The Vivekananda International Foundation (VIF) organized a Round Table Discussion to discuss India-Nepal relations on 7th November 2019. This everlasting friendship is now also being called a ‘strategic partnership’. This relationship was analysed, considering China factor, wherein India needs to balance out the pressure and leverage to Nepal. While India has been leveraging its neighbours, they have been using China card against them.

The Russian Institute for Strategic Studies (RISS), Moscow, hosted Vivekananda International Foundation (VIF) at Moscow on 24-25 September 2019, for a two-day Round Table Conference (RTD) on ‘Afghanistan Crisis and the Problems of its Settlement: Prospects of Russia-India Cooperation in Afghanistan;

… there is no tool for development more effective than the empowerment of women, no policy is more important in preventing conflict, or in achieving reconciliation after a conflict has ended .. international community must continue to provide the necessary funding and use its leverage to improve gender equality, women’s security, and their participation in public life. An isolated and neglected Afghanistan will only breed violent extremism, terrorism, and instability in the whole region …

This book edited by Mandy Sadan, Reader of History of South East Asia at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London, focuses on the ‘inter-war period’ (to borrow a terminology associated with conventional war), in that it studies the period of ceasefire between the Tatmadaw i.e. the Myanmar Army, and the Kachin Independence Organisation (KIO), from 1994 to 2011.