Courtesy: The New York Times
After 9/11, the threats to America are right where they were 20 years ago: still in Afghanistan, and now backed by the strength of a state. What happened to America, that “shining city on a hill” that beckoned brightness to its shores and won allies? Some self-delusion, a belief that it was still the global monarch after World War II and the inability to distinguish between friends and foes.
Courtesy: Press Information Bureau, Government of India
India hosted the 13th BRICS summit on September 9, celebrating 15 years of the multilateral. The leaders committed to fighting terrorism and reforming multilateral organisations, among other diverse aspects. However, the grouping clearly needs better implementation strategies if the agreements reached, are to be truly successful.
Courtesy: U.S. Air Force
The withdrawal of U.S. and NATO troops from Afghanistan is not the first time that a hasty and messy departure of foreign forced has taken place. History is replete with examples of imperial powers suddenly leaving countries that they secured for years, without ensuring a peaceful transition of power. The sub-continent has now seen it twice, the last time was in 1947, when the British preponed their withdrawal from India, hastily partitioning the country and leaving a region at war with itself. Ambassador Neelam Deo, co-founder, Gateway House, explains why and how this happens.
Courtesy: Shutterstock
The simultaneous rise of India's tech unicorns with the unexpected crackdown by China on its star tech players, is an interesting study. India will certainly be a beneficiary of China's move, which is likely to scare foreign capital away. There's plenty on offer in India, with nearly 60 IPOs scheduled for a 2021 listing.
Courtesy: Twitter | @sugawitter
Suga Yoshihide was Japan’s stop gap Prime Minister to cover the sudden exit of the long-serving Abe Shinzo. He didn’t rock the boat, carried out the Abe agendas including on the Indo-Pacific, the US, China, India. He managed COVID, and the difficult Olympics. Yet he lost his popularity. Blame it on political fault lines.
Courtesy: The Wall Street Journal
With the Taliban now ensconced in Kabul and being given legitimacy to represent Afghanistan, the worry for New Delhi is the Taliban-affiliated terrorist groups which are already looking eastward to India. This graphic shows the relationship between the terrorist groups in Afghanistan and their anti-India cousins.
Courtesy: BRICS Forum - India 2021
The 13th BRICS summit will be held virtually on 9 September 2021 and India is the host. The grouping has managed to hold its ground in an era of increasingly complex geopolitics. While immediate goals are important, in the longer term it must cooperate on counter terrorism, improve trade and work towards the Sustainable Development Goals.
Courtesy: Press Information Bureau, Government of India
As the private or autonomous space industry becomes more developed, an interesting phenomena is occurring. The public sector which runs space programmes has lagged behind, but also profits from the recent success of private space companies are limited to direct stakeholders. After a decade of private investment, it is worth assessing why countries like the U.S., Russia, China and India have pursued independence from government entities in space over the last decade.
Courtesy: Shutterstock
A new maritime law in China allows it to supervise all foreign vessels which appear in the country's "territorial waters" - many parts of which are internationally disputed. Nationalistic maritime actions such as China’s aggression in the South China Sea and Russia’s actions in the Black Sea, has revived international focus on maritime law. In this podcast, Dr Stefan Talmon, professor and co-director at the Institute of International Law, University of Bonn, interprets maritime law in the two hotly contested seas.
Group identifies areas of potential economic and technological cooperation between four like-minded democracies in the Indo-Pacific