Author: Editor

  • India, Pakistan exchange list of nuclear installations

    On the first day of the New Year, India and Pakistan exchanged the list of their nuclear installations under a bilateral treaty that bars the two countries from attacking each other’s atomic facilities. This is an annual practice in vogue since 1991 when the Agreement on the Prohibition of Attack against Nuclear installations was signed…

  • Abe wins re-election in Japan’s snap polls

    Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe got a shot in the arm with his ruling coalition winning a new two-thirds majority in the elections held on Sunday. The win, in which Abe’s Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) retained its majority in the House of Representatives, is seen as a referendum on his economic policy, known as Abenomics….

  • Climate deal clinched at Lima

    After two weeks of intense talks during the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Lima, Peru, delegates from 194 countries came to an agreement on how to tackle climate change. The deal – the “Lima call for climate action” – includes a framework for setting national pledges, which will be submitted to…

  • Russia to retain its position as India’s top defence supplier

    During his sixth visit to India on 11 December 2014, Russian President Vladimir Putin received an assurance from India that Russia would remain a top defence supplier for India. “Even as India’s options have increased today, Russia will remain our most important defence partner,” Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said in a statement after his…

  • The ticking nuclear bomb

    The threat of use, or misuse, of nuclear weapons is real and the consequences of such an event will be catastrophic, the Vienna Conference on the Humanitarian Impact of Nuclear Weapons warned. The two-day conference, which ended on December 9, 2014 in the Austrian capital, sought to draw global attention to the impact of nuclear…

  • Senate report puts CIA in the dock

    The interrogation methods used by the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) on detainees were ineffective, much harsher than previously revealed and often produced wrong information, according to the executive summary of a report de-classified by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence released on Tuesday. Only the 528-page summary has been de-classified. The full report of…

  • Obama names Ashton Carter as new defence secretary

    US President Barack Obama picked the man who described the US as “the single most important provider of security in the world” as the new defence secretary. The nomination of Ashton Carter as Pentagon Chief comes about a week after Obama reportedly pressured former defence secretary Chuck Hagel to resign. The Senate still needs to confirm…

  • Will India ever overtake China?

    Yes, says Goldman Sachs. And as early as 2016, by which time India’s economy is estimated to grow faster than China’s. According to the American investment bank, India’s gross domestic product (GDP) in 2016 will grow at the rate of 6.8 per cent, while China’s will be 6.7 per cent. If it indeed happens, it…

  • Chuck Hagel bears the burden of America’s disillusionment with Obama

    OPINION By EMILY SCHAUER Last week it was announced that Chuck Hagel submitted his resignation to President Obama. In the ensuing days, there was more speculation than fact rolling around the wires as America decided how it felt about this news. Since his announcement, there has been significant talk over why—and especially why now—Hagel is…

  • “Forward Together We Go”

    Text of speech delivered by US Trade Representative Michael Froman at the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry, New Delhi, on November 24, 2014.   “I’ve been coming here for the past 15 years, as a tourist, as a business person and as a government official, but this is my first trip to…