IDSA Comments

The July 7 multiple attacks in London that crippled the public transport system followed the terrorist attack in Ayodhya on July 5 and while the number of those killed is much lower than the March 2004 Madrid attacks or the mass tragedy of 9/11 that traumatized the USA, what is evident is that the global foot-print of terrorism maintains its malignant and diabolical credibility. Western Europe is within reach.

• C Uday Bhaskar |
• July 11, 2005 |
• IDSA Comments

With its repeated admissions of an ongoing nuclear weapons development programme utilising highly enriched uranium, and with an alarmingly advanced missile launching capability, North Korea is at the fulcrum of a crisis that while raising the spectre of nuclear proliferation on the Korean peninsula also impacts the very foundations of security in northeast Asia. Despite this brinkmanship, a North Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman assured on May 8, 2005, "our will to denuclearise the Korean peninsula and seek a negotiated solution to it still remains unchanged."

• Raviprasad Narayanan |
• June 29, 2005 |
• IDSA Comments

The results of the second round of elections in Iran's ninth Presidential elections, announced June 24, are not unexpected given that the first round held on June 17 revealed that the victorious President-elect Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had a much greater appeal for the average Iranian voter than his opponent, the former Iranian President and pragmatic cleric Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani.

• C Uday Bhaskar |
• June 28, 2005 |
• IDSA Comments

The gratitude expressed by the JKLF Chairman Yasin Malik in his recent visit to Islamabad has caused a major flutter on both sides of the Indo-Pak border. On Monday (June 13) Mr. Malik acknowledged the role played by Pakistan's current Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed at the height of the terrorism scourge in Kashmir and this was at a public function attended by many Pakistani luminaries.

• C Uday Bhaskar |
• June 20, 2005 |
• IDSA Comments

As anticipated, the NPT (Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty) Review Conference held at the UN in New York (May 2-27) ended acrimoniously with no final agreed document among the 188 state parties who are signatories to the treaty that came into force in 1970. This dissonance is in marked contrast to the Rev Cons of 1995 and 2000 when there was significant consensus about the commitments that the nuclear weapon states and the non-nuclear fraternity were willing to undertake in the furtherance of nuclear proliferation.

• C Uday Bhaskar |
• June 14, 2005 |
• IDSA Comments

Recent wars have proved that observation from space is an integral part of modern day conflict. Space is considered the fourth dimension of warfare. In all these wars, American space forces had an asymmetric advantage over their enemy — particularly in the arena of space reconnaissance and navigation. Now it appears that the Bush administration wants to enhance this asymmetry by putting offensive and defensive weapons into outer space.

• Ajey Lele |
• June 06, 2005 |
• IDSA Comments

As the Karakoram Highway reopened on May 2, 2005, for traffic between China and Pakistan, the area surrounding it continues to be tense. The Northern Areas (NA) of Pakistan Occupied Kashmir continues to be in turmoil since the assassination of Shia leader Aga Ziauddin by gunmen in Gilgit in January this year. In a case that was clearly indicative of rising sectarian intolerance, fifteen people were killed by the rampaging mobs before some modicum of governance was restored. A large number of government buildings were set on fire and a number of officials and their families were attacked.

• Alok Bansal |
• June 02, 2005 |
• IDSA Comments

Japan’s relations with India are at crossroads, even as we recently completed 53 years of the establishment of diplomatic ties. The visit of Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi recently as part of his four-nation tour which took him to South Asia and Europe proved to be an apt opportunity for both countries to carve strategies to solidify ties for the future. The significance of Koizumi’s visit cannot be understated considering the fact that this is the first visit by a Japanese head of state after a hiatus of nearly half a decade.

• Arpita Mathur |
• June 02, 2005 |
• IDSA Comments

Exactly fifty years back in 1955 leaders from 29 countries spanning Asia and Africa met in the town of Bandung on West Java in Indonesia from April 18 to 25 to deliberate on a new strategy they should adopt vis-à-vis the rest of the world to make their voice heard and to make their presence felt at a time when the world was in grips of the most intensive ideological warfare between those who ardently advocated communism and those opposed it as fervently led respectively by the former Soviet Union and the United States.

• |
• May 30, 2005 |
• IDSA Comments

The agenda of the NPT Rev Con, currently underway in New York, has now been finalized. Moreover, the Chairman of the Rev Con, Ambassador Sergio Duarte of Brazil has also been able to finalize upon the three Main Committees (MC) and the three Subsidiary Bodies (SB). These three subsidiary bodies will look into three important issues: practical steps towards disarmament (SB1), regional issues including the issue of Middle East (SB2) and the issue of withdrawal from the NPT (SB3).

