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AS DIVORCES by SMS in India increase, activists seem paralysed over political remedies in the run-up to next year’s election. Unilateral oral divorce – a provision of Muslim personal law – is being misused by judges (qazis) and scholars (ulemas)to appease men – while government looks on. Talaq allows men to sever the knot with...
Sponsoring salvation: India’s Hajj Subsidy debate

Sponsoring salvation: India’s Hajj Subsidy debate

The Supreme Court of India’s order to the Government to end its Hajj travel subsidy for Muslims within ten years has far-reaching implications. What matters more? – the life hereafter, or food on the table today? Although India has spent years mulling over the idea of ending the subsidy which...
India: People's movement marches to victory

India: People’s movement marches to victory

Recalling the spirit of Mahatma Gandhi, 50,000 mostly lower-caste Indians marched over 120 kilometers to secure a comprehensive government agreement on land reform. A ten point document in lieu of a promised National Land Reform Act was signed by India’s Minister of Rural Development Jairam Ramesh and movement leader P.V....
Afghanistan: The New Big Four

Afghanistan: The New Big Four

Afghanistan will become a serious challenge in the years to come. However, if approached with a serious commitment, Iran, China, India and Pakistan could serve as parts of a viable stabilizing force. As US troops in Afghanistan begin their pullout drill, countries in the region are lining up to fill...
Terrorism Down, But Not Out

Terrorism Down, But Not Out

Al-Qaeda is on the back foot, says Sunny Peter. But if the US eases up, other groups will soon step into its shoes. Almost ten years into a full-on war on terrorism in Afghanistan and al-Qaeda has been dispersed. Indeed, the United States is now confident enough that it has...
Blood in the Jungle: India’s War Within

Blood in the Jungle: India’s War Within

In recent years, left-wing extremism in India has spread like a cancer, exploiting the grievances of the poor and leaving a trail of killings that dwarf the chronic unrest in Kashmir. Government efforts to battle the extremism is hampered by India’s complex history of intellectually embracing the left’s advocacy of...
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UN General Assembly Vote on Palestine: Turning the tables on Israel & US

UN General Assembly Vote on Palestine: Turning the tables on Israel & US

It was a landmark vote on late Thursday (November 29) when the United Nations General Assembly overwhelmingly choose to stand by the Palestine people – in their struggle for sovereignty and self-determination. On that day, the UN General Assembly voted to make Palestine a non-member observer state, accepting in de-facto, its status as an independent...
Indian Ocean Region: Hedging against Chinese expansionism

Indian Ocean Region: Hedging against Chinese expansionism

Amid the euphoria of what will be an historic movement for the Palestine struggle for recognition by the UN, was a news item in the Times of India that grasped for attention. It was the news of a new troika building up around the Indian Ocean. It is indeed a first step towards a trilateral...
Mali: Calling for global action, now and beyond

Mali: Calling for global action, now and beyond

Mali is another example of a separatist movement aided and abetted by an Islamist group – going wrong. Formed in October 2011, the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA) sought to represent the nationalistic aspirations for the Tuareg people in northern Mali. The Tuareg’s are a Berber people, traditionally nomadic and principal inhabitants...
China and its Territorial Disputes: An irritant in Asia's front yard

China and its Territorial Disputes: An irritant in Asia’s front yard

China has a rather inimitable style of irritating its neighbours. They brush you by the side and then glance sideways as if nothing really happened. You stare back at them and they turn around to scowl. It seems to be a 21st century country stuck in an 18th or 19th century mentality –browbeating its neighbours....
South China Sea Crisis: Risking “Asia’s Palestine”

South China Sea Crisis: Risking “Asia’s Palestine”

Amid growing tension between China and other countries in the region over territorial dispute in the South China Sea, the outgoing ASEAN Secretary-General Surin Pitsuwan warned that the dispute would turn the region into “Asia’s Palestine”. Pitsuwan said this in an interview with Financial Times published on November 27, 2012. Coming as it is from...
Mumbai 26/11: Among the dead, we feast!

Mumbai 26/11: Among the dead, we feast!

Terrorist attacks threaten to polarise our already fragmented society. But more dangerously the attitude of the powers that be succeeds in dispiriting us as a nation.
Aam Aadmi Party: A New Leaf in Indian Democracy

Aam Aadmi Party: A New Leaf in Indian Democracy

On November 24, a new leaf was added to India’s political system. The creation of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) by anti-corruption campaigner Arvind Kejriwal and his associates must be seen as a landmark in Indian history. In the coming days as people debate about this new creation – its ethics and aspirations – there...
Egypt: Another tryst with turmoil

Egypt: Another tryst with turmoil

Egypt is in the throes of yet another political crisis; one that threatens to further polarise an already fragmented nation as it painstaking steers itself through the protracted process of constitutional reforms. By an executive decree issued on November 22, Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi ruled that his decisions since assuming office will not be subject...
Power Play in Congo: When will the guns fall silent?

Power Play in Congo: When will the guns fall silent?

As the world focused its attention on bringing peace to the Gaza strip, a rebel group is threatening to overrun Congo in a conflict that has already displaced about 500,000 people since it began in April 2012. On Tuesday (November 20) the rebel M23 fighters captured the strategic city of Goma in Congo’s mineral rich...
Ajmal Kasab: Wish his death could bring us Peace!

Ajmal Kasab: Wish his death could bring us Peace!

Death brings peace; but to the person who dies; not for those left behind, for they shall live in the continuing grief of having lost their loved ones. The execution of Ajmal Kasab the lone terrorist caught in November 2008 will definitely bring a sense of closure for India as a nation. But for the...
Middle East: Peace in the shadow of War

Middle East: Peace in the shadow of War

In a post-cold war world, the crisis in the Middle-East (West Asia from this part of the world) is the one issue potent enough to polarize opinion across in the world and threaten world peace. Here territorial conflict most often, if not always gets driven to religious interpretation. A breeding ground for fundamentalist thought and...
China basking in ASEAN disunity

China basking in ASEAN disunity

At the ASEAN Summit on Monday (November 19), the fault lines of unity in east Asia lay bare as Philippines publicly disagreed with Cambodia over discussing the vexing territorial claims in South China Sea by China that overlap those of several Southeast Asian countries and Taiwan. Whereas, Japan and other south East Asian countries which...