"Safeguards, end to U.S. restrictions must be interlocking actions"
M.R. Srinivasan, member of the Atomic Energy Commission, spells out his worries about new conditions being imposed on India by the U.S. Congress in its draft law authorising the resumption of civilian nuclear cooperation. Excerpts from an interview:
M.R. Srinivasan: "If India as a de facto nuclear weapon state carries out a test under compulsions of ensuring...

It’s not about Pakistan’s reactor but US reaction
There’s no race to speak of between India and Pakistan in their capabilities to produce fissile material
The report released by a think tank in the US on Monday that Pakistan is building a new reactor was probably news only to the legislatures and the public of the three countries most immediately affected by the news: Pakistan, India and the US.

Spooked by a mole
To discuss dispassionately former Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh’s somewhat curious and shifting statements about there being a mole in the PMO during P.V. Narasimha Rao’s time, it is necessary first to grasp the nature of spying, the second oldest profession and just as honourable as the first.

Japan hints at 'tangible measures' against LTTE
Tokyo, July 24 (IANS) Fearing Sri Lanka is on the verge of a full-scale war, Japan is seriously considering taking "tangible measures" against the Tamil Tigers. But before that, Japan's special envoy to Sri Lanka, Yasushi Akashi, will travel to the island to see if Colombo and the Tigers can return to the negotiating table, somehow.

Japan urges India to play 'influential role' in Sri Lanka
Tokyo, July 25 (IANS) Japan's special envoy to Sri Lanka, Yasushi Akashi, has urged India to play a "more influential role" in the island nation's tottering peace process.

Text of Yasuhi Akashi's interview
Tokyo, July 25 (IANS) Following is the text of the interview given by Yasushi Akashi, Japan's special envoy to Sri Lanka, to IANS Deputy Editor M.R. Narayan Swamy:

Debate over armed forces is fine, but one should get facts right
The brouhaha created by the main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) over the possibility of two cadres of terror group Laskher-e-Taiba (LeT) having penetrated the Indian Air Force (IAF) only goes to prove what a former Indian army chief has effectively said: lay off the armed forces or get your facts straight.

Not by Musharraf alone
After the Mumbai blasts and the meandering investigations by the government, one thing stands out. India has no easy options in dealing with either of the twin challenges that confront the nation — terrorism and relations with Pakistan.

Blame it on the Third World
NEARLY HALF a century after decolonisation, there is still a tendency in the West to see the Third World as a bit of a white man's burden, though, mercifully, not in the way that once prompted the dispatch of "civilising" missions across the length and breadth of the Asian and African continents. Rather, the Third World is now seen to have mutated, as it were, into a "virus" that is threatening to "contaminate" the Western values of tolerance, good governance, and probity in public life. They call it the Third World "syndrome."

From medicine man to murderer
BACK IN the summer of 1985, a handful of bored residents of Mumbai's Mominpura slum gathered to hear an obscure cleric from West Bengal named Abu Masood promise vengeance against the Hindu fanatics who had unleashed a hideous wave of violence in the textile town of Bhiwandi.

India and the G8 circus
"I don't want to belong to any club that will accept me as a member," the American comedian, Groucho Marx, had said famously. And only half-facetiously.

Time to dump Musharraf?
After Mumbai, only a naif would believe that the India-Pakistan peace process will remain unaffected. A deliberate pause in bilateral talks at this moment might provide Prime Minister Manmohan Singh valuable time and space to reflect on the basic assumptions about his principal interlocutor, President Pervez Musharraf.

Along the Silk Road, a smoothing of tensions
BEIJING China and India reopened an ancient Himalayan border pass Thursday, symbolizing how burgeoning trade and warming political ties between the rising Asian giants are gradually eroding bitter historical enmities.

The Myth of the New India
INDIA is a roaring capitalist success story." So says the latest issue of Foreign Affairs; and last week many leading business executives and politicians in India celebrated as Lakshmi Mittal, the fifth richest man in the world, finally succeeded in his hostile takeover of the Luxembourgian steel company Arcelor. India's leading business newspaper, The Economic Times, summed up the general euphoria over the event in its regular feature, "The Global Indian Takeover": "For India, it is a harbinger of things to come — economic superstardom."

