Gateway House and Sabarmati Ashram hosted a dialogue on the occasion of Mahatma Gandhi's death anniversary. The topic of the dialogue was Trusteeship, a Gandhian ideal and how it needs to be looked at as a basis for addressing problems related to environmental distress and income disparities
Courtesy: Wikimedia Commons
The P5+1 negotiations with Iran, mostly a Washington-Tehran affair, may be a means to a complex and ambitious end: a new strategic and energy equation in Southwest Asia. U.S. President Barack Obama’s recent State of the Union address indicates that to reach this goal, the U.S. is steering away from war to diplomacy
Courtesy: Pete Souza/Flickr
U.S. President Barack Obama's fifth State of the Union address where he set out America's social and economic agenda fails to take into account certain realities. Hal Bergold blogs
Courtesy: Prime Minister's Office
The India-ASEAN Free Trade Agreement in services and trade will allow India to leverage its competitive offerings in IT, finance, among other fields. But the pact has proved elusive so far due to the open squabbling between ministries. The deal now looks set to come through only after the new government takes over
Courtesy: Arsen.Shnurkov/Wikimedia Commons
At the just-concluded African Union Summit in Ethiopia, speakers discussed the urgent need to focus on agriculture – which remains central to the African economies – by increasing investments and productivity. The summit was a time for reflection on the state of a sector that can transform the continent
Courtesy: Press Information Bureau
With intra-regional trade at a low 4.23%, South Asia is the ‘least integrated region in the world.’ At the recent fifth SAARC Conclave in New Delhi, officials spoke about the need for better integration. But this is only possible if problems such as political differences and inadequate connectivity are addressed
Courtesy: vm2827 / Flickr
By calling himself an anarchist, Arvind Kejriwal has started a debate among supporters who equate anarchy with a potential breakdown of law and order. But anarchist philosophers believe that the basis of society is self-governing individuals and not a dominating ruler – an idea similar to Mahatma Gandhi’s ‘swaraj’
Courtesy: Prasar Bharati
News channels like China’s CCTV, Russia Today and Al-Jazeera have become definitive voices for their nations and for international views. It is the right time for Doordarshan, a late entrant to electronic media-driven influence, to showcase India’s growing global ties and the success of its democracy to the world
Courtesy: Ministry of External Affairs, India
Japan’s reaching out to India, as demonstrated by the upcoming visit of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, reflects the urgency with which Japan sees the threat of a rising China. India too has experienced Chinese aggression and must work with other democracies towards creating a multi-polar Asia
Courtesy: Gobierno de Chile/Wikimedia Commons
Can India integrate more fully into the global economy and energise its trade by joining the Trans-Pacific Partnership? Or will negotiating an entry require significant concessions, not necessarily in India’s interests? These outcomes will depend on how TPP framework itself develops – inclusively or exclusively