the course in Afghanistan following the attack on unarmed Indian citizens in Kabul at the end of February, Delhi must adapt to the rapidly evolving circumstances in the north-western subcontinent. Neither bravado on standing up to terror nor the pique towards Pakistan, which is trying to hustle India out of [...]
LeT now a threat beyond India: U.S. Congress
In an unmistakable sign of rising concern in the United States over the expansive reach of the militant outfit Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), a Congressional hearing on Thursday emphasised the urgent need to “crush” the group. The hearing, titled “Bad Company: Lashkar e-Tayyiba and the Growing Ambition of Islamist Militancy in Pakistan”, [...]
An urgent India-Pakistan issue
The Supreme Court of India's decision asking the central government immediately to release and deport 16 Pakistani prisoners who have completed their sentence is a welcome step in civilising official conduct towards the hundreds of cross-border prisoners languishing in Indian jails. Hopefully, the Pakistani judiciary led by Chief Justice Iftikhar [...]
Ajai Shukla: Managing India’s image in Af-Pak
The February 26 gunning down of Indian workers in Kabul, followed by the stoppage of work by Indian doctors at the Indira Gandhi Institute of Child Health, is a tragic step towards what this column has long predicted: that, as the Taliban inexorably extend its influence, India will thin out in Afghanistan; and pull out entirely when a Taliban [...]