The Times has published a good piece on Grameen Bank founder Md. Yunus growing troubles. Columnist Nicholas Kristof wrote a piece some weeks ago on Grameen and, perhaps, due to his own work on women’s capabilities, he might have spread the word that this is a good story to follow. The Times piece does a […]
On 26th January 1950, India will be an independent country. What would happen to her independence?…What perturbs me greatly is the fact that not only India has once before lost her independence, but she lost it by the infidelity and treachery of some of her own people….This anxiety is deepened by the realisation of the […]
There has been much discussion in the Western media as to what effect Chinese President Hu Jingtao’s recent State visit to the U.S. will have on the future trajectory of Sino-U.S. relations, if any. Due to the fact the world economy has been in a slump, with the U.S. at it’s center struggling to recover, […]
Yesterday, India observed Republic Day, celebrating the 61st anniversary of the date its Constitution came into force. The chief guest at India’s first Republic Day on January 26, 1950 had been the then-Indonesian President Sukarno whom India’s Prime Minister at the time, Jawaharlal Nehru, supported during Indonesia’s struggle for freedom from the Netherlands. In 2011, […]
President Barack Obama delivered his second State of the Union Address on Tuesday. Foreign policy did not top the agenda. Instead, as expected, the speech was heavy on domestic policy–even as an important election has swung past American politics, there’s one just around the corner. Indeed, foreign policy seemed to have sprung up in President […]
Asia’s two most prominent regional bodies, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC), were formed with similar objectives that include accelerating economic growth, social progress and cultural development among their members. Despite being around for decades, both have been far from successful, while simultaneously proving unhelpful […]
Dear Readers, The South East Asian blog is back online! I am taking over from Faheem and Collin and am excited about the opportunity to blog about a very fascinating region of the world. You can learn more about me in the About the Author page to the right and especially note that I welcome […]
I had written quite critically on the charges that Grameen Bank founder Dr. Md. Yunus had engaged in accounting impropriety with development aid funds. Grameen Bank recently faced down allegations and was cleared of any wrong-doing. At the time I had written that this mishap provided an opportunity for stakeholders in the micro-finance industry to […]
According to a recent article by Charles Wallace, posted on the Daily Finance (Currency Wars: How Ben Bernanke Outsmarted China), the U.S. has already taken the first ‘shot’ of the U.S.-China – often proclaimed, never materializing – trade war. Mr. Wallace reported that Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke’s program of quantitative easing is targeting the Chinese […]
The Oxford English Dictionary defines “pogrom” as “an organized massacre of a particular ethnic group”. By this definition, although there have been hundreds of religious riots in independent India, there have been only two pogroms: that directed against Sikhs in Delhi in 1984, and that directed against the Muslims of south Gujarat in 2002. Ramachandra […]
As the United States is trying to fight terrorism in different parts of the world, including Afghanistan, Pakistan, Lebanon and Egypt, evidence suggests that agencies tasked with domestic security have overlooked key aspects of home-grown threats and their root causes. Recent examples of failed attempts to attack Americans were linked to international hot spots. In […]
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who is credited with facilitating India’s economic liberalization in 1991, is currently under pressure over concerns of price rise and increasing inflation. Thanks to the economic reforms of the 1990s a color television in India is much cheaper today than it was two decades ago. However, the cost of food items […]
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