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Fact 1: The June 3, 1947, partition plan announced by the British government and its 1947 Indian Independence Act pertained only to the directly-administered British provinces and other territories. Note that there were 565 princely states that covered 40% of the area of pre-independent India...
In a regional environment where the slightest miscalculated move on one side can trigger an equally miscalculated reaction from the other, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s actions on August 5 over Jammu and Kashmir are simply bizarre. Article 370 of the Indian Constitution had...
India has taken a decision on Jammu and Kashmir, putting the hotspot region back in the news. The recently re-elected Modi government scrapped the temporary special provisions for the Indian state and reorganized it as a Delhi-administered territory. The move is a fundamental paradigm shift in...
People around the world, including Americans, have argued that the world can get along without US leadership. Today, they may want to scan the global landscape. While acute crises and violent conflict may not seem imminent at the moment, the view isn’t a hopeful one. For Americans, naively...
In May, Narendra Modi was re-elected as the prime minister of India in a landslide victory. India’s foreign policy became a salient issue during these elections due to the regional tensions with Pakistan. Beyond its immediate regional priorities, the Modi government has explicitly articulated a...
On August 5, the press around the world noted that India had ended special status for Jammu and Kashmir. The media in the Muslim world such as Dawn and Al Jazeera shone the light only on Kashmir. So did the BBC and The New York Times. This is understandable. Given that India and Pakistan are both...
Despite being a key contributor to rebuilding Afghanistan, India was elbowed out from the four-party meeting held in Beijing in July to advance the Afghan peace process. Earlier talks with the Taliban in Doha and Moscow already hinted at the sidelining of New Delhi from future peacebuilding...
The medieval Italian philosopher Marsilio Ficino thought of history “as necessary for the life of mankind, not only to make it more agreeable, but to found it upon tradition." He added: "What is in itself mortal, through history attains immortality; what is absent becomes present, what is ancient...
International business consultancy and accounting firms have reached an unchartered phase in the business life cycle. These behemoths of commerce, often tasked with keeping both public and private sector players in check, have now grown powerful enough to pose a threat to entire countries, if not...
In 2012, Ashweetha Shetty left a remote village in Tamil Nadu to join the Young India Fellowship, a one-year post-graduate diploma program at Ashoka University in the northern Indian state of Haryana. Shetty was the first among her family members to finish college, breaking many social barriers to...
The re-election of India’s Hindu right-wing government could put minorities at risk. India’s general elections were the most wide-ranging and possibly most expensive election campaign in the nation’s history. In emphatic style, Prime Minister Narendra Modi of the ruling Bharatiya Janata...
