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Yakub Memon is not innocent, but he does not deserve death penalty. He was aware of the conspiracy and even aided it, but he was not the main player. More important was his behaviour subsequent to his escape from India and his role in exposing the Pakistani hand in the blasts.
Compared to an average 100,000 incidents annually in the 1980s and 1990s, India witnessed only 72,126 communal riots in 2013. Thus, overall there has been a drastic reduction in communal riots. Yet, these macro statistics do not reveal the changing nature of communal violence and their intensities.
To correct the trend of agglomeration of wealth, young economist Thomas Picketty has suggested an annual progressive tax on wealth. He also says it will be difficult to implement it because there will always be flight to tax havens. In India, any type of wealth tax would be hardest to implement because a huge amount of wealth is already stashed away abroad.
Even as newspapers with access to the WikiLeaks exposes have come out with installments of diplomatic cable communication on US's relations with Pakistan, an impression is gaining ground that Washington was indeed struggling to get Islamabad to work to secure American interests in the region.
While the lobbying business in the US has continued to grow and starting salaries have risen to about $300,000 for the well-connected lobbyist, the enforcement of lobbying regulations has been lax. This has led to unethical practices, flouting of lobbying laws.
Ever since the US declared Iran a member of the ¿Axis of Evil¿, and more so after the Iraq invasion, the question very often asked in many of the essays that appeared in the West was ¿Is Iran next?¿ And now, after a bruising experience in Iraq, the US administration cannot just retreat to the relative safety of the White House and glower at the rest of the world.
Commentators across the country have put their fingers on the issue on which the BJP erred, which resulted in such a setback in the byelections. The people of the country look up to Prime Minister Narendra Modi as a harbinger of peace, progress and development.
Al-Shabaab's decision to pull out of the capital city of Mogadishu has been viewed widely as a positive development and brings hope to the people of Somalia. Kenya's war against the militant group has also been largely welcomed.
Pakistan and Afghanistan have agreed to form a joint commission to collaborate their efforts to reach a political solution to the Taliban insurgency. This was announced during the visit of Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani and Army chief Gen Ashfaq Pervez Kayani to the Afghanistan capital of Kabul over the weekend.
As if the "Savarna-Avarna" (high caste/low caste) divide was not bad enough in Uttar Pradesh and the rest of the country, the Congress has gone and institutionalised the rupture in the "Savarna" fold too, further aggravating the atomising process.
Diplomacy commenced when the first human societies decided it was better to hear the message than eat the messenger. Messages to rulers are rarely purposeless; their timing and occasion are carefully chosen and the content crafted with care.
Political parties are the only entities which are not subject to any regulation or regulator. The phrase political parties has not been mentioned in India's constitution and post independence, the legislatures have not enacted any regulation or law governing the functioning of political parties.
Along with space arms race, the China-Russia emphasis has been on placement of weapons in outer space. But the bigger challenge today is ground-based weapons that can target assets in outer space, which has heightened the fears about weaponisation of outer space.
In the forthcoming US elections, it seems demographics favour the Democrats, if they are able to make sure there is a huge turnout among the youth and people of colour. But one must also remember that the Democrat nominee will in a sense have to run against historical patterns.
Like Syria, both the opposing camps in Egypt do not seem to have any common meeting ground. Also, like Syria, both have enough support and resources to bear losses and continue the conflict. The developing situation, therefore, could not only spiral off into a bloody civil war domestically, but could also polarise the region.
One way or the other, Germany's Bundestag is about to make history with the upcoming vote on the issue of recognising Palestinian statehood. The Bundestag has a choice to make. It can continue looking backwards in history on this issue and ignore its leading role in securing peace in the Middle East, or it can courageously look forward, maybe even recognising something it owes history.
Three months from now, President Pervez Musharraf will have to take a decision. He could decide to quit the post of the Chief of Army Staff-a position he has been holding for the past five years, the longest ever for a Pakistani General, perhaps longest ever for a General anywhere in the world during peace time. Or he could decide to stay put.
Former The Hindu correspondent in Pakistan, Nirupama Subramanian, thinks that PML-N leader Nawaz Sharif has a better chance to head the next government in Pakistan. The thing to be watched is whether he will be able to do so on his own or in coalition with other parties, especially Imran Khan's PTI.
From the Chinese perspective, it was a smart move to invite India to join the maritime Silk Road project. But Delhi is likely to be torn between two competing ideas ? working with China in the maritime domain and the long-standing goal of limiting Beijing's influence in the Indian Ocean.
New Delhi will be hoping that Congress can continue to rein in Trump’s worst instincts.
