Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is testing limits of US and European support for Israel’s war on Gaza. Cracks in Western support have emerged not only because of the devastating human toll of Israel’s military campaign, including stepped-up attacks on hospitals and schools, but also due to differences on how Gaza would be governed once the guns fal...
The 30th APEC (Asian-Pacific Economic Cooperation) took place in San Francisco between 15 and 17 November, 2023. Of the Association’s 21 members – Australia; Brunei Darussalam; Canada; Chile; People’s Republic of China; Hong Kong, China; Indonesia; Japan; Republic of Korea; Malaysia; Mexico; New Zealand; Papua New Guinea; Peru; the Philippines; the Russian F...
A free and sovereign India means that the country should have its constitution framed by its people was a specific demand of the leaders of the Indian Freedom Struggle. The British and other Europeans believed that Indians were not capable of framing laws to govern themselves. In 1946, when the framing of a constitution of India began, the colonizers and the...
Jordan Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi said over the weekend [Nov 19-ed] that Arab countries won’t put boots on the ground in Gaza. His exact words were as follows: “Let me be very clear. I know speaking on behalf of Jordan but having discussed this issue with many, with almost all our brethren, there’ll be no Arab troops going to Gaza. None. We’re not going t...
“I hugged the olive tree. It was precious to me, so I hugged it. I felt like I was hugging my child. I’d raised the tree like my child. They attacked around 500 trees filled with olives. Each tree could have filled two sacks of olives. They destroyed my olive tree, but I grew them back. I tended them and they came back even better than before. Settlers will ...
On Sunday, 19 November, the extreme neoliberal Javier Milei won the run-off elections with 56% against 44% for the present Peronist (centre-left) Minister of Economy, Sergio Massa. This is more than a surprise. On 23 October, during the first-round vote, Massa had a 36% to 30% lead. Massa is an experienced economist and well-versed politician. Milei is neith...
State Minister Misganu Arga told the Ethiopian News Agency that “We have the right to be included in the Red Sea Council as most of our trade transactions are made and our ships pass through the Red Sea corridor. Any activities that are underway across this area might affect our interest. While other nations from far away are claiming interest in the area, a...
The political West has been trying to create a perpetual divide between East Slavs for centuries. Various European invaders were perfectly aware that Russia is too big of a bite at its full might, so splitting it up was always the first goal. This was the case from the times of Ancient Russia and the Medieval Kievan Rus’ to the modern-day USSR and Russian Fe...
The global systemic transition to multipolarity, which predates the start of Russia’s special operation but was unprecedentedly accelerated by it, is leading to the emergence of new economic centers. The Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO) is among those poised to play such a role. Its latest annual summit was just held in the Uzbek capital of Tashkent a...
When US President Joe Biden insisted there could be no return to the status ante quo once the guns fall silent in Gaza, he revived debate about the viability of a two-state resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Yet, for all practical purposes, Hamas’ brutal October 7 attack against Israel and Israel’s more than month-long indiscriminate bombing...
The date of Karikāla Chola can be deduced by two means: (1) By the date of the poets who sang about him and (2) The date of the building of Kallaṇai. This dating is necessary to cross-check the date of Adi Shankara. The poets of his period were many and fortunately, they appear along with others in different combinations helping us to establish...
None of the Sangam Age texts on Karikala speak about this dam as the work of Karikala. The reason could be that it was probably the last deed done by him, much later in his life. There is also a likelihood that the dam project was not completed in his lifetime. The personal tragedy and the havoc created by the flood across the land leading to the loss of...
he Sangam text refers to Tiruvehka but not Varadaraja temple. This makes strange reading because today Varadaraja temple is more popular than Tiruvehka temple by size and the number of devotees visiting it. Why did the Sangam poet not make a mention of it? Was it because it was not popular then and was very small and insignificant? In this context it...
Karikala is remembered in Silappadhikaram for quite a few things of historical importance. He visited the ‘Kamakkottam’ – the original and olden name for Kanchi owing to Kamakshi, the presiding deity. There is a reference to Kanchi as Kamakosni in Srimad Bhagavatam, visited by Balarama, the brother of Krishna (kama-kosnim purim ka cim - 10-79-14). Kamakosni ...
The quest for establishing the date of Adi Shankara brings up an interesting information that a Chola king by name ‘Rajasena’ helped Adi Shankara in setting up three temples and in re-modelling Kanchipuram into two parts – as Shiva Kanchi and Vishnu Kanchi. Even today these names exist with an additional identity as Big Kanchi for Shiva Kanchi and Small...
