11235 results found
The late-first millennium BCE Arthaśāstra is popularly known for its vile recommendations—a perception that tends to overshadow its far more comprehensive and holistic message on state-building. While the treatise itself gives no geographical or chronological pointers, this paper takes a historicist approach to contextualise it in time and space to show that it was not a one-off product but the result of an entrenched tradition of enlightened
Even a cursory look at the drivers of Indian defence exports reveals the salience of simplified industrial licensing, easing of export restrictions, and issuance of no-objection certificates
This is the biggest protest campaign in Afghanistan since the ouster of the Taliban regime. This is bloody, widespread and countrywide.This also shows that they are fed up with the United States and they just needed a spark to vent their feelings.
Human traffcking remains a highly acute issue in India and rehabilitation efforts must be stepped up to make sure that those rescued from these hazardous situations are given a chance to rejoin mainstream society. However, various loopholes exist in the judicial and executive processes involved in the country’s rehabilitation systems. This paper describes such problems evident in the process of home enquiry for the rescued victims: fraugh
The central administration in China is wary of a protracted confrontation about the public in Hong Kong, and considering the nature of the demand, a prolonged protest would certainly be an embarrassment to China in the global political arena, says a China expert.
China has enacted a National Security Law for the special administrative region of Hong Kong. The provisions of the law can be used to curb peaceful dissent and enhance Beijing’s control over the region. It has the potential to not only change Hong Kong’s legal and political autonomy, but also alter its status as a global financial centre. This paper offers an overview of the national security law and its implications for the ‘one country,
It does not require much investigation or analysis to prove that Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf is not really inclined to set his house in order when it comes to terrorism.Take his July 22 address to the nation. He seemed to be at pains to explain how Pakistan itself was a victim of terrorism.
There is a strong sense in Japan today that Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and India's new Prime Minister Narendra Modi would take India-Japan relations to a new height, say senior officials and scholars in japan.
Mr. Larry Diamond, Senior Fellow in Stanford University, US, spoke on 'Horizontal Accountability: The Quest for Effective Democratic Governance, at an Interaction of the ORF Chennai Chapter of the Observer Research Foundation, on 12 December.
Household savings have merely moved from financial to physical assets, with an increase over time
States are no longer insulated from distant geopolitical realities. As India has witnessed, trade and supply chain linkages can extend conflicts to uninvolved states
Urban India is mimicking the social and cultural structures of inequality thereby also creating fault lines for future conflicts
Though the devastating WannaCry ransomware attack was a failure on the NSA’s part, current UN cyber norms are far too weak to hold any international actor – let alone the US – responsible.
Japan is now being pushed to a leadership role in Asia following the election of Donald Trump as US President
Most of the joint exercises being conducted by security forces, like like the Malabar 2015, are of the simple basic variety and, hence, really provide no 'net value addition' to the Indian force that participates. Thus, approvals for such exercises should necessitate a case-by-case approach in the future.
With the US and EU, who together are responsible for the makeup of 46% of the world economy, preparing to enter into the largest trade deal in history, the TTIP, the question of how the BRICS adapt and consolidate their position globally is one that holds considerable relevance. The options available to the BRICS are limited.
In 1990, China's GDP was roughly the same as India's and parts of its infrastructure, such as its railway system, were considered inferior. Today, China's GDP is around $9 trillion and India's is $2 trillion. The high speed train travelling at 300 kph from Shanghai to Beijing signals the extent to which China had pulled away from India.
The country is merely following in the footsteps of other major global powers that have established military bases abroad to secure their interests.
Public displays of exasperation reflect Beijing’s disappointment with the lack of progress in its relations with Kathmandu.
India and France have a shared interest in developing a coalition of middle powers committed to multipolarity
During a discussion on "Urban Middle Classes and the Ascent of New Politics in India" at ORF, it was noted that success should not be measured in terms of the ability to ensure successful electoral outcomes but as an attempt to make better societies.
Developed by the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), the K-4 will be an intermediate range submarine launched ballistic missile (SLBM).
