To oppose the UID project on the grounds that it makes government services efficient is bizarre Over in the op-ed pages of The Hindu there’s a surreal op-ed by R Ramakumar that argues that Aadhaar, India’s new Unique Identification (UID) project will lead to an invasive state security-wise and a retreating one development-wise. Now reasonable ...
It’s up to you to find your partner In my Business Standard column today argue that “the (East Asia Summit) club only provides the dance floor. India will have to court its dancing partners on an individual basis.” Excerpts: [Although] the EAS is set to become the pre-eminent regional grouping, bilateral alignments remain in a ...
Illegal immigration can only be tackled by allowing legal migration In an email exchange last week, Sanjoy Hazarika, author of one of the best books on India’s North East, told me that he has been advocating work permits for the last two decades. The proposal needs a serious consideration now. [The] blunt, impractical and half-heartedly ...
The United States can only delay making the real strategic decision It was interesting to see, towards the end of Bob Woodward’s Obama’s Wars, members of the Obama administration realise that the United States is in the same place today as it was in early 2009. Recent events validate that assessment. Frustrated with the Pakistani ...
Make way for the Global Raja-Mandala Doctrine Led by the redoubtable Aziz Haniffa some observers are getting more than a little flustered at a senior US official’s remarks about the United States letting China play a bigger role in and around the Indian subcontinent. Speaking at a seminar at the Woodrow Wilson Center for Scholars, ...
Exports to India account for 1.6% of Indonesia’s GDP A research note from CLSA notes that from Indonesia’s perspective India is one of the smaller markets (accounting for 6% of its exports) but a rapidly expanding one. ASEAN (21%), Japan (16%) and China (9%) are bigger export destinations. From India’s perspective, imports from Indonesia constituted ...
If you’d like to join me and a handful of members of the INI community for a informal get-together on Saturday 25th September, 10:30am in Bangalore, let me know. ...
A new Takshashila discussion document charts out a thirteen point plan You can download Takshashila fellow Sushant K Singh’s 13-point plan here (185 KB, PDF). The immediate goal for New Delhi and Srinagar should be to restore peace and security in the violence-affected districts of Jammu & Kashmir so that normal activity can resume. This ...
Beijing’s has made some bad moves recently It is fairly common to ascribe a certain oriental strategic wisdom to China’s foreign policy moves. That’s not always true. Whatever the outcome of the current stand-off with Japan over the fishing trawler near the Senkaku islands, Beijing has already lost one round of the geopolitical game. The ...
My new monthly column in Business Standard is called The Asian Balance. It “will devote itself to chronicling and interpreting the unfolding geopolitics of East Asia. It will be a unabashed advocate of Looking East far beyond the Straits of Malacca. Rebuilding the economic, cultural and political relationships that India historically shared with the countries ...
