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India need to do more to speed up its own financial sector reforms and make it stronger because the percentage of NPAs has reached a dangerous level of 4.45 per cent and could reach 6 per cent soon. Unless the banking system is strong, India cannot be on a higher trajectory of growth.

Approximately 73 years after Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the world finds itself in similar straightened circumstances as the US once again puts into motion steps to curb the rise of another Asian power — China.

As geopolitical competition intensifies in Central Asia, India will have to prioritise transparent and reliable connectivity strategies.

The synchronised protest marches undertaken by Imran Khan, the chairman of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) and cleric Tahir-ul Qadri, chairman of the Pakistan Awami Tehreek (PAT), culminated in a combined sit-in outside the Parliament building in Islamabad.

Farooq and Omar Abdullahs are not sufficiently "provincial" to manage a province. They are cosmopolitan men with considerable potential on the national turf - and we are short of such personalities on the national stage.

Since 2010, Pakistan has already violated the ceasefire more than 222 times. In 2012 alone, there were 117 instances, mostly concentrated in the Uri and Krishna Ghati areas.

The Parliamentary Standing Committee's (on Personnel, Public Grievances, and Law & Order) decision to consider the possibility of recommending 'concurrent' or 'simultaneous' elections to the Lok Sabha and all State Assemblies across the country is a suggestion worth serious consideration, like very many other aspects of electoral reforms.

It is time to pause to remind Prime Minister Modi of his campaign promise "minimum government, maximum governance". It is sad this is one promise being heard less and less of each passing day.

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.

Pakistan¿s largest province, Baluchistan, is again on the boil. Two rocket firing incidents took place in early December, 2005. The first incident involved firing on a helicopter carrying the Inspector-General of the Frontier Corps. In the second, a rocket was fired at a public meeting addressed by Gen Pervez Musharraf at Kohlu. These incidents appear to have provided an immediate provocation to launch an operation by the Pakistan Army and the F

Bangladesh have witnessed changes in the last eight years, but they were not enough, according to speakers at a conference on India's relationship with Bangladesh.

Since August, there has been a continuous flow of Rohingya refugees into Bangladesh from Myanmar. The number has now crossed half a million.

Bangladesh is one of the fastest growing economies globally. Over 90 percent of the country’s international trade is through the ports of Chattogram and Mongla, which also provide the neighbouring countries an access to the sea for trade and connectivity. This paper seeks to assess the significance of the two seaports in advancing Bangladesh’s domestic trade development, and their role in facilitating maritime commerce in the Bay of Bengal re

On 5 January, parliamentary elections were held in Bangladesh. They were boycotted by the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP)-led 18 party alliance, allowing the Awami League to win the election with two thirds majority and with very little opposition.

The ongoing upazila elections in Bangladesh are a move to deepen democracy at the grassroots. Since the election came just after the parliamentary polls that took place in January and was boycotted by main Opposition Bangladesh Nationalist party (BNP),

Last week Bangladesh celebrated the Bengali New Year, the biggest festival of the country with much fanfare. Celebration of Bengali New Year has special significance for the country as it marks the values for which Bangladesh fought for -- its culture and the liberal values.

In a rare move, the Bangladesh government has taken up the task of correcting the history by trying the 'war criminals' of the 1971 Independence War. In the nine-month-long freedom movement, 2.5-3 million people had died.

Bangladesh, once described as 'basket case' by veteran US strategist Henry Kissinger, has gathered new prominence in US' South Asia policy. The visit of US Secretary of State by Hillary Clinton in May this year that resulted in signing of a joint statement

The political situation in Bangladesh is reverting to the bad old days of hartals and blockades. Major countries which could influence the Sheikh Hasina government, including India, seem reluctant to pressurise her. India has been clearly backing her for the time being, knowing that the alternative could be worse.

The recently-concluded elections to three city corporations of Dhaka North, Dhaka South and Chittagong put forward some interesting trend about the present political situation in the country.

If Iran becomes a nuclear state down the road, it will be in the first place due to Iran's intransigence; but it will also be the result of over a decade of poor negotiating by the international community.

Setting up of research taskforces on various climate change and environment risks in the BIMSTEC sub-region can develop a common understanding of the threats, create standards for emergency management and come up with cost-effective solutions.

How India and its BIMSTEC partners can prosper together

BBINMVA is an encouraging development that aims at shared growth and prosperity of the region. For success of the BBINMVA, the member countries should remain consistent and resolve the issues on timely basis for fulfilling the vision of prosperity of the region.

Before India can reap any real economic benefits, it should take cognizance that social challenges prevailing euphoria over BBIN, has gone unnoticed.

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.

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 state of the bilateral relationship between India and China has gotten rockier since the two leaders last met.

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.

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.

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

The U.S. must realise that neither more sanctions nor military strikes are viable options to rein in North Korea

West Bengal is conducting a massive, potentially historic eight-phase state legislative assembly election between March and April 2021. This paper gives a historical account of the different factors that are influencing the conduct of the elections, including the economic challenges facing the state, unabated political violence, and the plight of religious minorities. It also examines so-called ‘Hindu nationalist’ and ‘Bengali sub-n

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

At a time when international norms are being reshaped, Iran developing nuclear weapons could increase volatility in West Asia and beyond

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.

This special report was written before the 2020 United States presidential elections. Under the incoming Biden administration, the US military withdrawal from Afghanistan is likely to be more gradual and “responsible”, despite the President-elect being in favour of American troops exiting the war-weary country soon. In retrospect, Donald Trump’s insistence on pulling out all US troops from Afghanistan by Christmas 2020 was not misguided, si

Financial health of Indian banks deserves scrutiny. The RBI should strike a careful balance in its policy objectives. Tighter lending norms are unlikely to be a panacea. It must resist the temptation to resort to such short-term fixes.

Elected to the UNSC, Bahrain must reconcile Arab solidarity with its partnership with Israel under the Abraham Accords.

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.

The Bangladesh interim administration’s announcement in April this year—that it would soon repatriate 180,000 of its 700,000-odd Rohingya refugees back to Myanmar—was quickly hailed as a diplomatic victory. This paper analyses the claim, using semi-structured interviews and thematic analyses of refugee narratives, to highlight its implausibility. It argues that Rakhine State in Myanmar, from which the Rohingyas hail and to which they are ex