Afghanistan: A war Democrats can win
LONDON In 2003, the Bush administration left the war in Afghanistan unfinished and moved on to overthrow Saddam Hussein. This grand diversion of military, intelligence and diplomatic resources not only jeopardized success in Afghanistan but also initiated the collapse of international support and respect for the United States.

A time to kill, a time to regret
ON JUNE 26, 2006, an LTTE suicide bomber on a motorcycle killed Major General Parami Kulatunge, Deputy Chief of Staff of the Sri Lankan Army, and two of his aides in a suburb of Colombo. The General's car was burnt to cinders. Even as Sri Lanka's President Mahinda Rajapakse paid homage to him the next day, LTTE ideologue Anton Balasingham in an interview to an Indian TV channel was expressing half-hearted `regret' for another LTTE suicide killing — Rajiv Gandhi's assassination in May 1991. Describing it as "a great tragedy, a monumental, historical tragedy," he asked India to forgive and forget to build a new relationship with the LTTE. The grotesque juxtaposition of the two events aptly illustrates the LTTE's doublespeak. It always finds "a time to kill and a time to regret" at the same time.

Four years on, Sri Lanka is a messier story
New Delhi, July 4 (IANS) A deeply divided Sri Lanka, a bruised but visibly confident Tamil Tigers and escalating violence: this is what India is up against as it prepares to step up its diplomatic intervention in the island nation.

Act now! India tells Sri Lanka
New Delhi, July 5 (IANS) After some hesitation and much thinking, India has finally given Sri Lanka its most trenchant message since a peace process began four years ago: act now, politically, to keep the island nation united.

A deal between democracies
It’s become a cliche‚ to speak of the US-India relationship as a bond between the world’s oldest democracy and the world’s largest democracy. A cliche, but also a fact. Shared political values are the foundation for this relationship—but if that were the whole story, it wouldn’t have taken us six decades to get to where we are now.

Winners still in denial
Don’t obsess over the nuke deal’s text. Read it for the big idea on India As I worked the international seminar circuit in recent weeks travelling from Beijing to Washington and from Tokyo to Berlin to New York, there was one running headline and a big new idea.

Towards the endgame in Nepal
The sooner a U.N. mission is in place to monitor the arms of the Nepal Army and Maoist PLA, the smoother will be the transition towards an interim government and Constituent Assembly elections.

EVENTS IN Nepal have moved so rapidly these past few weeks that King Gyanendra's April proclamation restoring parliament seems to belong to another political universe.

"We have to reconstruct our society"
Afghanistan's Urban Development Minister on the challenges his country faces.
Mohammad Yusof Pashtun is the Minister for Urban Development of Afghanistan. He is an engineer, architect, and town planner by training. In 1982 he fled to Pakistan after he was released from jail and lived in Quetta. He returned to Afghanistan only to leave again in 1995 when the Taliban took over. After the war he returned once again and joined the Transitional Government.

Riding the Sri Lanka tiger
The recent suicide attack by a suspected LTTE member, which killed the Sri Lankan army deputy chief of staff, has put more pressure on India to become an active participant in the Sri Lankan peace process. The inexorable slide into a civil war highlights the failure of the Norwegian brokered talks of 2002 and the ineffectiveness of international mediation.

General View from US Changing
Pakistan's military regime might take comfort in the Bush administration’s support for reinstating the $ 300 million in U.S. aid cut by the American Congress due to Pakistan’s inadequate efforts for establishing democracy and respecting human rights.

Tigers make a new move, but stripes are the same
New Delhi, June 28 (IANS) The Sri Lankan Tamil Tigers' bid to shake hands with India and to invite it to play a greater role in the island's virtually dead peace process is another qualitative leap by a never-say-die insurgent outfit that remains irrevocably wedded to the cause of forming an independent Tamil Eelam state.

As Sri Lanka boils, India faces daunting challenges
New Delhi, June 25 (IANS) Four years after Norway brokered an unprecedented truce, India is battling major strategic and foreign policy challenges, with Sri Lanka seemingly sliding towards an inevitable war.

