When India became independent we embarked on a very ambitious programme of nation building aimed at converting India into a modern State whose economy would be second to none. In 1902 Lt. Gen. Sir Adrian Carton de Wiart, then a young subaltern, st....
When the street rose against the entrenched regimes of Tunisia and Egypt and toppled them there was enthusiastic references to an “Arab Spring”. The nature of the political upsurge in these two countries was defined by western observers from thei....
Vladimir Putin’s clear victory in the Russian presidential election, garnering about 64 per cent of the votes — close to the 70 per cent he won in the 2004 election — suggests that his overall standing with the electorate at large has not been ....
By all accounts, the misplaced optimism of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on normalising relations with Pakistan appears to be rubbing off on some of his cabinet colleagues as well. The latest Indian cabinet minister to suffer from this affliction is ....
In any democratic society there is a social compact to which every member of society is a signatory and which is binding on everyone because it contains the social order which will govern that society. The opposite of a social compact is anarchy and....
As part of what could be described as an exercise in Track 1.5 diplomacy, Mr. Michel Miraillet, Director Strategic Affairs in France’s Ministry of Defence, held wide-ranging and intense interaction with the VIF’s battery of policy experts on Marc....
India unveiled its new pan-India Consumer Price Index (CPI) in February 2012. With the release of the index figures for January, it is possible to compute annual inflation rates based on the new all-India CPI. The headline inflation rate based on thi....
US policy towards Iran constitutes a big diplomatic headache for India. Iran cast a shadow even on the negotiations with the US on the nuclear deal. The US legislation enabling cooperation with India’s civilian nuclear sector gratuitously called fo....
It took everyone by surprise when the Nayak Committee, appointed to assess the menace of fake currency, estimated the total amount of fake currency in circulation in India at about Rs 1,69,000 crore as of 2000 (in other words, eight per million were....
It is understood that the India-Pakistan back channel talks have been reactivated and are underway. It may be recalled that this back channel was initiated at the beginning of the UPA regime in 2004 and was in operation all along until its disruption....