IDR Blog
I tied my turban myself
He walked into my Clinic – ramrod straight – a dignified elderly fit man. I knew immediately that he was from the Armed Forces – you can retire a man from the Armed Forces but you cannot take the Armed Forces culture out of the man. “Doc – I need bypass surgery“ he said in a no nonsense way. I went through his records. He had...
What is Modi’s strategic vision?
BJP’s Prime Ministerial candidate Narendra Modi is slowly uncovering his foreign policy vision. The other day while campaigning in Arunachal Pradesh he expressed his concerns over “Chinese assertiveness” and comforted the audiences that under no circumstances will China be allowed to grab the border state. China, interestingly, is one of...
China's maritime 'silk road' proposals are not as peaceful as they seem
China’s proposition of a maritime silk route connecting the Pacific and Indian oceans is part of its propaganda drive to convince the world about its peaceful rise. Its actions do not match its protestations, but that does not deter China from proclaiming that its rise will be free from clashes, unlike in the past when rising powers challenged...
Islamic Emirate of Pakistan
In her essay, ‘Islamisation of Jinnah’ (Newsline, Pakistan, February 2014), Ayesha Siddiqa described Pakistan as ‘a hybrid-theocracy in which there are limited visible spaces where Islamic Sharia is formally implemented along with a depleted number of liberals and liberal space, but with a larger space in which religious laws and norms...
1975 Bangladesh coup: What India knew
U.S. officials believed that given New Delhi’s intelligence resources, the “general coup plotting over the last eight months was certainly known to” the Indian government. Samar Sen, Indian high commissioner to Bangladesh when the new nation’s founding president was assassinated, disputed this notion. India’s foreign office, however,...