Bullish on Bangladesh
In spite of sporadic unrest, rampant corruption and a polarized political system that’s all but dysfunctional, Bangladesh finds itself in the midst of a sustained boom. The main drivers: surging export growth and a robust service sector
The headlines are grim. But they mask what is shaping up to be one of the world’s most amazing turnarounds.

‘If I don’t discharge my duties, who will?’
Pointing out that the Governor has been made the chairman of the Amarnath Shrine Board by the state, Lt Gen (Retd) S K Sinha says it is his job now to facilitate the yatra. The controversy was an unnecessary one, created by politicians, but it is over now. Excerpts from an interview with Muzamil Jaleel and Riyaz Wani

Will an Indian be the next U.N. chief?
EVER SINCE India went head-to-head against Japan for a non-permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council in 1996 and lost, official circles in New Delhi have had little appetite for standalone contests in international fora. Last year, when the country made a strong pitch for a permanent seat, it did so with the comforting security blanket of the G-4 firmly wrapped around it.

India as a rising global player
POLITICALLY RESONANT across East Asia is the idea that India, not just China, is a potential global player in almost all spheres.

‘Reports about arms sales from Pakistan are misleading’
In an interview with Padma Rao-Sundarji, chief of South Asia bureau, Der Spiegel, Sri Lankan Foreign Minister Mangala Samaraweera says India’s commitment to their sovereignty and integrity has been steadfast and should there be a bigger crisis, India will be there to help
• The peace process between Sri Lanka and the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), begun with Norwegian mediation in 2002, remains stalled, violence is the order of the day in the island-state, Scandinavian monitors warn that the ceasefire is now ‘but a piece of paper’. Even as the world urged the LTTE to return to peace talks, the EU on May 29 banned the LTTE. Clumsy timing?

The vote for India
India prides itself on having made democracy distinctively Indian. Can it now isolate and package its features for export?

It was a disorienting start to a conference on India. Deliberations on ‘The State of India’s Democracy’ at Indiana University in the small US town of Bloomington recently were kicked off by a lecture on democracy-building in Iraq.

EU, co-chairs can't halt Tamil Eelam goal
(NEWS ANALYSIS)
New Delhi, June 1 (IANS) Sri Lanka may be celebrating the European Union's ban on the Tamil Tigers and the co-chairs' warnings to further isolate them, but none of these is likely to halt the group's determination to achieve a Tamil Eelam state.

Karunanidhi defines Tamil Nadu role in Sri Lanka
New Delhi: In one stroke of a sentence, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Muthuvel Karunanidhi has made it clear that he has no intention of whipping up passions over violence in Sri Lanka or the refugee flow from that country to his state.

Nepal without strings
The Indian establishment’s familiarity with the visiting prime minister of Nepal, Girija Prasad Koirala, should not obscure a simple new reality. The ageing Koirala today represents a Nepal that is very different from the one we have known all these decades.

Ink the India Deal
The pact with New Delhi is too important to derail.
WILL AMERICA’S PARTNERSHIP WITH INDIA fall victim to politics? The Bush administration’s proposed agreement on civil nuclear cooperation with New Delhi--once predicted to win approval from Congress as early as June--is under a growing cloud. With the November midterm elections fast approaching, the legislative calendar crowded, and the White House weakened, the happy talk about a new relationship with India so much in evidence during President Bush’s trip to South Asia this spring has receded, leaving in its place the realization that we could be in for yet another long, hard slog.

EU ban is a huge blow to LTTE
New Delhi, May 30 (IANS) The European Union's decision to ban Sri Lanka's Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) is a body blow to an insurgent group that hates and detests nothing more than international isolation.

India yet to endorse UN role in Nepal
NEW DELHI, May 29: As the Government in Nepal prepares to invite the UN into the peace process with the Maoists, India is yet to make up its mind on the timing and the nature of the external involvement in the Himalayan nation. The 25-point code of conduct signed by the Government and the Maoists last Friday agreed to call upon the UN to monitor the ceasefire.

