Tag Archives: Afghanistan

Saarc declarations have made considerable progress on a range of issues, from trade and connectivity to ecology. But these declarations only serve to highlight that Saarc has near zero credibility.

As foreign military forces prepare to complete their withdrawal from combat operations in Afghanistan at the end of the year and as it becomes increasingly clear that large swathes of territory will remain under Taliban control, aid organizations have felt both compelled and empowered to talk to them.

State gas companies of Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India have established TAPI Pipeline Company to build, own and operate the planned 1,800-kilometer natural gas pipeline from Turkmenistan. The move has rekindled hopes of Turkmenistan's gas reaching energy-starved India and Pakistan.

Outsiders are perplexed over the rhetorical commitment of Pakistani leaders to ‘fight terrorism of all shades’ and lofty claims on strategies to deal with them. The country needs friends and supporters on world stage. But its interior minister is wasting no opportunity to offend others, the latest being Bangladesh.

India needs subtle strategies to contain and counter “threats” from Pakistan. The jingoistic and threatening rhetoric in a section of Indian media in response to each “provocation” from Pakistan does India no good. India’s power ought to be felt by its adversaries and not flaunted.

Only bilateral and multilateral trust and sincerity will help promote the national reconciliation in Afghanistan. But the ground situation hardly portends well because Dr Abdullah Abdullah, the Afghan People’s Dialogue on Peace, India and Russia on the one hand, and Dr Ashraf Ghani, Pakistan, USA, and China, on the other, find themselves at variance.

Landlocked Afghanistan may not have salmon on top of its national cuisine, but improvisation in recipes can give the fish a unique Afghan flavor.

Aid agencies are calling on international donors to show their support for Afghanistan even as they face ongoing crises. Humanitarian budgets in Afghanistan had often been tied to military objectives since the 2001 US-led invasion. As foreign troops prepare to pull out, fears of declining budgets are growing. 

Has the U.S. created a government that the Afghans simply cannot afford? The US Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction thinks so, and says that the US has spent more than $104 billion for Afghan reconstruction and raises the question “what have we gotten for the investment” after committing “more funds to reconstruct Afghanistan, than the US spent to rebuild Europe after World War II under the Marshall Plan?”

Afghanistan’s new unity government undermines its democratic institutions and many on the Afghan street mince no words to say it.