While West is courting Beijing, it appears to be wooing the Asian littoral to increase access to ports and airfields. Vice President Xi Jinping, who is widely believed to succeed President Hu, was in Dhaka, while Prime Minister Wen Jiabo became the first high ranking Chinese leader to visit Yangoon in 16 years. Vice...
There is another spiritual bridge between people of India and Pakistan, and it deserves to be more widely known in India than it is. Thousands of Pakistanis assemble every Friday on their side of the border in the Ramgarh sector to pray at the shrine of Baba Ajit Singh Minhas who was killed about...
By Subash Somachandran Authorities at Jaffna University in northern Sri Lanka prevented a group of student leaders from the Inter University Student Federation (IUSF) from visiting the campus on June 12. While the IUSF was the immediate target, the broader aim behind the ban was to suppress all political activity on the campus. On...
Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh met US President Barack Obama on the sidelines of G-20 Summit in Toronto on June 27.Following is the transcript of the remarks by the two leaders before their meeting. President Obama: I want to express my pleasure having the opportunity to meet once again with my good friend, Prime...
The Sri Lankan government has reacted angrily to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon’s June 22 appointment of an expert panel to advise him on human rights violations in the final stage of the island’s civil war. Thousands of civilians were killed by the Sri Lankan military’s bombardments in the months leading up to the...
By Nick Beams Leaders of the world’s major economies sought to paper over their differences on a series of key issues at the Group of 20 (G20) summit meeting held in Toronto over the weekend. On the crucial question of fiscal stimulus versus austerity measures, which divided Germany and the other European powers from...
As the Foreign Secretaries of India and Pakistan have just talked of building “bridges to reduce trust deficit”, here is the story of a spiritual bridge that already exists between the two countries. For all one knows, the shrine of Baba Sheikh Brahamji may one day achieve what Indian and Pakistani leaders have so...
President Obama has named Gen. David Petraeus to replace Gen. Stanley McChrystal as the top US military commander in Afghanistan. The change, though a stunning development, is unlikely to result in any change in the strategy that U.S. and its NATO allies have been pursuing. Indeed, there was some relief in Washington. Chairman of...
It is not as widely known as it deserves to be that in India there are several shrines that defy denominational barriers. For instance, a Jain temple at Dharmasthala in Karnataka is, and has always been, helping people of all communities settle their financial and matrimonial disputes that could all too easily lead to...
By Bill Van Auken Following the appearance of an article in which he and his aides disparaged President Barack Obama and other top civilian officials, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the US commander in Afghanistan, has been ordered to return to Washington for a White House meeting with the Obama administration’s security team. He will be...
