By EMILY SCHAUER Indian finance minister Arun Jaitley recently made a trip to the US in an effort to maintain ties with the US and drum up foreign investments. Seeking to increase the flow of American investment to India, Jaitley highlighted several improvements in India that boost investment appeal. Specifically, he cited improvements in […]
India reclaims its most relaxing export
By EMILY SCHAUER Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has successfully lobbied the United Nations to adopt an International Day of Yoga, which will debut on June 21, 2015, tying the now-international physical, mental and spiritual practice back to its Indian origins. Yoga is a practice heartily embraced throughout the Western world as people – Americans […]
A War Between Two Worlds
By George Friedman The murders of cartoonists who made fun of Islam and of Jews shopping for their Sabbath meals by Islamists in Paris last week have galvanized the world. A galvanized world is always dangerous. Galvanized people can do careless things. It is in the extreme and emotion-laden moments that distance and coolness are […]
India foils suspected terror bid by Pakistan
Four suspected terrorists from Pakistan, who were supposedly sailing in a fishing boat in the direction of Gujarat in India, blew themselves up when intercepted by the Indian Coast Guard (ICG) on January 1, 2015 in the Arabian Sea, India’s defence ministry said in a statement on Friday. The ICG had warned the occupants of […]
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 […]