The Centre seems to be keen on development of Free Trade Agreements with our East Asian and South-East Asian neighbours. The general idea floated in this context is: Trade is good. More is better. But, unbridled market force in the form of unbridled trade without the concomitant safeguards in regulation and risk management mechanisms might not be a wise idea.
Before the elections in the beginning of this year, the authorities of the Iraqi Government had announced warrants for the arrest of 29 Iraqis and foreigners, who, according to them, are either former members of the Saddam Hussein Government or part of the Abu Mus¿ab al-Zarqawi terrorist network of the Al Qaeda.
It might be interesting to analyse our diplomatic handling of China and Pakistan on a comparative basis. These two countries pose the most difficult and complex foreign policy challenges to us. Is our approach to both countries similar, or there are differences in the way we engage them?
Despite the power differential, India successfully raised the cost of China’s land grab activities at Doklam, a feat that even the U.S. has struggled to accomplish in East Asia. While China was relentless in the pursuit of its goals, and had the resources to spend, India managed to call its bluff, and simultaneously allayed Bhutan’s concerns.
The behind-the-scenes drama had all the ingredients of a potboiler.
A World Bank report on 'State of Social Safety Nets' paints an overall positive picture, with over one billion people worldwide being included under at least one safety net initiative. But the reality is that more than two-thirds of the world's 1.2 billion poorest are not covered.
150 innocent lives have been lost in the serial blasts set-off by terrorists in Mumbai on July 11, 2006; the death toll is likely to mount. The blasts, sadly, are a chilling reminder that terrorist can strike with impunity and at will, secure in the comfort that they cannot be touched. If the 1993 Bomb blasts in Mumbai had a fig leaf of an excuse (the demolition of the Babri mosque), the current blasts have none.
Terrorists have taken to the use of social media networks in a big way. This brings us back to the old dilemma of how much data is information and how much information is adequate intelligence. The other dilemma is how much surveillance is enough for security. The third dilemma is how much liberty is to be sacrificed for security.
A Rohingya insurgency has been around since 1948, but it has waxed and waned depending on the level of repression.
The quest for media management in an environment of a media so controlled is a quest for the impossible.
In the US, the party primaries to elect the candidates for the November election have begun. It is clear from the primaries that the Republican party is seeking to return to the middle ground from the excesses of the past when it was held hostage by the right-wing Tea Party.
Narendra Modi's visits out of New Delhi last week have emphasised the new government's understanding of India's Grand Strategy. In some ways, it marks a continuity with the policy of past governments, but in important ways it presages a departure.
The US Navy has already developed a generic "Road Map" against climate change while we are yet to assess the impact of such changes, let alone formulate doctrinal responses. Let us not get caught napping.
How radicalised is Pakistan Army today? was the question which formed the focal point of an intense discussion organised by Observer Research Foundation on September 20. Well-known academics, journalists, experts and military officers attended the discussion which was chaired by Mr Vikram Sood, Vice President (International Affairs), ORF and former chief of Research & Analysis Wing.
At a meeting organised by ORF several experts said the current discourse on the Maoist challenge has been dominated by a "paranoid" view
When the Communist Party of Nepal - United Marxist Leninist (CPN-UML) Chairman Jhala Nath Khanal was finally elected as the new Prime Minister of Nepal, the country breathed a sigh of relief.
It's time policy mandarins remove their blinkers and jettison their vested interests to learn the sharp and focused lessons that history of science teaches so beautifully
While the Arabs tend to blame the West for their troubles with some reason, much of the blame they have to shoulder themselves. The Arab world is in turmoil mainly because of undemocratic regimes, lack of institutions, the absence of a spirit of scientific enquiry and societies that have yet to adjust to the 21st century.
As the COVID-19 infection rate continues to increase in the United States (US), this brief examines the country’s social protection system and compares it to those of other rich OECD countries. It argues that implementing basic social protection measures in a time of crisis such as this, may be costly both in resources and time. While addressing immediate needs imposed by the public health emergency is priority, in the long term, institutionali
India's thinking about the Middle East, whether from the UPA or NDA, has tended to be ideological and rooted in their domestic political considerations. Prime Minister Narendra Modi needs to break from this tradition and develop a strategy towards the Middle East that is firmly anchored in realpolitik.
