Saudi efforts to negotiate an end to the Yemen war in a bid to open a dialogue with Iran could call into question continued Gulf support for US President Donald J. Trump’s maximum pressure campaign against the Islamic republic. Saudi officials hope that talks mediated by Oman and Britain between the kingdom and Houthi rebels will lead to a revival of stalled...
In Maharashtra, the Shiv Sena which fought the recent Assembly election jointly with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), broke ranks immediately thereafter and has now decided to go with the anti-Hindu Congress party and its adjunct, the grotesquely misnamed Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), on the whim of a self-appointed leader whose only goal is to see this...
The international press reports the events in Bolivia with caution. It describes the overthrow of President Evo Morales, evokes yet another coup d’état, but fails to identify what is really happening. It does not see the emergence of a new political force, hitherto unknown in Latin America. For Thierry Meyssan, if the continent’s religious authorities do not...
Mass anti-government protests in several Arab countries are turning into competitions to determine who has the longer breath, the protesters or the government. In Algeria, Lebanon and Iraq, countries in which the leader was either forced to resign or has agreed to step down, authorities appear to be dragging their feet on handovers of power or agreed transit...
Farmers’ bodies are concerned that the proposed draft Seeds Bill 2019 and Pesticide Management Bill 2019 could weaken farmers’ rights and increase corporate control over seed, as the definition of “farmer” has been tweaked to include traders and corporations as farmers. The original definition of farmer excluded any individual, company, trader or dealer who ...
He’s back. With a bang. Only two days after his release from a federal prison in Curitiba, southern Brazil, following a narrow 6×5 decision by the Supreme Court, former President Luis Inacio Lula da Silva delivered a fiery, 45-minute long speech in front of the Metal Workers Union in Sao Bernardo, outside of Sao Paulo, and drawing on his unparalleled politic...
For 18 years, we have been debating the strange evolution of the media, which seems to place less and less value on facts. We attribute this phenomenon to their democratization through social networks. It would be because from now on any person can become a journalist, that the quality of information would have collapsed. The right to speak should therefore ...
Of course, I have read the Saker’s article, “A few short comments about the Fascist coup in Bolivia”, posted on November 12, as well as most of the comments. However, the predominant assessment did not satisfy me. Considering that my knowledge of the situation in South America is quite rudimentary and that my ideas were not clear enough, I was not prepared t...
The Jawaharlal University is ideally situated to make a contribution by addressing some important problems like the water crisis and air pollution. Instead its students seem engaged in anarchic activities, in causes that serve the interests of anti-national forces like the Jihadis and Naxalites. It might lead to the university being shut down, leaving...
The recent visit to Srinagar in the recast Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir by European Union parliamentarians received disproportionate attention as the complete merger of the erstwhile kingdom of Jammu and Kashmir with India continues to rattle critics of the central government. Mercifully, Ladakh, which achieved its long-sought separation from J&K Sta...
Presidents Donald J. Trump and Recep Tayyip Erdogan had a plateful of thorny issues on their agenda when they met in the White House this week [November 14, 2019]. None of the issues, including Turkey’s recent invasion of northern Syria, its acquisition of a Russian anti-missile system and its close ties to Russia and Iran, appear to have been resolved durin...
Since the partition, the India-Pakistan relationship is marked by continuing mistrust, unresolved issues, broken promises and unending conflicts. In between, any thaw in this relationship is viewed with much excitement and hope in the country. But this time the opening of the Kartarpur Corridor between the two countries evoked mixed response. The reason for ...
Mahant Avaidyanath was prophetic when he said “Ayodhya mein Ram mandir ka nahi, Hindu rashtra ka shilanyas hua hain,” after Rajiv Gandhi allowed the foundation-laying ceremony to be performed at the Ram Janmabhoomi complex in late 1989. The last millennium opened with wanton destruction of Hindu temples at the hands of fanatic invaders. In a...
China is manoeuvring to avoid being sucked into the Middle East’s numerous disputes amid mounting debate in Beijing on whether the People’s Republic will be able to remain aloof yet ensure the safety and security of its mushrooming interests and sizeable Diaspora community. China’s challenge is starkest in the Gulf. It was compounded when US President Donald...
When former cricketer Imran Khan became Prime Minister in Pakistan, there was much jubilation in some Indian circles that there would be improved relations between India and Pakistan. One former Indian cricketer turned politician went so far as to ingratiate himself in public not only with Khan but also with the Pakistan Army Chief, General Bajwa. There were...
