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The Tamil National Alliance, heading an elected Government in Sri Lanka's Northern Province, have shocked well-wishers in India, particularly in Tamil Nadu and Puducherry, with its tough stand on the fishers' issue between Colombo and Chennai.

The private sector, through its technical expertise, sector-specific knowledge and ability to design unique, cutting-edge innovations, can devise effective long-term solutions to two of the major challenges government is faced with — lack of technological solutions and large-scale monitoring

The Modi government appears to have abandoned the multi-pronged policy of its predecessor of simultaneously engaging Islamabad and dealing with cross-border terrorism. This government made a surprise beginning with the idea of promoting South Asian unity . But since then it has been fixated on countering terrorism at the cost of everything else, though Pakistani covert activity in India has seen a sharp decline since 2008.

Irrespective of how the 'Afghan Endgame' unravels in the coming months, it is safe to argue that stabilizing the war torn country will take decades, and much international help.

Given the massive breach of faith by Facebook, it's unclear how long it will take to re-establish trust in their motives even if companies pledge to improve their data security systems and guidelines.

With the Delhi Durbar at its dysfunctional worst, power is flowing away from Delhi to State capitals, where some strong men and women are ruling. India's external partners tend to see this with much greater clarity than the domestic observers of Delhi's current listlessness.

In the context of private data protection versus the State, the committee’s recommendations are fairly status quoist.

Call it a game of good-cop-and-bad-cop being played out by President Musharaff and Prime Minister Jamali, yet Pakistan¿s willingness to ¿keep aside¿ the UN resolution on plebiscite in Kashmir should come as a welcome turn, if not relief, for India, and all those hoping for permanent peace in South Asia.

The 2021 Conference of Parties 26 (COP26) propelled nations to ramp up their climate targets and the concomitant Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions. However, the updated NDCs and the announced pledges for 2030 remain insufficient and poorly aligned with the targets of the Paris Agreement. The reduction in projected 2030 emissions is estimated to be 7.5 percent—far lower than the 30 percent requi

Minister for Consumer Affairs Ram Vilas Paswan has chosen three unorthodox areas to show his department’s proactivity.

Pakistan has shown inadequate political will to act against the Mumbai conspirators and has found tactical refuge in legal niceties to take minimum action

Whether or not a military intervention in Male would have restored democracy without harming India’s credibility in the region is uncertain. That it would not have limited Beijing’s growing profile is unquestionable.

Unless mainland China somehow manages a swift recovery, historians of globalisation will view this moment as a watershed

Talking about how minority tokenism is hurting the real cause, Saeed Naqvi says a non Muslim with a secular image in the Ministry of Minority Affairs would be able to chart out an agenda for minorities which is free of the odour of tokenism, which would really enthuse the community, not bluff it.

India, which hosts Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe as chief guest at the Republic Day celebrations later this month, must come to terms, like the rest of the region, with Tokyo's determination to shape the Asian security order. After he returned to power a year ago, Abe has set about transforming Japan's military strategy.

The turbulent history of the civil aviation sector and the threat of a bumpy future given its current situation are not good for the economy or the image of India as a rising economic power through private entrepreneurship.

The attempt being made to show that the Project-75I submarine project does not suit the Indian Navy is misinformation aimed at influencing the defence decision-making process

A detailed report by the US Senate Intelligence Committee recently has told us once again that torture doesn?t work. India should aspire to become a civilised democracy by putting an immediate legislative ban on torture. It will give our security organisations incentive to develop the interrogation and forensic skills, which are far more efficacious in countering terrorism.

Narendra Modi's view of foreign affairs is likely to be shaped by the outlook of his contacts in the world of commerce. This is not a bad thing, because, the key to any "tough" or decisive policy rests on the state of the Indian economy. But toughness as policy is fraught with all manner of danger, like Nehru's "tough" policy with China in 1962.

Hit by violent ethnic clashes, the Otunbayeva government faces a tough challenge to bring Kyrgyzstan out of the present crisis. One of the main challenges would be to conduct an impartial probe into the violence and punish the guilty to regain the confidence of the minorities.

India’s trajectory towards becoming a powerhouse economy is only possible by reconciling between the irreconcilable trinity of equity, efficiency an

India can lead the way when it comes to balancing wildlife conservation and sustainable crop production

As nations in the Indo-Pacific region grapple with shared health challenges, health diplomacy can serve as a pivotal force in advancing public health

In an effort to facilitate the digitisation of the country’s healthcare systems, India released a National Digital Health Blueprint in January 2020, which provides a detailed framework for a “Federated National Health Information System.” This brief makes a case for expanding the scope of the blueprint to include digital therapeutics, digital diagnostics, and telemedicine. It proposes a “National Digital Health Blueprint 2.0,” with dive

While India’s malnutrition rates have dropped dramatically, the country is still home to the largest number of stunted and wasted children in the world. Owing to the cultural and geographical variance across states, combatting malnutrition requires a granular approach. POSHAN Abhiyaan, the government’s national nutrition mission launched in 2017, aims to provide a convergence mechanism for the country’s response to malnutrition. This specia

A number of important treaties of immense strategic significance have been signed during Prime Minister Vajpayee's first ever visit to Tajikistan on November 14. The agreements signed were related to setting up a Joint Working Group on Counter-Terrorism, a bilateral extradition treaty and military ties.

