Will the India-Pakistan trade relationship improve after the elections in Pakistan on May 11? How India and China manage their trade, even when the exchange is strained, as it was after the recent military impasse on the Ladakh border, holds important answers
Chinese Premier Li Keqiang is also a salesman for his country – but he comes with the one offer no foreign dignitary has made so far: money. Cash-strapped Indian business especially those in the infrastructure and resource businesses, will certainly be looking now to China to make their dreams of survival come true.
The 11th Presidential election of Iran will be held on June 14, 2013. Why will this election be a test for the Islamic Republic’s stability? What are the factors at play that make this election critical; and more importantly, why must India monitor it closely?
The high level of enthusiasm expressed by New Delhi – for former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s expected return to power – may perhaps be premature. India be patient with the new government in Islamabad.
Will former Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif prove to be his country’s saviour, one that can make Pakistan the ambitious transit economy it can be? However, the most needed and least controversial angle from which India and Pakistan’s new government can begin to engage is through business and trade.
Pakistan’s national elections will take place in the backdrop of a troubled economy, severe energy crisis, and frequent terrorist attacks. Can these problems be solved if the next leadership agrees to open its territories for trade and transit purposes between India and Afghanistan?
In the closing remarks of the online debate, titled ‘The civil-military equation in Pakistan,’ Daniel Markey concludes that the question for civilian leaders is not whether they can stave off military rule, but if they can find a way to put their country on a better path for the future.
Gateway House’s Ambassador Neelam Deo, in a debate, titled ‘The civil-military equation in Pakistan has begun to tilt in favour of civilians,’ argues in her closing remarks that Pakistan will need sympathy and support as it confronts the complex choices that the democratisation process continually throws up.
In the second round of the online debate, titled ‘The civil-military equation in Pakistan,’ Daniel Markey argues that although the power equation may not have titled completely in favour of the civilian government, today, the military’s influence in administrative affairs isn’t as strong as it previously was.
Gateway House’s Ambassador Neelam Deo, in a debate, titled ‘The civil-military equation in Pakistan has begun to tilt in favour of civilians,’ argues in her rebuttal that the changes in Pakistan resemble a one-step-forward-and-two-steps-backwards process rather than a move up to the next level.
