While Pakistan could still try and develop a taste for grass by rejecting US assistance, there is no way it can economically sustain the fight against the Islamist insurgency without external assistance.

• Sushant Sareen
• October 08, 2009
• IDSA Comments

Indian insurgent groups are re-establishing camps in Bhutan and are also forging links with Bhutanese rebel groups.

• Balaji Chandramohan
• October 05, 2009
• IDSA Comments

Resource-rich Balochistan province has high rates of poverty, unemployment, illiteracy and infant and maternal mortality.

• Arvind Gupta
• October 05, 2009
• IDSA Comments

If Karzai were to become President again in the election seen as marked by fraud, his lack of legitimacy will only feed into the insurgent propaganda.

• Shanthie Mariet D'Souza
• September 29, 2009
• IDSA Comments

The aggressive posture that the Chinese have adopted along the otherwise relatively tranquil Line of Actual Control (LOAC) has come under a lot of analytical examination by Indian Sinologists. They have advanced a number of explanations for the Chinese actions, all of which have a ring of truth about them.

• P. K. Upadhyay
• September 23, 2009
• IDSA Comments

Pakistan’s ability to press home a multidimensional campaign against the radical forces, and contain domestic instability and economic downturn, is suspect.

• Harinder Singh
• September 23, 2009
• IDSA Comments

Pakistan has yet again shown its proclivity to raise tensions with India. This time, the Pakistan Army or its proxies have fired three rockets across the International Border (IB) near Wagha in Punjab. Although no injuries were reported, such attacks pose a major danger to the people living in areas adjacent to the border, and some 150 farmers of the area indeed protested. This is the second time that rockets have been fired from Pakistan in the recent past.

• Ramesh Phadke
• September 14, 2009
• IDSA Comments

The month of May 2009 was the most violent month in Pakistan in the last five years. As the security forces launched a concerted operation against the Taliban in Malakand Division, the casualties shot up almost five times. The month recorded 504 violent incidents against 332 in April, which resulted in the loss of 2,585 lives. Most of the casualties were due to Operation Rah-e-Rast launched by the security forces in Swat and adjacent districts.

• T. Khurshchev Singh , Alok Bansal
• September 02, 2009
• IDSA Comments

Though tensions between India and Nepal over a few disputed pockets along the border have persisted for more than three decades, the first half of 2009 witnessed an increase in the frequency of border disputes. An obvious fallout of the disputes was the drumming up of anti-India feelings in Nepal and tension in bilateral relations.

• Pushpita Das
• August 31, 2009
• IDSA Comments

Nepal Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal, who heads a twenty-two party coalition government, chose India for his first official foreign visit after assuming office two months back. This ‘goodwill’ visit was undertaken against the background of Nepal’s increasingly fragile peace process. The bilateral agenda was just a pretext. What brought him to New Delhi were several domestic factors. While this is not to say that there are no urgent bilateral issues between the two countries, the most crucial factor today is India’s support for Nepal’s coalition government.

• Smruti S. Pattanaik
• August 24, 2009
• IDSA Comments