When the stimulus package was announced in May 2020, many raised questions on the immediate viability of the measures in the current economic scenario.

Grasslands that provide a variety of ecosystem services for humans—including carbon storage, which is important to mitigating climate change—are among the world’s most threatened habitats. In India, grassy ecosystems are not accorded any legal protection. Vast acres of these grasslands are converted for revenue-generating use, altering their ecological dynamics and threatening the livelihoods and cultures of pastoral and agrarian communitie

The management of fish stocks along the Bengal coast has traditionally relied on the formula of dictating where, when, and how much to catch of one particular kind of fish to mitigate the risk of stock depletion. This paper argues that this conventional approach is inadequate in dealing with the multitude of threats, both local and global, posed by anthropogenic interventions in the natural systems and processes. It builds a case for an Ecosystem

Text of the keynote address delivered by Prof. K. V. Kesavan in the symposium Changing Perception of Japan in South Asia in the New Asian Era: State of Japanese Studies in India and other SAARC Countries

It appears that the Modi government is beginning to recognise the need for greater synchronisation between the different arms of the government and appreciate the need for better space utilisation in the realm of foreign policy and national security. This new approach needs to be strengthened and sustained for India to tap its full potential in outer space.

English dominates the Internet. But as the next billion swarm online from the developing world, access to relevant content in a language one comprehen

India is currently the fifth most vulnerable country to climate change. Easing environmental norms will not boost economic growth.

Democracy costs a lot of money. To fight elections and run their routine activities, political parties in India seek donations from all possible sources including ‘illegal’ and ‘interested’ money. This has serious ramifications in preserving the integrity of Indian democracy. An increasing number of countries, meanwhile, have taken the path of public subsidies and direct funding of parties and political activities — aiming to reduce dep

Goal seven of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) commits the international community to providing access to clean cooking fuels and technologies to all by 2030. Progress has been slow, however, and in about 40 of the UN’s 189 member countries for which data is available, more that 80 percent of the populations continue to lack such access. Using case studies, this brief analyses the role of a country’s policies, i

At least 4 billion people around the world are yet to be covered by any form of social security, and therefore vulnerable to economic, social, and environmental shocks. This paper examines the state of social security in the Group of Twenty (G20) economies—home to 63 percent of the global population. It finds gaps in social security financing in these countries: between universal coverage and actual coverage, and between countries of the Global

The enhancement of the SDG framework in line with the human rights norms and indicators should not be onerous, given the voluntarism of the SDG proces

A common thread that runs through TPP, TTIP and CETA deals is the Investor-state dispute settlement system (ISDS), an opaque supranational court that decides disputes, bypassing the domestic courts and national laws. Now, the fear is that these trade deals might just end up producing managed rather than free trade.

The pace of Indian infrastructure building along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) bordering China has historically been slow due to financial and doctrinal constraints, but has accelerated in the past 20 years. Construction has become more efficient owing to bureaucratic changes and the infusion of greater financial resources. This paper attributes these changes to strategic compulsions brought about by Chinese actions—both diplomatic and on-th

This paper creates an index to track the achievement of UN Sustainable Development Goal 6 (SDG 6: Clean Water and Sanitation) across India’s states. The SDG 6 index incorporates both supply-side indicators and demand management variables, as well as institutional interventions. In this paper, state-wise indices are constructed to identify their respective performances in the domains of access to clean water and provision of sanitation facilitie

The achievement of global sustainable development goals (SDGs) depends largely on India’s progress, given the country’s massive size and its moderate historical success in key health and nutrition outcomes over the last several years. This further increases the relevance and need for effective monitoring of India’s performance, through timely and disaggregated data, which ensures systematic assessments and course-correction. As India will b

The trail to get a diamond from stone is a “tale of pain and sadness.”

India is ranked third globally in terms of venture capital funding, behind only the US and China. With the total year-on-year funding amount increasin

Indian and Pakistani governments have realised the necessity of better connecting provinces on both sides of the border as a possible means of improving broader relations between the two nations.

Speaking on India-China relations Dr Yiwei Wang gave a Chinese perception of this relationship. The basic theme was that there was need to look at three T's (Trade, Tibet and Territory) to improve the bilateral relations.

With both India and the US having differing domestic and national priorities, these countries are bound to compete and conflict on trade issues. But these must not be allowed to overshadow the larger gains that bilateral trade has brought to each country.