• Manish |
• May 24, 2005 |
• IDSA Comments

Ms Shirin Tahir-Kheli, the special adviser to the US government on UN reforms, will be in Delhi this week, beginning Monday, and clearly of the 101 proposals in six different areas made by the High Level Panel, the one that will attract the most attention will be the question of the Security Council expansion – and India's status in the matter along with that of Japan, Germany and Brazil -- the so-called G 4.

• C Uday Bhaskar |
• May 24, 2005 |
• IDSA Comments

Every war is waged to fashion a better and more acceptable peace. Peace, in the sense of a legitimate framework within which States can pursue their interests without recourse to arms. The fashioning of a better and legitimate peace is especially important in the wake of wars among Great Powers, which have an immense impact on the international system as a whole. In fact, some wars among Great Powers – like the Thirty Years’ War, the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars and the two World Wars – are expressly waged to determine a new framework for the conduct of international relations.

• S. Kalyanaraman |
• May 16, 2005 |
• IDSA Comments

The immediate challenge ahead for the state parties to the NPT in the ongoing Review Conference, May 2-27, 2005 in New York, is how to salvage the tarnished image of the treaty. The efficacy of the treaty is under scrutiny primarily on three issues— disarmament, nonproliferation, and universality of compliance. The unraveling facts of over the last two years, related to various kinds of breaches of the NPT commitments by Libya, Iran and North Korea, add to further suspicion over the credibility of the treaty.

• Rajesh Kumar Mishra |
• May 13, 2005 |
• IDSA Comments

Several events in Fiji have once again opened the festering wounds of racism and revived the apprehensions of Indo-Fijians about their future in this island State. The first was when the former Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka stated that Indo-Fijians should emulate Sonia Gandhi and not stake a claim for the office of the Prime Minister, even if they get a majority in the Parliament after the next elections. Adding, that even though Sonia wore Indian clothes and spoke the language, she still felt that India should be led by an indigenous person.

• Alok Bansal |
• May 10, 2005 |
• IDSA Comments

The visit of the Japanese PM Mr. Junichiro Koizumi to Delhi on April 29 is the last in a series of high levels visits that have the potential to fundamentally re- alter India's bi-lateral relations with the major poles of relevance in the post Cold War/post 9-11 global systemic and the challenge will be in realizing the potential that has been agreed to at the highest political level. These visits began with that of Ms. Condi Rice, the US Secretary of State in mid March and this was followed by the Chinese PM Mr. Wen Jiabao in early April.

• C Uday Bhaskar |
• May 02, 2005 |
• IDSA Comments

The move by the European Union (EU) to lift the 15-year old arms embargo on China seems at present to have been set aside till the end of 2005. An informal meeting of the EU Foreign Ministers on April 15 at Gymnich, Luxembourg under the present Luxembourg presidency concluded to take no decision regarding the embargo. The press release issued after the meeting is a carefully drafted document. Essentially the press statement seems to please everyone.

• Alok Rashmi Mukhopadhyay |
• May 02, 2005 |
• IDSA Comments

It's a strange coincidence that Air India approved the purchase of up to 50 long-range Boeing aircraft at a cost of about Rs 300 billion and at the same time its rival Airbus successfully completed the maiden test flight of the biggest airliner, the Airbus double-decker A380, an aircraft designed to carry 800 passengers.

The A380 ended the four-decade reign of Boeing’s 747 jumbo as the biggest airliner to have flown. It has taken more than a decade and approximately USD$15.55 billion to develop the A380, subsidised by European governments.

• Ajey Lele |
• April 29, 2005 |
• IDSA Comments

The visit of UN secretary- general Kofi Annan to Delhi has generated predictable interest in the nature of the relationship that India currently has with this apex global body and the status that it seeks. This is so, even as the UN is attempting a review of its structural framework based on the inputs provided by a high-level panel that has since submitted its report.

• C Uday Bhaskar |
• April 26, 2005 |
• IDSA Comments

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao's visit to India would be noted for three landmark steps: The establishment of a strategic and cooperative partnership, the agreement on the political parameters and guidelines for settling the territorial/boundary issue, and the decision on a comprehensive economic partnership and regional trading arrangement.

• Sujit Dutta |
• April 26, 2005 |
• IDSA Comments

Globalisation and regionalisation of trade and investment are drawing in all countries and becoming an irresistible trend in Asia. China is at the centre of this new structure. Since 1992 in particular, as investments in labour-intensive manufacturing from Taiwan, Hong Kong, the US, Japan, Europe and Southeast Asia have moved in a rising wave though the open Chinese door, steeply raising its trade profile.

• Sujit Dutta |
• April 25, 2005 |
• IDSA Comments