A quick step forward in Sino-Indian ties
As China and India grow in economic and strategic importance, what is needed is a genuine attempt towards mutual accommodation that would take into account shifting geopolitical power plays. The MoU signed on defence matters could be a sign of things to come.
THE COMPLEX courtship dance of Sino-Indian relations took a quick step forward on Monday with Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee signing an MoU with his Chinese counterpart General Cao Gangchuan in Beijing.

Northern Areas: a tale of neglect, denial?
New Delhi, May 29 (IANS) Rebellion and resentment that have been brewing among people of the Northern Areas, part of Pakistan-administered Kashmir, is fast reaching a crescendo against persecution by the Pakistani armed forces, the continuing denial of legal and political rights, and devious attempts at demographic engineering in this strategic region.
The area, which locals insist on calling Gilgit-Baltistan (the name Northern Areas reeks of colonial manipulation, according to them), is at the centre of a debate on self-rule and democratic governance in Jammu and Kashmir.

‘A Security Council without India cannot be legitimate’ In this article, exclusive to The Indian Express, the British Prime Minister argues that growing interdependence in the 21st century, brought on by globalisation, necessitates a change in the international institutional architecture
There is universal agreement now that that the characteristic of the modern world is interdependence. But we haven’t yet had time to think through its consequences or understood that the international rule book has been ripped up.

Defence diplomacy redefined
It isn’t often that India’s defence ministers make a mark on global diplomacy. But that’s precisely what Pranab Mukherjee is doing these days. In terms of both timing and substance, Mukherjee’s present trip to Asia marks a new phase in Delhi’s defence diplomacy. In a week that saw the US warn against the Chinese military build-up and at a moment when Sino-Japanese relations have touched rock bottom, Mukherjee has found time to travel to Tokyo and Beijing and expand the defence engagement with both.

In Pakistan, an unusual court ruling
The case of Neelam Ludhani sends out hope to women.
IT HAD all the elements of a mega TV serial — love, a runaway marriage, a first wife, parents with connections in high places, and to top it all, a religious divide and a courtroom drama.

Through the looking glass in J&K
New Delhi's dialogue with the All Parties Hurriyat Conference has reached an impasse. What could now lie ahead?
"NOW here, you see," said the Queen in Lewis Carroll's masterpiece, Through the Looking Glass, "it takes all the running you can do to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that."

Indian alert over possible Tiger infiltration
Chennai, May 29 (IANS) Even as Tamil civilians fleeing Sri Lanka are welcomed in Tamil Nadu, Indian authorities are worried about Tamil Tiger guerrillas taking advantage of the situation to sneak into the southern state.

India is a major partner and world power: French diplomat
New Delhi, May 28 (IANS) India is no longer trapped in florid clichés of Bollywood, spiritual nirvana and spices but is increasingly seen as "a major partner and power in the world," says Anne Vidal de la Blache, director of France's leading institute that trains diplomats.

India asked to send ship to fetch Sri Lankan refugees
Chennai, May 28 (IANS) A political leader in Tamil Nadu sympathetic to the Tamil Tigers has urged India to dispatch a ship to Sri Lanka to ferry hundreds of Tamil civilians he said were waiting to escape escalating violence in the island nation.

Norway wants Sri Lanka to show 'political maturity'
New Delhi, May 28 (IANS) Sri Lanka is likely to face intense international pressure to implement the pledges it made in Geneva if and when the European Union outlaws the Tamil Tigers.

Shadow of bin Laden irritates Pakistani village
CHITRAL, Pakistan This quiet mountain resort, better known for its polo games and mountain treks, has become the latest site of interest in the hunt for Osama bin Laden, much to the outrage and bemusement of its inhabitants.

Sri Lankan city's descent into chaos
TRINCOMALEE, Sri Lanka The bad blood, you could say, began with the Buddha.
Last May, in the dead of night, someone erected a giant white Buddha statue on a 1.5-meter-tall, or 5- foot-high, cement platform behind the main market here. What followed in this multi-ethnic, multifaith, perennially self-destructive city on the northeastern coast of Sri Lanka was a chain of anger and savagery.

