NEW DELHI: China’s defence budget saw its smallest increase in recent times with its propagandists even touting it as a decline. Hogwash, says Prof. Srikanth Kondapalli of Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University. In an exclusive chat with StratNews Global, he said this is not a budget, only an allocation which could well go up. In his […]Read More
Was China surprised by 54 African nations backing the resolution for a probe into the pandemic? Probably not. They may have been informed quietly by some of their friends and well wishers on the continent. This could mark a turning point for African perceptions of China, until now grounded in Beijing’s lavish spending on infrastructure […]Read More
NEW DELHI: Terror groups are expendable to Pakistan once they have served their purpose, Amar Sinha, National Security Advisory Board member and India’s ex-envoy to Afghanistan tells StratNews Global Associate Editor Amitabh P. Revi. So, does the rise in ‘Islamic State’ activity in Afghanistan over the last three years signal that shift away from the […]Read More
Has the time come for India to change track on Taiwan? Until now it’s been bending over backwards to please China, with the result the flow of commerce and technology has been squeezed while also limiting South Block’s diplomatic leverage vis a vis Beijing. StratNews Global learns this may be changing. The idea is to unshackle […]Read More
Higher than the Himalayas, deeper than Indian Ocean. This philosophy of friendship between China and Pakistan manifests itself in various ways even under the most adverse circumstances. While the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) has slowed down considerably for lack of timely funds, military and intelligence cooperation between the two countries continues unabated. For instance, a […]Read More
China was making a not-so-subtle point when it installed a 5G base station on Mount Everest earlier this month. Cyber is among China’s “new domains of warfare” (others are biology, brain science, artificial intelligence etc) where the state is investing heavily. Through extensive use of cyber tools, China will seek to infiltrate, hack and undermine […]Read More
NEW DELHI: (Editor’s note: This interview was filmed prior to the COVID-19 pandemic and India’s worldwide repatriation of its citizens) India is in the first week of Mission Vande Bharat and Operation Samudra Setu, with 15,000 people expected to be brought home in the first wave. The second week from May 16 will see bigger […]Read More
India’s High Commissioner-designate to Sri Lanka Gopal Baglay landed in Colombo today. Unable to travel on a commercial flight since airlines stopped flying in and out of India immediately after the lockdown came into effect in the last week of March, Baglay flew on an IL-76 plane from Delhi to Colombo accompanying a load of […]Read More
NEW DELHI: Reading Pradip Baijal’s book Containing the China Onslaught brought forth one question: how did an official from the IAS with no experience of foreign policy (his claim to fame was telecom reform and public sector disinvestment), end up writing a book on China? Baijal answered that question at a discussion on his book […]Read More
NEW DELHI: Ever heard of Kim Pyong Il? If you haven’t, maybe it’s time you did. According to North Korea watcher Francesco Sisci, Pyong Il is Kim Jong Un’s uncle by virtue of being the younger half brother of the late Kim Jong Il. And just to reinforce the point, Jong Il is Jong Un’s […]Read More
NEW DELHI: It’s India’s least populous state but a strategic one that houses the Nathu La pass leading to Tibet. The kingdom wasn’t part of the hundreds of princely states in the sub-continent that merged with India in 1947 after Independence, thanks to the efforts of India’s first Home Minister Sardar Patel. But then Prime Minister […]Read More
The Bangladesh High Commission in Delhi has been hard at work trying to evacuate its citizens stranded by the Indian decision to suspend all international and regional flights, followed by the lockdown. Many Bangladeshis were here for medical treatment and thanks to the high commission’s efforts, many have returned home. A group of 164 Bangladshi […]Read More
In a hush-hush operation about which neither the Indian nor Bangladeshi authorities have confirmed or commented upon, yet another man involved in the killing of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and practically his entire family 45 years ago, is learnt to be in Bangladesh custody. Risaldar Moslehuddin is alleged to have fired at Sheikh Mujib at his […]Read More
New Delhi: Over a century ago, Armenian Christians in eastern Turkey were subjected to genocide and mass expulsion by the Ottoman Sultan Abdul Hamid. It is considered to be among the earliest examples of “ethnic cleansing”, with over one million Armenians killed. It is seen as the forerunner of the ethnic cleansing practiced by the […]Read More
NEW DELHI: When an Indian based in the UAE put out some Islamophobic tweets recently, it evoked outrage on Twitter in the Arab world. Princess Hend Al Qassimi, a member of the UAE royal family responded with a series of tweets, among them one which reminded the Indian that anyone who was “openly racist and […]Read More
NEW DELHI: Victories in battle generally carry more resonance than defeats but that’s the odd thing. Most Indians, even those of the current generation, know about India’s defeat in the 1962 war against China. But the Nathu-La/Cho La face off in 1967 evokes little response even though India came off better in those encounters. In […]Read More
NEW DELHI: The hanging of Capt. Majed, one of the conspirators in the assassination of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman in 1975, does not necessarily close the file. Key persons who took part in the assassination are still missing and the Bangladesh government would love to get its hand on them. In this edition of Talking Point, […]Read More
Zoom is doom! Therefore, India’s Cyber Coordination Centre of the Union Home Ministry has warned that the internet platform must not be used for official purposes. Zoom is based in San Jose, California but research by Citizen Lab of the University of Toronto turned up something disquieting. It said Zoom “appears to own three companies […]Read More
The Covid-19 pandemic battering the world has also led India to step up its diplomatic outreach not only to signal that it stands in solidarity with other nations but also to ensure that Indian nationals stranded abroad (which includes a large number of students) are taken care of well by their host nations. Possibe collaborations […]Read More
As key ministries like Health, Home, Finance, Commerce, External Affairs and even Defence work in close coordination with the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) in dealing with the ‘here and now’ fallout of the Chinese virus pandemic, another wing of the PMO — the National Security Council Secretariat (NSCS) — is peering into the uncertain future […]Read More
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