If part of the Punjab government’s freebies had been allocated towards incentivising farmers, the state would have been able to curb stubble burning better. Delhi is close to Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh; stubble burning in these states impacts the entire National Capital Region. For the past several years, from September to December, air pollution due ...
On October 24, a statement by United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres caused a sharp reaction by Israel. While addressing the UN Security Council, the UN chief said that while he condemned in the strongest terms the massacre committed by Hamas on October 7, he wished to remind the world that it did not take place in a vacuum. He explained that one ...
Russian-US relations reached their lowest point since the Cuban Missile Crisis as a result of NATO’s proxy war on Russia through Ukraine, but the latest reports suggest that secret talks are taking place between them. NBC reported on 4 November that the West was pressuring Ukraine to recommence peace talks with Russia, which came almost exactly four months a...
According to Iran’s PressTV, the Iranian defense minister announced that the US “will be hit hard” if Israel’s war on Gaza does not halt. It is unclear why the defense minister’s target is the US and not Israel. By US he probably means US bases in Syria and Iraq. Add this puzzle to the growing collection. For example, if Iran and Hezbollah are behind Hamas’...
Crown Prince Mohamed bin Salman (MBS) of Saudi Arabia is between a rock and a hard place. The Kingdom remains dependent on the US for security, while the US is supporting and supplying the weapons for Israel’s slaughtering of Palestinian civilians. Added to the dilemma, is that MBS was very close to signing the accord with Israel, which is now on hold. On...
Gershon Baskin may be one of the few sane voices left on both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian divide. Mr. Baskin speaks with authority when he denounces the Israeli assault on Gaza as a war crime and Hamas for its brutal October 7 attack on Israel that killed 1,400, primarily civilian, Israelis. A hostage negotiator, former advisor to Israeli prime minister...
The Print published a detailed report on Monday about “Business deals, maritime corridors, govt securities – how India’s helping Russia use its surplus rupees”, which compiled all the mutually beneficial ways in which India proposed that Russia could invest its rupee stockpile. Foreign Minister Lavrov confirmed in early May that his country had accumulated a...
The stakes in the Gaza war for the United States and President Joe Biden could not be higher. For the United States, it’s the ability to garner support for its positions on multiple issues, among which the Ukraine war looms large. Mr. Biden’s bear hug approach towards Israel has sparked widespread allegations of hypocrisy and double standards. Neither the Un...
Objectively speaking, alternatives did exist. The first we might call inertial ad-hocism. Its features would have been the continued segmentation of the country’s external dealings into more-or-less discrete packets – geographical and functional. The Middle East’s two sub-categories: Israel and the Gulf; the desultory “War On Terror” wherever; the aggressive...
American foreign policy has set the country on a course destined to lead to a world of rivalry, strife and conflict into the foreseeable future. The United States has declared ‘war’ on China, on Russia, on whomever partners with them. That ‘war’ is comprehensive – diplomatic, financial, commercial, technological, cultural, ideological. It implicitly fuses a ...
Sri Satya Sai Baba’s Social Philosophy is premised on the Unity of Being which is expressed in three strands of Hinduism, the Vedic, the Upanishadic and Devotional. The Vedic strand expresses both the one Transcendent Being and the Immanent, the Upanishads express the unity of the Transcendent Brahman and the Immanent Being, Self. The Devotional expresses th...
Bharat or Bharatavarsha is the land south of Sagarmatha, forehead of the ocean and epithet for the tallest Himalayan peaks, and north of Hind Mahasagar (Indian Ocean). Bharatavarsha means the continent (‘varsha’, Sanskrit) dedicated to light (‘rata’) and wisdom (‘bha’).[1] Our Vedic Rishis devoted themselves to the quest for the eternal truth and ultimate re...
The Hamas October 7 attack on Israel was the opening gun of a plot devised by US neo-conservatives and Netanyahu to renew the US attack on Hezbollah’s suppliers in behalf of Greater Israel. Greater Israel is a Zionist belief that Israel comprises the territory from the Nile in Egypt to the Euphrates in Iraq. The purpose of 9/11 was to launch under the guise ...
Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim is in a bind. He is caught between public support for the Palestinians, and for Hamas in significant quarters, opponents painting him as a Western and Israeli lackey, and the need to not be seen as enabling a militant organization that brutally targets civilians. Protesters clad in keffiyeh, the distinctive Palestinian ...
A riotous crowd stormed the Makhachkala Airport in Russia’s autonomous Republic of Dagestan on Sunday night and even reached the tarmac after falling under the influence of online rumours alleging that an inbound flight carrying Jewish refugees was expected to arrive from Tel Aviv. They acted as if they wanted to protest in support of Palestine amidst the la...