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Underdogs End Empires: A Memoir by I.P. Khosla

Ambassador I.P. Khosla, the author of the book Underdogs End Empires: A Memoir, started his career in the Indian Foreign Service in 1960 and retired in 1996. Holding important positions, he witnessed at first hand the historic events that unfolded during this period and in the book under review he narrates all these experiences. The canvas of the book is large in terms of the geography as well as the time period it covers.

To Stop Iran Getting the Bomb, Must We Learn to Live with Its Nuclear Capability?

The latest report of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on Iran's alleged nuclear weapons programme, released on November 8, 2011, has effectively raised the global threat level. The agency faced the daunting challenge of making a judgement on how far Iran's nuclear programme has advanced and its potential for weaponisation on the basis of suggestive but dated, inconclusive and possibly fake evidence (hundreds of pages of evidence have been sourced to one laptop of unproven provenance given to the IAEA by a Western intelligence agency).

Emergent Micro-National Communities: The Logic of Kuki-Chin Armed Struggle in Manipur

The granting of scheduled tribe status to the Kuki-Chin people eroded their allegiance to clan and linguistic/dialectal identities. While they do not have any problem with a pan-ethnic identity, their primary loyalty is to their own clans and communities. Invocation of kinship ties by different groups does not necessarily translate into a common political agenda. There are at least 15 armed groups among them that have combined into two larger groups—the United People's Front (UPF) and the Kuki National Organisation (KNO)—and signed a peace agreement with the state and central governments.

Political Integration of Northeast India: A Historical Analysis

Most nation-states in Asia and Africa that gained independence from colonial rulers during the middle of the 20th century are diverse in their ethnic composition. The national governments make efforts to politically integrate their constituent units in the face of the continuing resistance of several ethnic groups. India adopted various means to integrate the more than 600 princely states and other loosely administered areas.

Somali Piracy: A Form of Economic Terrorism

Piracy over the years has been driven by geography, political instability and the availability of safe havens. Apart from these established factors, economics too play a role. This article reviews and examines Somali piracy, which has flourished due to the international community ignoring the growing instability in Somalia, the rampant illegal fishing and toxic waste dumping. It examines the international response, the legal and economic factors and advocates that piracy be viewed as a form of economic terrorism and be combatted as such, as well as by land-based operations.

Chinese Engagement with the Maldives: Impact on Security Environment in the Indian Ocean Region

This article explores the objectives of China's engagement in the Maldives and how the current administration of the country is responding to it. The article also looks at how the Maldives has been used by major powers in the past. On the basis of these analyses, it envisages the path that Maldivian foreign policy is likely to follow in the future and its likely impact on the security environment in the Indian Ocean region.

The Role of the National Solar Mission in Climate Change Mitigation and the Twin Objective of Energy Security

This article outlines the National Solar Mission's role as India's major climate change mitigation policy, arguing that India's National Solar Mission (NSM) was initially conceived to bolster India's position against legally binding commitments on carbon emissions. However, the NSM also has twin objectives in energy security. Progress in the NSM is outlined before its problems are examined in order to clarify how the Indian government may direct its development to fulfil energy security and energy access goals.

Can Unconventional Gas Be a Game-Changer for India?

The discovery of extracting unconventional (shale) gas through hydraulic fracturing has revolutionised the gas industry in the US and has given rise to a debate over whether it has the potential to reverse the emerging geopolitical equations in the global energy sector which was hitherto seen to be tilting in favour of the conventional energy producers.

Vision for a Secular Pakistan?

This article will bring to light the transformation of the Pakistani state from a relatively tolerant to an unstable state dominated by militancy and violence. In the formative phase of Pakistan, the notion of religious extremism was almost non-existent as the founder of the country, Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah, made it clear that the new state would not be theocratic in nature.

Pakistan’s Pashtun Challenge: Moving from Confrontation to Integration

The Pashtun populations of Afghanistan and Pakistan have long been a source of bilateral contention, with each government inciting Pashtun tribals against the other. Now that the majority of Pashtuns live in Pakistan, Islamabad is using its Pashtun connections to project influence into Afghanistan. As a result, both Afghanistan and Pakistan are threatened by runaway Pashtun militancy. Peace and stability in both countries will be impossible until political reforms have been implemented in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) of Pakistan.