India Pakistan Talks

India and Pakistan are to have Foreign Minister and Foreign Secretary level talks starting May 20 in Islamabad. It is time to once again look at the chessboard and see what has changed.

On disowning Bhagat Singh and Other Vagaries

“Zia Ul Haq ordered to destroy all Hindi and Gurmukhi books of the library. The books were thrown in a nala (sewage channel) that ran by the library.”

No Choice But This

A Three Act Play ... what does a father do for a son paralysed neck down...

We are family

Whose Life is it Anyway?

The killing of another human being on the grounds that there is no quality of life is not accepted by the legal system and is repugnant to morality. But things are beginning to get complicated.

Killing Fields No More - One Week in Angkor, Cambodia

Siem Reap (pronounced “See-em Ree-ep”) in Northern Cambodia is roughly a 50-minute plane ride from Bangkok, but a journey into a different world, a small sleepy town near Angkor, a UNESCO world heritage city of literally 100s of temples.

Meaningful Giants in ‘Eurasian Balkan’

When the world is getting hoarse on the sight of ‘pressure cooker’, unfortunately no platform at the Eurasian Balkan level is being evolved for the dialogue among the Titans.

The Political-Economy of the South Asian Economic Union

While SAFTA doesn't seem to make immediate economic sense, a South Asian Economic Union (SAEU) may still make considerable political sense, provided its anchor country, India, displays the kind of 'self-less' leadership required to make it a reality.

SAARC Syndrome: Asia's Burden

This is Asia, completely corrupt and bogged down under its own weight. Adding a straw to break the camel’s back is SAARC,Adding a straw to break the camel’s back is SAARC. In the last two decades it has done nothing except to raise hopes and t

Dialogue, State and Utopia

The prospects for an improvement in relations between India and Pakistan are limited by the fact that ’dialogue’ is the most unmeaning word in the lexicon of South Asian politics.

Central Asian Backlash Against US Franchised Revolutions

After a meeting on 5 July in the Kazakh capital Astana, the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (China, Russia, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan with India, Iran and Pakistan as observers) in a statement called on USA to spell out a deadline for withd

Mistri, Munshi, and Sipahi

The tale takes an ominous turn in the middle of 17th century when British East India Company showed up at the doors of Mumbai (Bombay), Bangalore, and Shanghai. There they discovered the local resources that no other continent could match in numbers.

Mahadev Gobind Ranade (1842-1901)

...some historical figures, intellectual giants in their own right, who Pakistanis know nothing about, and certainly many Indians as well...

Dude, Where’s My Reference Point?

The edge to Harold is that he affirms to us the mainstream perception of the Asian Ivy League quota buster. It is almost as if the filmmakers are rubbing our noses in the very stereotype of the Asian takeover-a tyranny based on the work ethics America has

Aftermath

Home for the holidays, the last thing I expected was to be greeted by an earthquake that hit 9 on the Richter scale.

The Navel of Asia

Nowhere on earth’s surface is there a comparable cluster of mountains. In a chaos of contours at the heart, or perhaps the navel of Asia, six major mountain systems lie locked together.

India-Pakistan: Friends on Visa

When people from India and Pakistan meet, peace seems the most favoured option.

UC Berkley’s 19th South Asia Conference

The selective nature here becomes all the more important because out of all South Asian countries, it was certainly Pakistan that happened to be the “flavor of the week” in the American news media complete with several stories on nuclear prol

South and Central Asia are creators of Major Civilizations

Since 5 millennia civilisations evolved and flourished in desert oasis and river valleys south of the Eurasian steppes, which were dominated first by charioteers and then horse riders from the steppes who shaped the history of Asia, Middle East and Europe