Politics

An international group of researchers, journalists and diplomats will study the impact of America’s first African American President. They will analyse the challenges facing the President and the significance of his policies. The AHRC Obama Research Network will also organise symposia and seminars and stage an international conference just after the next presidential election in 2012, and publish the results on a dedicated website. The events will take place at the universities of Edge Hill...

The Commonwealth Games in New Delhi will be an "appealing target" for Pakistan-based terror group Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) because of its political and economic significance for India, a top US counter-terrorism official has warned. The warning came at a time when India's Home Minister P Chidambaram informed the Prime Minister's Office in an internal mail that the Home Ministry would not take responsibility for any untoward incident during the event, sources told news portal rediff.com. "We are...

It has taken the UN three months to react to street demonstrations in Kashmir which have left over 100 people dead. UN secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Tuesday called for an immediate end to violence in Kashmir after recent deadly clashes there. “The Secretary-General regrets the latest loss of life,” his spokesperson Martin Nesirky told reporters. “He calls for an immediate end to violence and urges calm and restraint by all concerned.” The UN reaction came a day after an Indian all-party...

The amount of deals in the international arms market has dropped drastically in the aftermath of the financial crisis. A new report has concluded that the value of worldwide arms deals in 2009 was $57.5 billion, a drop of 8.5 percent from 2008. The major arms suppliers worldwide are the US, Russia and Germany, the three countries alone accounting for close to 60 percent of all deliveries. The figures come from a recent report of the Congressional Research Service (CRS), a division of the Library...

Nigeria's President Goodluck Jonathan has used his Facebook page to announce his candidacy for presidential elections next January, ending months of speculation over his intentions. He will make a formal declaration at a rally on Saturday. On Wednesday, he wrote on his Facebook page, "Today, I confirm that after wide and thorough consultations spanning the six geo-political zones that make up Nigeria, with members of my family, my party, the opposition, civil society, the Private Sector, members...

It's the kind of news item that tends to get buried under others of heavier national importance; for it hardly has any news value that any journalist worth one's salt would ascribe to it. This particular news item one read was about 36 former militants being appointed on Saturday as constables in the Jammu and Kashmir police. No big deal, that. In any case, nothing new about such a measure either. It is not the news item in itself that is a cause for worry – reading between its lines is, and...

Ten years is a numerically compulsive occasion for retrospection. Both for Javed, Teesta and their team, and for those well-wishers like us who have seen them wage a lonely battle since 1993. The introspection bit has to be done by the rest. Communalism Combat (CC) was born out of a need. Ground realities have not changed much since its birth – what has, are the electoral exigencies of those who stoke the communal cauldron. The need remains, and so long as this malaise is not weeded out, the...

The frantic air-dashes by Union home ministry officials to Assam is telling. The possibility of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence fishing in the troubled demographic waters of the state is not a mere bogey any more. What was an impending threat only a few years back is now a reality. What was a pernicious pathogen till yesterday, has today infected the host and spread to such an extent that its debilitating effects are already beginning to show. The days of crying wolf for politicians are...

The tragedy of the Naga political movement has been the annihilation of Nagas by Nagas themselves. The Nagas have remained cleaved along various schools of thought. Between radicals and moderates (from the killing of Theyieu Sakhrie to that of Kaito Sema) among the insurrectionists themselves. Also between those underground and those overground (from the killing of Imkongliba Ao to that of the Kevichusa brothers). And somewhere complicating all these delicate equations and rendering all...