Border crossings
India cannot refrain from greater intervention in Sri Lanka and Nepal
As a peace process takes shape in Nepal after the popular movement last month against an autocratic monarchy, another is coming under intense strain in Sri Lanka. Both these South Asian security challenges demand India’s deep involvement, including political and military steps, in assisting the former and preventing the collapse of the latter.

Righteousness, religion, and right-wing politics
"LONG LIVE Pakistan," chanted the hundreds of young men who, armed with axes and crowbars, had gathered to demolish Sabina Hamid Bulla's home in downtown Srinagar on May 5, "we want freedom!"

Dying to kill
The rise of the suicide bomber
APRIL was a bloody month in many countries. On April 22, a suicide bomber was killed but failed in his mission to blow up an Indian Air Force convoy in Kashmir. On April 25, a female suicide bomber disguised as a pregnant woman, blew herself up in front of the Sri Lankan army chief’s convoy, killing 10 and injuring 26 others including the army chief. Three suicide bombers killed 71 and wounded over 150 in an Iraqi Shia mosque.

India's defence establishment no more wary of debates
(NEWS ANALYSIS)
New Delhi, May 8 (IANS) To the general public, the recent candidness of Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee and Indian Army chief Gen. J.J. Singh on defence matters might have come as an eye opener. More than the remarks, their wide dissemination in the media is a pointer to the new openness in the armed forces in an age of televised wars and bodes well for the future.

Prabhakaran's pride: Or why he refused to meet Akashi
(COMMENTARY)
Tamil Tigers chief Velupillai Prabhakaran's curt refusal to meet Japan's special envoy Yasushi Akashi is a well thought out public snub that will not surprise those who have seen the Tigers grow from a ragtag group to be the world's most powerful insurgent outfit. Pride, dignity and self-respect are immensely important to Prabhakaran and closely linked to the struggle for Tamil Eelam, even if others consider the goal a mirage.

For Nepal & India, the road ahead is difficult
Among the hurdles: the parties' lack of confidence, as well as New Delhi's anxiety over the U.N. involvement in the disarmament of the Maoists and elections to a constituent assembly.
MOMENTOUS THOUGH the events and accomplishments of the past few weeks have been, the struggle for democracy in Nepal is perhaps entering its most difficult phase only now. As the country moves towards elections to a constituent assembly, the ingenuity and wisdom of not just the Nepalese political forces but also of India will be put to the test. The choices each makes will help to determine whether the `April Revolution' reaches its final destination or disappears in the quicksand of palace intrigue and political cowardice.

Deciphering Taliban's message to India
The greatest threat to India is the non-liberal ideology prevalent in Afghanistan. The killing on Sunday of K Suryanarayana, the Indian engineer, is a result of Islamic terrorism, in which Pakistan has also been involved for many years.

Taliban regrouping in Afghanistan
Kabul, May 1 (IANS) Four years after being ousted from power by the US-led coalition, the hardline Taliban militia is regrouping in eastern and southern Afghanistan and even finding support among locals. Lately, there has been a spate of skirmishes and attacks on the coalition forces and the Afghan government by the Taliban, the latest being the kidnapping and brutal murder of Indian telecom engineer K. Suryanarayana Sunday.

Why Afghanistan matters to India
New Delhi, April 30 (IANS) The brutal murder of another Indian engineer in Afghanistan has underlined India's high strategic and economic stakes in the reconstruction of the war-torn country that acts as a gateway to resource-rich Central Asia.

India watches Nepal Maoists with some concern
New Delhi, April 30 (IANS) With Nepal getting a new government, India is watching closely Kathmandu's overtures to Maoist guerrillas who remain a source of worry for New Delhi.

Whither Sri Lanka's peace process?
Will the situation spiral out of control or will it ultimately veer back to the path of negotiations? The international community could help determine what happens.
SRI LANKA's faltering peace process suffered another blow on April 25 when a woman suicide bomber of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) blew herself up inside the Army headquarters in Colombo. She failed in her mission to kill the Commander of the Sri Lanka Army, Sarath Fonseka, but what she did was to alter the nature of the engagement between the Sri Lankan state and the LTTE.