If Nawaz Sharif really believes that Islamic insurgency has no role to play in Indo-Pakistan relations henceforth, he should enforce immediate control and effectively neutralise LeT and its parallel organisation, the Jamat-ud-Dawa.
With the resignation of the Sindh CM, it is widely speculated that the next to follow suit would be Jamali. His repeated assurances that his government was under no threat, only betrayed his insecurity. General Musharraf, who could have reiterated Jamali¿s confidence,
In Japan, obtaining the consent of the people to run a nuclear power plant has now become very difficult. Prior to the Fukushima tragedy, local people's consent meant agreement of the towns and the prefecture where the plants were located.
While India-Japan relations have strengthened and trade volume has jumped over by 38% from the previous year, in the civil nuclear cooperation, Japan observers see a rather serious barrier in the strong anti-reactor backlash at home, keeping it away from striking an acceptable solution.
Whether Japan and India could find an acceptable compromise formula for civilian nuclear agreement that would address their respective concerns will be the main subject of discussion at the India-Japan Annual Summit in New Delhi on December 27-29.
The visit of Begum Khaleda Zia to New Delhi, her first visit as the Opposition leader, suggests a change in the thinking of her party, BNP. And it is likely to turn into a major breakthrough in the India-Bangladesh relations, marking a new beginning in the relations.
Kyrgyzstan held its first parliamentary election on October 10, making it the first country in the region to opt for a parliamentary democracy. However, leaders of the other Central Asian Republics remain apprehensive of the path chosen by Kyrgyzstan.
While Shinzo Abe might be thinking that LDP supported independent Yoichi Masuzoe?s win in Tokyo gubernatorial poll will help him carry forward his pro-nuclear energy plans, defeated candidates Hosokawa and Koizumi are determined to intensify their campaign for a nuclear free Japan.
Narendra Modi's warm response to Putin's congratulatory message, in contrast to a business-like acknowledgement of Obama, has a well-thought out back story and may prove all those predicting a business-as-usual foreign policy regime wrong.
On Monday night, a television anchor asked Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit about her views on India's decision to run the Lahore bus again. She said: "I hope it doesn't fall by the wayside as the previous one.'' If she clearly sounded sceptical, there are reasons. The last time buses began to cross the Wagah border
US President Barack Obama is trying to reconcile the irreconcilables - the requirements of his domestic audience and the situation on the ground in Afghanistan. It will take a while before we know whether he has fallen between stools.
The consequences of the Okinawa gubernatorial elections, where Prime Minister Abe's party candidate was defeated convincingly, mainly on the issue of relocation of US bases, will resonate on the US-Japan security alliance as well as Abe's ruling LDP party.
In a first of the kind, Observer Research Foundation, Kolkata organised an inter-university debate competition on 'Panchsheel and its Relevance' on January 17 to commemorate completion of 60 years of signing the agreement.
Though Dr. Hassan Rouhani is labelled as a 'pragmatist', 'moderate', or even a 'reformist' by analysts, all these terms have very restrictive meanings in the Iranian context.
The challenge for Iran's President-elect Dr. Hassan Rouhani lies in not only appeasing the highest echelons of country's clergy, but also securing results for an economy that is on the brink of collapse.
Though two rulings in as many days, the Supreme Court has set the tone on checking criminality in politics. Yet, issues remain in the implementation and enforcement, if the court verdict has to produce the desired results and meet with discerning goals.
Whether or not Nawaz Sharif's new innings will be a winner for India-Pakistan ties is an important question, but more significant is: Will his new stint at the top post be a winner for Pakistan? A Pakistan that finds its feet, and embarks on the road to comprehensive progress and democracy, will be good for itself and for the region as a whole.
While Mamata Banerjee tries to avoid being branded as an anti-industry and inflexible politician, her best ally could be the pending central land acquisition bill, which thanks largely to Mamata Banerjee, is in comatose since 2007.
It definitely was not in the scheme, but the 'Oxford Union episode' involving Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa may have emboldened the demoralised nation's pan-Tamil Diaspora across the West, with its fallout expected to be felt in neighbouring India as well.
Libya's future looks uncertain. The no-fly zone may not be enough to unseat Gaddafi. If Gaddafi survives and maintains his hold over Tripolitania, the world may have to contend with his wrath and a potential rogue state, uncomfortably close to Europe.
New aircraft carrier Vikramaditya will undoubtedly have a major role to play as force multipliers and strategic game changers in the region, but as a ship without even the basic defences against air borne threats, it will be extremely vulnerable, obviating its usage to its potential to the maximum.
