The fundamental problem when supporting an anti-regime opposition is to ascertain the identity and purpose of the rebels. It is a question –which M.D. Nalapat discovers –is never asked by the United States, no stranger to shoring up rebels in far-off countries.

Frank Wisner, the legendary US diplomat who was not only President Barack Obama's special envoy to Egypt but also a former ambassador to India, discusses the outlook for Egypt, resolving the mayhem in the Middle East and India-Pakistan relations in a Gateway House exclusive.

What are the implications of the political unrest in the Middle East and North Africa on the global oil market?

As the young protesters in Libya struggle to rewrite the contract between the people and their rulers to make them more accountable, the world is reacting in predictable ways.

The voices of disillusioned, disenfranchised citizens found an outlet via social media culminating in the ouster of despots from Tunisia to Egypt. Srijith K Nair explains the catalyzing effect of social media in the Arab world.

As the Arab world reinvents itself in real time, the rest of the world must begin to understand the region as something more than a source for oil and a market for armaments and consumer goods.

In the last few months, South Asia has gone from being just a global security headache, to a region with new possibilities. Teresita C. Schaffer, former US ambassador to Sri Lanka, and Howard Schaffer, former US ambassador to Pakistan and Bangladesh, discuss the major challenges that confront the US in South Asia.

There are more than Western interests at play in Egypt. The other catalysts for the unrest are a combination of Iranian adventures, hypocritical policies of West Asian regimes and resurgent commodity speculation in western markets, triggering a rise in prices of basic items in emerging markets

The mass uprising consuming Egypt shows a country on the sidelines of the economic development that has been sweeping the world from Brazil to China to Vietnam.