Politics
Politics
Fair Observer's analysis of political issues, events and trends and their national, regional and international consequences.
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Gandhi dynasty / India / Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act / Manmohan / Narendra Modi / Politics / Politics / Rahul / Focus Article / BRIC / AsiaBy Mayank SinghRahul Gandhi’s façade as a Prime Ministerial aspirant is disintegrating rapidly. His first public speaking foray in nearly a decade of political life only served to lay bare his inadequacies as a leader. In spite of the bravado exhibited by sycophants, Rahul, in his speech at the Confederation of Indian Industries (CII) meet, displayed an amazing ignorance regarding the international and domestic issues confronting India. Scion of the Nehru –Gandhi dynasty which has ruled India for a major period since its independence, Rahul is considered a prime minister-in-waiting by loyalists. In 2004, Rahul’s mother and United Progressive Alliance (UPA) chairperson, Sonia...
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360° Analysis / Family / Gandhi dynasty / India / Indira Gandhi / Politics / Rahul / Sonia Gandhi / Global Change / Global Security / AsiaBy Saroj ChadhaEvents come and events go. Some events are more talked about before they take place while others give the luxury of discussion in hindsight. Rahul Gandhi’s speech at Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) falls in the later category. Did the speech and Gandhi scion leave a positive impact on industry captains? Did he renew confidence and optimism in an otherwise dull and gloomy industrial environment prevailing in India? Was there some hint of a road map that he visualized for the nation to get the economy back on its feet? There are many such questions that need urgent answers. The consensus is that he failed to deliver any answers or specific measures that the industry would expect...
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360° Analysis / Belarus / Media Freedom / Politics / Turkmenistan / Uzbekistan / Europe / BRIC / Arts & CultureMore than two decades after the fall of the USSR many of its former republics failed to establish a democratic and open media landscape, ranking among the worst in media freedom indexes. At a Minsk café on a blustery day just before New Year’s in 2010, Franak Viačorka hesitated before switching on his phone. The former journalism student was on the run from the Belarusian authorities for organizing and blogging on antigovernment demonstrations that erupted after the disputed December 19 presidential vote that saw the reelection of the man who had occupied the seat for the previous 16 years, President Aleksandr Lukashenko. Viačorka called his father on Skype via his cell phone...
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360° Analysis / India / Politics / Rape / sexual violence / Social Attitudes / BRIC / Arts & Culture / AsiaThe recent public outcry against the treatment of women in India is a song we’ve heard too many times before. Karl Marx once famously said that history repeats itself “first as tragedy, then as farce”. The gang-rape atrocity of a 23-year old woman in Delhi on 16 December 2012 for the most part appears nothing but a “tragedy”. The brutality of the incident in Delhi and the public mourning of that woman’s tragic death has set Indian society on a path on introspection of the treatment of women and on a mission to change the country’s legal system’s inefficacy in reporting and prosecuting sex attacks. The uncomfortable truth for India and Delhi,...
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360° Analysis / Abuja Inquirer / African Independent Television (AIT) / Insider Weekly / Nigeria / Politics / SSS / Arts & Culture / AfricaThirteen years have passed since democratic rule was installed in Nigeria. However, the country is still struggling to establish one core democratic value: media freedom. Change or Continuity? “In 13 years of democratic rule, the culture of democracy is still far from taking firm root in Nigeria. Its tenets are breached with sickening regularity….” “Since the return of democratic rule in 1999, the Nigeria police have scarcely shown that it is willing to play by the rules of democratic norms. It still applies bare-knuckle tactics where it is not called for.” The above words are those of editorial commentaries of the Guardian Nigeria and ThisDay, Nigeria’s...
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360° Analysis / Ambassador Mulford / defense / India / Indo-US Relations / military / Politics / United States / BRIC / Global SecurityIn March 2012, a letter written by then Indian Army Chief Gen VK Singh to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh listing out major deficiencies in the Army found its way in the media creating a flutter in the establishment and showing up starkly, the ‘hollowness’ that existed in the Army. “The state of the major (fighting) arms i.e. mechanised forces, artillery, air defence, infantry and special forces, as well as the engineers and signals, is indeed alarming,” DNA newspaper reported the General writing to the Prime Minister. The army’s entire tank fleet is “devoid of critical ammunition to defeat enemy tanks,” while the air defence system is “97%...
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360° Analysis / Angola / Benin / Egypt / Ghana / Iran / Lebanon / Libya / Nigeria / Politics / Sputh Africa / Syria / Tunisia / Village revolutions / AfricaGeorge Ayittey, president of the Free Africa Foundation compares the Arab Spring with Africa's village revolutions in the 1990s and explains what is needed to make democracy sustainable. After the Arab Spring erupted in North Africa in the spring of 2011, there was widespread speculation that it would spread to sub-Saharan Africa. Indeed, the unrest in the Arab world sparked sporadic street protests in Angola, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Sudan and several other African countries. But they quickly fizzled — thanks to brutal crackdowns by security forces. Actually, sub-Saharan Africa’s “Village Revolutions” in the early 1990s pre-dates the Arab Spring...
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Ever since the Arab Spring in 2011 the reference to it leaping into Africa has had a constant analysis. Background Fourteen countries have been included in the Arab Spring and seven are African ones. All the Arab Spring countries, as well as sharing a cultural significance, share a history of decolonisation from, predominantly, European occupiers at different stages in their histories. Most of these countries also fall into what is known as MENA (Middle East and North Africa) a region that has oil-rich economies that consist of 60 percent of the world’s oil reserves. The North African countries, unlike the Middle Eastern ones, were affected by a different type of colonialism and...
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360° Analysis / Al Jazeera / Arab Spring / Arab Uprisings / Egypt / Islamism / Libya / Media / Morsi / Politics / Syria / Middle East / AfricaAbul-Hasanat Siddique and Casper Wuite, co-authors of The Arab Uprisings: An Introduction, talk about the political unrest in the Middle East, the Syrian Civil War, the globalisation of media, and the future prospects for the region. [Note: This article was cross-posted with Foreign Policy Blogs.] Is the unrest in the Middle East and North Africa home-grown or a Western-sponsored revolution for change? Abul-Hasanat Siddique: Home-grown. Seeing the uprisings in the region as Western-sponsored "revolutions" is far from reality. Firstly, that view sees the populations in the region as passive recipients. It also negates the Arab people, particularly its youth populations,...