Search

Security Guards belonging to the Indian Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) foiled a daring attempt by a group of six terrorists to penetrate a Hindu place of worship at Ayodhya, a holy town of the Hindus in the state of Uttar Pradesh in North India, on July 5, 2005. The site at which the place of worship is located has been a bone of contention between sections of the Hindus and the Muslims for many years.

Investigations into the recent terrorist attacks and the subsequent chain of arrests and seizures in different parts of India, particularly rural Maharashtra, have revealed a growing alliance between jihadi groups operating from Pakistan and Bangladesh with ideologically extreme groups in India.

That is the latest position of the Government of Begum Khaleda Zia, the Bangladesh Prime Minister, in the face of growing international pressure spearheaded by the member-countries of the European Union (EU) to act against terrorist groups operating from Bangladeshi territory.

Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe should take care when detailing the reasons why constitutional reforms are needed. While talking about the external threats, he should be very careful not to unnecessarily cause provocations to either China or North Korea.

There is hope among the politicians of various political groups in Kashmir as well as the people of Kashmir that Narendra Modi as Prime Minister would take some decisive action in keeping with their expectations. Modi himself has moderated his stand to that there should be a discussion on Article 370.

Inaugurating a workshop on 'Role of Universities in Public Policy-Making', hosted by Observer Research Foundation (ORF), New Delhi, University Grants Commission Vice-Chairman Prof V.N. Rajasekharan Pillai, on April 19, 2005, urged Vice-Chancellors and educationists to recreate linkages between universities and Government, research organizations, administrators and society, in order to render universities more relevant and help in enacting effecti

The Mullahs have found a fresh issue on which to trap General Pervez Musharraf. It has both religious connotations and a real possibility of a confrontation in which the General is bound to capitulate. The issue deals with school textbooks in Pakistan. A section of the society in Pakistan feels that textbooks cleared by the Federal Education Ministry's Curriculum Wing are regressive in nature and run counter to the objective of a progressive nati

ORF Kolkata organised its 2nd annual Inter-University Debate Competition on 7 November, 2015. Students of the Tezpur University won the competition that saw participation of representatives from eight universities from eastern and north-eastern Indian states.

The relationship between Australia and India is poised at an historic moment. Consciously overcoming a challenging period, leaders of the two countries have realised new levels of mutual trust and confidence that are in turn generating policy momentum.

General elections of 2014 could well be the most interesting election they will witness in their lifetime. Several developments suggest that the elections could mark a big shift of the political paradigm and, in that sense, they could well mark the true beginning of 21st century politics in the country.

Many states have decided to boycott the upcoming Winter Olympics in Beijing. Is this platform being used to draw the battle lines?

Berlin might not yet be ready to provide the kind of leadership that some expect, but the real "German question" seems to be whether Europe can really stomach German leadership. Given the uneasy reactions to Merkel's handling of the Eurozone crisis, the answer is clearly no.

It would be a mistake to assume that the US has changed its policy towards the region. It may have changed its style or the way it wishes to handle India and Pakistan but not its overall interests. The US wants to have a stronger presence in India without losing the hold it has on the military rulers in Pakistan.

Pakistan is an important player as far as determining the outcome of a post-2014 Afghanistan is concerned and should be engaged with. But to expect it to play a productive role or to expect Afghanistan and Pakistan to reconcile their differences and jointly work towards stability is a tall order.

The Agnipath scheme may come short on economic merit but could lead to a huge social change in the regimental system.

ACT 1: March 2002. Abu Zubaidah, a Palestinian member of Al Qaeda, was arrested in Faislabad in Pakistani Punjab by the Pakistani authorities and handed over to the USA's Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). He was the operational chief of Al Qaeda; his arrest was a major breakthrough, we were told. This is hardly supported by the report of the 9/11 Commission.

How big a catch is Abu Faraj al-Libbi, a 40-year-old Libyan married to a Pakistani, fluent in Urdu and Arabic and suffering from lucoderma, whose arrest was announced by the Pakistani authorities at Islamabad on May 4,2005?

While the UP Sunni Central Waqf Board is well within its right to appeal to the Supreme Court against the Allahabad High Court verdict, the VHP's reaction does not represent the people's will at all.

This weekend at Goa Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his foreign policy team will undertake a significant manoeuvre with SAARC grouping gasping for breath

The violent uprising of the people of Andijan in Uzbekistan on May 13,2005, seems to have been crushed for the time being by the Uzbek authorities with heavy force, resulting in the death of at least 20 civilians. The anti-Government elements, which organised the uprising, claim to have captured 30 Uzbek soldiers and to be keeping them in their custody.

The Libyan case is vastly different from that of Syria. The maverick Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi had few friends in the Arab League. Unlike Libya, Syria is a critical element of the regional balance of power in the Middle East.

