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Japan’s efforts to establish comprehensive cyber policy frameworks have not yet fully translated into effective external threat responses.

The decision by the Pakistani and the Chinese authorities to cancel the programme for the formal inauguration of the newly-constructed Gwadar port by the Chinese Prime Minister Mr Wen Jiabao during his recent visit to Pakistan gave a clear indication of the further deterioration in the situation in Balochistan.

Its 11th General Elections have in fact left Bangladesh poorer in terms of its democratic processes, diversity and freedoms.

Though the Hasina Government is pursuing an active counter-terrorism programme and has succeeded in controlling the activities of various radical organisations in the real world, it has failed to curb their activities in the virtual world.

Recently security agencies arrested 12 activists of the banned militant organisation Harkatul Jihad in Bangladesh. These arrests revealed that the group was preparing merger with the South Asia chapter of the international militant organisation Al-Qaeda.

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.

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.

The Chinese have been putting serious money into key areas which they aim to become world leaders in the next decade or so. One of these is AI where the government and Chinese corporates are moving in a big way.

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.

As the Quad gains momentum, states in the Indo-Pacific and South Asia are more likely to resist Chinese largesse

India must recognize that even as there may be areas that India and China cooperate occasionally, Beijing will take every opportunity to deny India any strategic advancement.

It aims to signal its diplomatic ascendance and challenge Washington as the big shaper of outcomes

While Beijing’s foreign policy is not focused on the Middle East, its footprint in the region is expanding. Many of China’s short-term aims, such as securing energy, have remained unchanged since the Cold War, but the country’s rise on the global stage is increasingly creating a need for a long-term strategy suited to the changing world order. Especially since the start of the Gaza war, this strategy is slowly materialising, with China leve

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.

Japan’s foreign aid policy towards Myanmar has been an important component of both, its broader approach to Southeast Asia and its Indo-Pacific vision. As one of Myanmar's largest development partners, Japan has consistently supported the country’s infrastructure development and democratic transition efforts, while also providing humanitarian aid. However, Myanmar's protracted political instability, particularly following the 2021 military co

Against the backdrop of the Pulwama suicide bombing and the Balakot air-strikes, national security has acquired a political salience that it might not have otherwise. This is reflected in the manifestos of both the main national parties, the BJP and the Congress.

While the trip offered a chance to build on cooperation, it also reinforced existing differences between the two countries.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has been raising the issue of illegal immigration from Bangladesh for a long time now, identifying itself with the “anti-foreigners agitation” in Assam in the 1980s. The party has recently amplified its position, twin-tagging the issue of illegal immigration from Bangladesh with a promise to update the National Register of Citizens, and amend the Citizenship Act to grant citizenship to Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs

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.

US Congress passes 4 crucial bills; govt keenly aware of geopolitics in Indo-Pacific.

As the Bay of Bengal region continues to rise as an economic and strategic hub, there is increasing awareness of the role to be played by the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) in promoting growth, development and stability in the region. Having kept a low profile in its 20 years of existence, BIMSTEC is now being seen as a potential driver of integration between South Asia and Southeast As

It is not difficult to imagine that the Chinese will be uncomfortable with the current scenario. China is against any "outside power" being involved in the South China Sea, though its own forces are regularly operating in the Indian Ocean region.

If the BJP stands by its leader Arun Jaitley's illogic, it must necessarily oppose any negotiation of India's land boundary disputes with any of its neighbours, including China, Pakistan and Nepal. If this is a considered position of a party that is in striking distance of power, one shudders to think what the foreign policy of a BJP government might look like.