Lawyers have a very dubious reputation. Since the days of old, they were considered scumbags; advocates being shysters at best; judges as despotic tyrants at worst. Half a millennium ago, Maître Rabelais said: There is no cause so bad that it does not find itself an advocate, otherwise there would be no lawsuits in the world. Judges were considered even wors...
US Government regulators have approved a genetically modified cotton variety as a “potential solution to human hunger.” The radical decision is to permit consumption by humans, in addition to animals, of seeds of a GMO cotton developed at Texas A&M University, with no independent long-term testing. It opens grave new concerns about the safety of our food cha...
In the 1960s, scientists warned us about an approaching Ice Age. As this failed to catch the public imagination, the new clarion call was rebranded as Global Warming. Because the dire forecasts of cataclysmic oceanic rising and concomitant rising of Earth’s temperatures failed to materialise as predicted, precipitating derisive mirth within the more analytic...
A learned member of the five-judge Bench (not Constitution Bench) wisely collated the evidence regarding Sri Ram’s birthplace and appended it to the Supreme Court’s verdict of November 9, 2019, granting the disputed site to Ramlalla Virajman. The 116-page addendum highlights the Vishwa Hindu Parishad’s gigantic efforts to collect every scrap of evidence to...
The China government statistical agency just released economic data showing the poorest GDP growth in almost 30 years for China. The problem goes far deeper than recent effects of the US-China trade war or the impact of calamities such as African Swine Fever that have decimated the nation’s pig herds. The underlying far more serious problem is an emerging...
India refused to be part of its neighbourhood mega-trading bloc, Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), in in its present form as its demands were not met. That does not mean it has to forgo its Act East Policy. Joining a trade bloc is only one of the ways of fostering regional integration. India remains engaged with ASEAN and its other institut...
On October, 31, as the Diwali festivities culminated, our nation embarked on a historic and path breaking transformation. The state of Jammu and Kashmir emerged in a new Avatar as two Union Territories. The Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir comprises 22 districts including areas of Muzaffarabad and Mirpur. The Union Territory of Ladakh comprises two distr...
Protests in Lebanon have evolved into more than a fight against failed and corrupt government that has long stymied development in the Middle East and North Africa. The protests constitute a rare demand for political and social structures that emphasize national rather than ethnic or sectarian religious identities in a world in which civilizational leaders w...
Over the past century, the United Kingdom and then the United States have successively courted all states and faith groups in the Middle East. They have fuelled confessional conflicts in such a way as to make themselves indispensable, according to the old principle of “Divide and conquer”. President Trump was elected three years ago with the plan to end the...
An unfriendly relationship between Tehran and Moscow in the past years was to the benefit of the United States because Iran was the only deterrent that prevented Russia from getting a foothold in the Middle East, which would have threatened US interests in the region. However, recently the Russian Federation and the Islamic Republic of Iran have fostered clo...
On 31 October 1984, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was assassinated at her residence on Safdarjung Road, New Delhi, by her bodyguards, Satwant Singh and Beant Singh, who belonged to the Sikh community. The killing was in reaction to Operation Blue Star wherein Sikh militants were flushed out of Sri Harmandir Sahib, the most sacred shrine of the Sikhs. The badl...
BC stands for NEO’s Banned Classic. This article was originally published by our journal on 27.11.14. For some reason, this article is missing from Google search results. Since this article remains pretty relevant to those geopolitical events that are taking place on the geopolitical stage today, we deem it possible to present it to our readers once again. S...
It’s a time that only happens once or twice a century. A new world order is emerging. All previous references disappear. Those who were doomed to grieve triumph, while those who ruled are thrown into hell. The official statements and interpretations made by journalists clearly no longer correspond to the events that follow one another. Commentators must chan...
Most people are now aware that Pakistan has occupied areas it calls Azad Kashmir (occupied Jammu) and the districts of Gilgit and Baltistan (once called Northern Areas). However, few know that Pakistan is in illegal occupation of the northern districts of Gilgit-Baltistan because of a coup by British officer Major William Brown, who was in-charge of the nort...
Turkey’s ambassador to China, Emin Onen, didn’t mince his words this week [Oct. 23-Ed] when he took his Chinese hosts to task for failing to support Turkey’s military campaign against a Kurdish militia in Syria. Speaking in Turkish through a translator at a news conference at his Beijing embassy, Mr. Onen implicitly put China on the spot by calling on it to ...