The EU has leveled sanctions against Russia for – among other things – “meddling” in Libya’s ongoing civil war. AFP in its article, “EU sanctions senior Putin aides over Navalny, Libya,” would claim: “The EU said Wagner had committed “multiple and repeated breaches” of a UN arms embargo on Libya, where Russia has backed warlord Khalifa Haftar in his uprising...
It is everybody’s knowledge that Rama belonged to the Ikshvaku race who ruled from Ayodhya located in north east India. But a reading of Valmiki Ramayana reveals that someone identified as Rama’s ancestors once lived in North West India, long before Rama’s times, in a region that bears close resemblance to Swat region of Afghanistan. Fortunately,...
Kartik Purnima, the day of full moon in the month of Kartik, is an important occasion in the Somnath temple in Saurashtra. The very name Somnath evokes strong emotions in Hindus for the numerous assaults struck on Somnath temple in the past. But what many had forgotten in the din is the silent sojourn of Soma, the Moon, across the temple of Somnath on every ...
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is set to boost efforts by the world’s largest Muslim movement to recontextualize Islam during a forthcoming visit to Indonesia as part of a three-nation Asian tour. The tour is likely to be the secretary’s last official trip prior to next month’s US presidential election. Mr. Pompeo’s engagement with Nahdlatul Ulama,...
In addition to the United States and Qatar’s active development of relations and cooperation, observers’ attention is drawn to the growing ties between Qatar and Turkey, which are perceived ambiguously in the region. Today, Turkey and Qatar are militarily, intellectually and ideologically intertwined. A security cooperation agreement signed in 2014 led to a ...
Russians are amazed by the waves of madness washing over the United States. The recent riots, looting, destruction of memorials, hardball election politics and rumours of impending civil war do not fit the US image in Russian eyes. A Latin American country, say, Colombia or Guatemala, perhaps, but not the United States. The country they admired so much is no...
Secular means not connected with spiritual or religious matters. The Cambridge dictionary defines secularism the belief that religion should not be involved with the ordinary social and political activities of a country. How far is this true in India and the world at large? Sanatana Dharma is possibly the only civilisation that has exhortations like Vasudeva...
The French Revolution was not triggered by royal abuse. The French did not think they would overthrow the monarchy. It was the Parisians, convinced that the capital would be attacked by foreign armies and that the king would not defend it, who seized the weapons that were stored in the Bastille prison. * Historically, the crisis of the West began with the ...
In the Karabakh War, contemporary law is contradictory depending on whether it is interpreted in terms of ownership of the territory or the self-determination of the people. Taking advantage of this equivocation, the Turkish people (i.e., both Turkey and Azerbaijan) have just attacked this territory, self-proclaimed independent (Artsakh) although de facto li...
Vaali vadham had been a controversial one that had invited a number of interpretations for ages. But many interpretations had failed to justify the way Rama killed Vali. But Rama as perfect embodiment of Dharma can never be wrong. He can never be thought to have slipped from dharma at any time in Ramavadhara. Even otherwise as Brahman, He cannot be said ...
Symbolism is in fact the message given by Scriptures and Ithihasas. It starts right from the Vedas. Rig Veda is full of connotations that can be deciphered only by enlightened minds. To an ordinary reader they would look like abstract thoughts sprung from mystic minds. But that they are not so is what all the later works starting from Upanishads...
The world began its countdown to the most dramatic event of this dramatic year, to the US Presidential elections. Will Trump make it? Will this great orange man who beat Coronavirus and came back from the clutches of death manage to beat Sleepy Joe and his multitudes? Or will the Dems take us all into the night of eternal lockdown, where heavily armed...
Censorship in the West flourishes as tech giants turn social media back into traditional programmed media. The United States, United Kingdom and the European Union are fond of passing judgement on nations around the globe regarding “free speech.” While it is increasingly clear to a growing number of people that this “concern” is disingenuous and aimed at...
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan didn’t mince his words at this month’s opening of parliament. In his first assertion of a claim to a lost non-Turkic part of the Ottoman empire, Mr. Erdoğan declared that Jerusalem is Turkish. “In this city, which we had to leave in tears during the First World War, it is still possible to come across traces of the Otto...
The normalization of relations between countries in the Arab world and Israel is an extraordinary event, and therefore signing the peace agreements with the UAE and Bahrain – in Washington under Donald Trump’s hawk-eyed gaze – caused a flurry of comments, analytical articles, reports, and just plain speculation. But there is something that all these material...
Despite the fact that agriculture has been developed for many thousands of years, humanity is still forced to get some of the food it consumes from the wild. For example, a significant portion of people’s diet worldwide is comprised of fish from oceans and rivers. The chief consumer of fish and seafood nowadays is China. For example, in 2015 the Celestial Em...
Over recent weeks a series of events in the states surrounding the Russian Federation has erupted that certainly are not being greeted with joy in the Kremlin. Each crisis center of itself is not a definitive game-changer for future Russian security. Taken together they suggest something far more ominous is unfolding against Moscow. A recent RAND study prepa...
Despite the fact that there are no messages that would cause any alarm from Libyan media outlets in recent days, the situation in this country is still far from normal, but rather has only taken a temporary (and alarming) pause. According to reports from Libya Al Ahrar TV channel, the split in Tripoli has become even more pronounced due to the talks being ...
On Saturday, October 3, 2020, Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the Atal Tunnel. It holds huge strategic and social significance for the country and specifically for Himachal Pradesh and the Union Territory of Ladakh. The Atal Tunnel will reduce the road journey from Manali to Lahaul-Spiti and onwards to Ladakh by at least four to five hours. More imp...
Public opinion polling in the Arab world suggests that autocratic leaders like Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and his UAE counterpart, Mohammed bin Zayed, have gotten some things right. Both men have to varying degrees replaced religion with nationalism as the ideology legitimizing their rule and sought to ensure that countries in the region broadly ...