Saeed Naqvi, Distinguished Fellow at the Observer Research Foundation, traveled to Bahrain, Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia, Baghdad, Najaf, Amman, Cairo, Jerusalem and Ramallah after the Arab Spring broke out. Earlier, he visited Tunisia, Iran, Yemen, Somalia, Sudan, Western Sahara and Libya. In this paper, he shares his first-hand experiences and discussions with leaders and diplomats, many of whom have requested anonymity. This paper follows

To understand the strategic significance of the second summit meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and US President Barack Obama, it is necessary to look beyond the very important and tangible outcomes that the two leaders have unveiled.

Whatever be the demands of the Baloch nationalists, the situation now is that of a growing humanitarian crisis that the rest of the world chooses to ignore. Continued indifference will not help the problem go away but will only exacerbate it further and make it more intractable.

Kunduz has a large ethnic mix of Pashtun, Uzbeks, Tajiks, and others - all of whom wish to hold the province. The recent move to capture Kunduz by the Taliban is significant in many ways. It is the first major engagement by the Taliban after Mullah Akhtar Mansour succeeded Mullah Omar.

Though it will be difficult for the Central Government and the States to agree upon certain foreign policy issues, they should work together on issues of national importance-such as terrorism and foreign policy-in order to enact policies that benefit its citizens.

From the available facts of the jihadi terrorist carnage at the North Ossetian town of Beslan in Russia on September 3, 2004, the following reconstruction is possible:

The West has finally woken up to something that strategic analysts in India have been saying for decades: Saudi Arabia funded the Pakistani nuclear programme. In this connection, we have three questions to analyse; First, how valid is this information? Second, how is it then that Saudi Arabia gets away with so much? Third, why is Nato and Israeli intelligence taken seriously but not the Indians?

In January 2000, the Government of National Capital Territory of Delhi initiated a 'Bhagidari Programme' as an attempt to resolve the various problems being faced by the city's residents. Smt. Sheila Dikshit, the Honorable Chief Minister of Delhi, visited the Observer Research Foundation campus on April 10, 2008 to make a presentation on the programme. The discussion was facilitated by Ambassador M. Rasgotra. This discourse is an abridged documen

China is looking at their problems and working on them and willing to shift established positions if the situation so demands, while India seems to be trapped in the verities of the past and are unable to move beyond tired slogans and nostrums.

The problem with imposing sanctions on a country which has the world's third largest proven reserves of oil and second largest conventional natural gas reserves is that the implications are felt globally. The price of oil is highly correlated throughout the world due to market arbitrage.

There is no universally accepted international cyber treaty. However, the Council of Europe?s Budapest Convention on Cybercrime, which has been in force for a decade and has been ratified by 44 countries, is the closest.

The good old days of media diplomacy launched by Washington and London to justify the Iraq invasion seem to be getting over.The American and the British administration had successfully hijacked media spaces across the world to build legitimacy for the offensive on Iraq.

On June 22, 2004, over 200 well-armed persons simultaneously raided three towns in the Ingushetia Republic of Russia, adjoining Chechnya, and attacked police stations, government buildings and checkpoints with automatic weapons and rocket-propelled grenades. The Russian and the local security forces were totally taken by surprise. Ninety-five persons were killed, the majority of them members of the security forces and other Government officials,

There is an urgent need for the appointment of a new commission, on the footsteps of the Sarkaria Commission and the Justice E Venkataramaiah Commission, to review Centre-State relations, and State-to-State relations.

If the Obama Administration avoids the temptation of returning to business as usual with Rawalpindi, it has an opportunity to get both Afghanistan and Pakistan right.

India needs to take a broad approach to its foreign policy. One of the biggest mistakes Delhi could make would be to see the Indo-Vietnam relationship as simply a means for countering China.

The idea of energy security which was hitherto rooted in the supply and price of oil has now been expanded to include concerns over the availability and trade of coal. The key concern is the demand growth from China and its impact on coal price and availability, given the level of concentration in its sources of supply.

China is touting its vision of linking two Indian projects (Mausam and Spice Route) with its One Belt One Road (OBOR) initiative. China's main goal is to coordinate regional policy so that each country's economic development plan becomes part of a larger regional vision.

While West Asia is volatile, the Chinese are beginning to get more active in Afghanistan, retain their pre-eminence in Pakistan and strengthen ties with Iran. In fact, Iran is the third leg of China?s policy in our immediate western neighbourhood. The Chinese are obviously making preparations for the time when peace returns to the Arab world, which might leave a stronger Iran.

The fall in the value of the dollar would be worrying the central bankers in China because the value of their reserves also declines simultaneously. The promotion of the SDR agenda by the Chinese is certainly no coincidence given the position of the dollar today.

Despite the current economic and political upheaval in Pakistan, the Sino-Pakistani strategic nexus remains stable