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The BCIM economic corridor has the potential of transforming a conflict zone into a cooperation zone. This can happen only if adequate measures are taken to check any possible negative impacts of the corridor by involving all of the key stakeholders.

The current Indian government has given clear indicators that it is likely to place regional integration high on its economic diplomacy agenda, be it SAARC, ASEAN or BCIM. The last two are especially important to India's Act East Policy.

A lively and frank debate on India-Pakistan relationship marked the meeting between a high-powered delegation from Pakistan led by former Prime Minister Chaudhary Shujaat Hussain and an Indian team of senior diplomats, strategic analysts, commentators and policy makers led by former Indian Foreign Secretary M Rasgotra, who is presently, International Affairs Adviser, Observer Research Foundation (ORF), New Delhi, at ORF, Campus on March 31, 2005.

A second Green Revolution is in the offing given the recent announcements by the central government. The highlight of Finance minister Mr Jaswant Singh¿s January 9 pre-poll sops was the setting up of a Rs. 50,000 crore Agriculture Infrastructure and Credit Fund, to be operational in four weeks and providing end use credit at 200 base points below PLR.

Fifteen nations in 11 months and important visits to China and RoK in May is a tremendous track record. Considering the pace and scale of Modi's engagements and what each visit is expected to produce, one must congratulate the MEA for measuring up to this scorching pace.

Twenty-five uninterrupted years of mostly weak coalition governments at the Centre may have closed political options in Jammu and Kashmir, but now that we have a majority government in New Delhi, decisions may be easier.

In the prevailing era of strategic uncertainty, Special Forces (SF) provide the most reliable means to a government for the application of military force to achieve national security objectives. The SF components of a nation¿s military and other security forces are force multipliers in times of both war and peace.

The Modi government must now attempt to transition India's economic engagements towards a more deliberate, durable and definitional framework. Well-administered LoCs offer a great avenue to do this -- and therefore must be given commensurate strategic priority and attention.

The 46th Anniversary of Tibetan Uprising of the Year 1959 is round the corner. On March 10, the Dalai Lama will issue yet another Policy Statement to commemorate the occasion.

The Chinese navy is leading the dramatic shift in the political goals of China's armed forces. Besides territorial defence, the Chinese armed forces now also aim to protect Beijing's expanding interests beyond borders, influence regional security politics and contribute to international peace.

In Beijing, Mr Manmohan Singh repeated what he has long believed -- that India and China were not destined to clash and that they had enough room to grow together. This was an oblique comment on fears in China that India could join a US-led containment of China, and similar fears in India that China was creating a "string of pearls".

China has good relations with most of Afghanistan's neighbours, including Iran, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan. But it is Beijing's emerging partnership with the Pakistan army in Afghanistan that is the most interesting new element in the region.

Delhi's economic decision-makers, with their inward orientation, appear to have no capacity to think of a strategy for regional integration in partnership with China, or any other great power. The best it can come up with is to establish an official study group that can spin out the Chinese proposals for a few more years.

China may have reasons to be relieved if a Cold War-like situation re-emerges in Europe and American attention is drawn away from Asia. As America plunged into two prolonged wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, China had the time and Space to build its comprehensive national power.

Two rockets exploded in a district in the southern part of Beirut, wounding five people. While the perpetrators of the attack unknown, Syrian rebels have vowed to retaliate against Hezbollah's fighters assisting President Bashar Al-Assad's forces in Syria.

Pakistan is today dangling between hope and despair, propelled largely by President Pervez Musharraf's inability, and refusal, to gauge public sentiments for free and fair elections in the coming months. Discontentment, once confined to media and courtrooms, has spilled out into the streets, creating a stifling atmosphere of anxiety and doubt across the country. Political, economic and social differences have sharpened in the past eight years. Re

Informed and aware passengers and staff members remain two of the most effective counter-terrorism measures to safeguard vulnerable mass transit systems like Delhi Metro.

Experience would suggest the best time for Modi to take tough decisions is now when his popularity is at an all time high and his adversaries, both within his party and without, are still shell-shocked. If he can stake out the key elements of the long-awaited second generation reforms, he can spend the balance of his tenure working to implement them.

Many reform movements are active in India and have the patronage of politicians bereft of any aesthetics. But in Pakistan, the movements have declared Jehad on the soft Islam, soaked in sub continental Sufism. That is why Mr. Asif Zaradari deserves every one's best wishes for his journey to Ajmer.

Premature punditry on the Ayodhya verdict is a little bit like writing commentaries on Shakespeare after only reading Lamb's Tales.