Who is afraid of peace with Pakistan?
There is no dishonour in exploring the flexibility and leeway provided in the Constitution to satisfy the demand for self-governance in Kashmir.
LAST MONDAY, voters in four Assembly constituencies of Jammu and Kashmir turned out in large numbers to exercise their franchise. The average turnout in the four by-elections is reported to be more than 50 per cent, highest since the insurgency broke out in the late 1980s, despite a boycott call by separatist outfits.

Now for a Constituent Assembly
Empowered through battle, a victorious people savour their moment.
WHAT NEPAL has witnessed over the past three weeks is a show of popular defiance unique in the world. Unlike the "velvet" and "colour" demonstrations in the former Soviet bloc countries which received so much moral and financial support from Western Governments, the people of Nepal have had to stare down the advice from Western chancelleries — as well as India — to give up their struggle for democracy mid-course.

In Nepal, the beginning of the end
People power has forced Gyanendra to cede executive power. But only a democratically elected Constituent Assembly can bring the people true sovereignty.

IN THE fullness of time, King Gyanendra — like other monarchs and ex-monarchs who litter the pages of history — will also realise that revolutions have a horology of their own and do not respect the neat rhythms that kings and generals try to impose on them.

Varanasi and the puppet masters of terror
Investigation into the Varanasi bombings has led to the Harkat ul-Jihad Islami, accentuating concerns about the emergence of Bangladesh as a base for Islamist terror groups.

WE NOW know who planted the bombs that went off in Varanasi last month, killing 20 persons. But the puppet masters, it turns out, sat in cities hundreds of kilometres away: in Dhaka, Karachi, and Kandahar. Police in Uttar Pradesh have arrested Mohammad Waliullah, a cleric in charge of a small mosque in the town of Phulpur, for having played a central role in the serial bombings.

Suicide bomber blows up Sri Lanka's peace process (NEWS ANALYSIS)
New Delhi, April 26 (IANS) Less than 24 hours after India urged Sri Lanka and the Tamil Tiger guerrillas to strictly adhere to the Norwegian-brokered ceasefire, a woman suicide bomber almost killed the island's army chief in a meticulous operation that was capable of being carried out only by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).

Why Manmohan is in Uzbekistan
Tashkent, April 26 (IANS) Forty years after Lal Bahadur Shashri died in this city following the signing of a historic agreement with then Pakistan president Ayub Khan, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh comes to a different country in a different time -- when this Central Asian nation has emerged out of the shadows of the former Soviet Union and become an arena of power rivalries.

Kashmir: Flagging peace amid the almond blossoms (COMMENTARY)
As winter gives way to the freshness of spring and the Valley of Kashmir comes alive with almond blossoms, the narcissus and the iris, so does activity of a less-than-benign kind. The melting snows open up the mountain passes to increased infiltration from Pakistan across the Line of Control (LoC) and local militants also seem to find a renewed vigour.

In Remote Pakistan Province, a Civil War Festers
DERA BUGTI, Pakistan - Explosions at gas pipelines and railroad tracks are common in this remote desert region. Now, roadside bombs and artillery shells are, too. More than 100 civilians have been killed in recent months,along with dozens of government security forces, local residents and Pakistan's Human Rights Commission say.

Step in to end Sri Lanka's war
SINGAPORE It seems perverse that a world gripped by the scourge of terrorism neglects the bloody conflict in Sri Lanka, where minority Tamils battling for a separate state against the Sinhala majority are using the full range of terrorist weapons, including suicide bombers. In the past week 70 people have died in bomb attacks - mostly troops and police officers, but also children drafted into the rebel forces.

Sri Lanka situation alarming but war unlikely - for now
The situation in Sri Lanka, where Tamil Tiger guerrillas have formally pulled out of the Geneva peace talks citing growing violence, is alarming but a full-scale war is unlikely for now, well-placed diplomatic sources say.

India worried over Sri Lanka turmoil
India is seriously concerned over the deteriorating situation in Sri Lanka where rapidly rising killings and counter-killings have the potential to suddenly blow up.