Tag Archives: Manmohan Singh

Indian-held Kashmir is returning to home-grown insurgency, with religious radicalization acting as a force multiplier this time. This round of agitation may eventually end, but the Kashmir issue is certainly not going to go away: it will keep simmering, with occasional eruptions such as this one.

A Modi-Obama summit provides an opportunity for an all-encompassing look at geopolitics and geoeconomics across the region and beyond. This option should not be foreclosed by concentrating on the smaller items, says one Indian analyst.

The game of one-upmanship by India and Pakistan, the two leading countries of SAARC, is likely to do immense harm to the cause of the poverty-ridden South Asian region, where concerted efforts at regional cooperation could be crucial in shaping its future development.

The latest India-Pakistan border tensions indicate a strategic shift in New Delhi’s policy which is becoming more aggressive with each passing day. Reports from India indicate that the new policy is being orchestrated by the country’s National Security Advisor Ajit Doval, a decorated former intelligence official.

The Teesta river water sharing treaty that Manmohan Singh was ready to sign in 2010 still hangs in uncertainty. Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasinsa Wajid who had staked so much to deliver on India’s security and connectivity concerns, is left high and dry facing a hostile opposition accusing her of failing to protect national interests vis-a-vis India. Worse, India is left looking a less-than-effective nation-state, unable to honor its sovereign commitments to an obliging neighbor.

A new book reveals that while Manmohan Singh wanted to find a solution to India’s dispute with Pakistan over Siachen glacier, opposition from his army chief and senior colleagues, scuttled any prospects for this. The army chief General JJ Singh, acted in a duplicitous way. In close-door briefings, the General would say that a deal with Pakistan was doable, but in public he would back A.K. Antony when the defense minister chose not to back the PM.

Prime Minister-designate Narendra Modi’s surprise invitation to the South Asian leaders to attend his swearing-in ceremony has the makings of a shock and awe tactic with three messages: the first to Pakistan, the second to the region and the third for domestic consumption, says a leading Indian newspaper in an editorial. In Pakistan, analysts are urging Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to accept the invitation which offers a unique opportunity to put the past behind and look to the future.

  Something very subtle but extraordinary happened during Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s farewell function in Delhi on the evening of May 14. Mr. Singh was standing next to his wife when Sonia Gandhi walked in and greeted him. He returned it and then left her there to meet his ministers and other Congress leaders. His wife followed him.   Later, …

India’s Congress Party appears to have outlived its use as Mahatma Gandhi once said. It was formed largely to end the British colonialism and for swaraj or self-government. Established in 1885, it was the pivot of the Indian Independence Movement before it became the premier political party that has ruled India for more than five decades since Independence in 1947. …

  In an interview with The Guardian, Shahbaz Sharif, the chief minister of Pakistan’s Punjab province, seems to have hit the nail on the head when talking about the roadblocks to trade between India and Pakistan.   “Security agencies on both sides need to really understand that in today’s world, a security-led vision is obviously driven by economic security,” he said. …