By writing to Chief Ministers on administrative systems, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has revived a process that probably died with Jawaharlal Nehru. As Prime Minister, Vajpayee had his year-end Musings, which like Nehru¿s letters covered a wide range of subjects, including foreign policy and security issues.

There is the possibility, albeit remote, of the proliferation of nuclear weapons in the region. Riyadh has always been unambiguous in its stance of acquiring a nuclear weapon if Iran does and the Kingdom's longstanding support for Pakistan's nuclear program alludes to this possibility.

The distribution of military and economic power in the world today resembles an irregular pyramid. The face of the pyramid depicting the military dimension of power rests on a narrow base, while that representing its economic dimension is much wider. Economic power is more broadly diffused among the major states than is the case with military power.

Both India and China have already entered an age of pragmatism. But they must soon transform it in an age of competitive realism if they are to jointly architect and mould the Asian century.

This paper is an outline of existing energy systems - the demand and supply factors and trends seen within the framework of demographic pressures, environmental concerns and eventual possibility of fossil fuels running out.

Little attention is paid to the dynamics of politico-military strategies and civil military discourse on military capabilities and doctrines for any future conflicts

Internet of Things ensures that all data cannot be treated as equal. The principle of net neutrality needs an overhaul to reflect the complicated future of the cyberworld

Chinese leaders, ever so adept at power politics, do not find it difficult to understand where Modi is coming from. If Modi has surprised the world with his enthusiasm for China, Beijing is also pulling out all the stops to woo the Indian PM.

It has been a few weeks since the ¿momentous¿ Islamabad declaration by Indian PM Vajpayee and Pakistani leader Gen.Musharraf. The full effects of the declaration may not be known for a few months at least, but there have been enough clues coming out of South Asia for prognosticators to decipher. But first one must look at the declaration itself.

The key to a stable future in the Subcontinent might lie in producing the long overdue structural change inside Pakistan and with it the definition of its interests in Afghanistan and India. As it grasps at the slim chance of reordering the relationship with Pakistan, India will need all the support it can get from the US.

Observer Research Foundation (ORF) invited Hon'ble Chief Minister of Delhi, Smt. Sheila Dikshit on April 10, 2008 to deliver a talk on the 'Bhagidari Programme of Delhi Government' at the New Delhi campus. The event was attended by more than 80 participants

For a country as self conscious of its past as India, culture and civilization are alluring themes. In recent weeks two themes have surfaced which may attract attention. One idea has been placed in the public square by Justice Markandey Katju.

Emotion, rather than substance, had been the vehicle of the BJP for spreading its reach. But times are changing and it would have been better if the party was talking of a new vision of India which lays out a roadmap for eliminating poverty and squalor.

In the 'Bhullar case', the Supreme Court could now be construed to have applied the 'reasonable restriction' theory in the larger application of Article 14 of the Constitution, promising 'equality before law and the equal protection of the laws'.

Bhutan's reported decision to establish diplomatic relations with China marks an end to the system of buffer states that the British Raj had created in the 19th century to secure the subcontinent against encroachments from external powers.

Noted author of a book on Bhutan, Omair Ahmad, argued that the way forward for India was to acknowledge that it could no longer insulate Bhutan. In the past, India engaged the monarchy and the elite, and the time has come to broaden the relationship, he said.

The announcement on the side-lines of the Rio+20 Summit that Bhutan and China have decided to establish diplomatic relations is not only a reflection on the evolving foreign policy of the Kingdom but it also carries with it broader implications for the political dynamics of Asia.

The landlocked Kingdom of Bhutan, which borders two Asian giants--China in the north and India to the south-- is some sort of a misfit in this tightly enclosed geographic space. Its two neighbours when compared to Bhutan are a world apart,

The Bhutan cabinet's scrapping of the allotment of some 1,000 acres of land proposed for the proposed education city has put the ambitious project based on public-private partnership (PPP) in a limbo.

Popularity of India as an education destination for Bhutanese students is a reference-point for close bilateral ties. Today, as many as one third of Bhutan's student population are pursuing higher education in India,

Bhutan has announced its support for Japan's bid for a permanent seat in the UN Security Council. This was announced by Bhutan's Prime Minister, Tshering Tobgay, who completed his official visit to Japan on July 2.

A parliamentary delegation from the tiny Himalayan kingdom witnessed the log-jam in Indian Parliament on 10 August. The combined Opposition's Rajya Sabha tirade against the government over allegations of corruption involving ruling BJP's ministers was the main reason for the log-jam in the Indian Parliament.

A new leadership has assumed office in Bhutan defying all pre-poll surveys that were predicting an adverse result for the country's opposition party. The People's Democratic Party (PDP), led by Tshering Tobgay won the elections by winning 32 seats out of 47.