In the interconnected web of global politics, the dynamics of International Relations wield significant influence in shaping the trajectory of nations and regions. However, in today’s global landscape, disorder prevails as established rules and norms of International Relations are frequently disregarded.
Western views are not universally valid, and this liberal way of thinking divides countries in an imperialist manner into ‘good’ democratic and ‘bad’ autocratic ones and thus creates defensive reactions, says Carlo Masala, Professor, International Politics at the Bundeswehr University, Munich
As a young man, Raja Ram Mohun Roy saw his bewildered and wailing 17-year-old, widowed sister-in-law pushed into her husband’s funeral pyre, which made him a lifelong campaigner against the practice of sati, idolatry, and obscurantist rituals.
The section highlights the fact that instead of searching for causes of Asia’s descent into poverty in the acquisition of wealth by European powers, we should try to understand the manner in which the colonial powers manipulated the ‘intra-Asian connections’
The titles of the works included in this compilation are in themselves revealing of the LeT, its mindset and equally of its priorities: ‘Why are We Waging Jihad’; ‘In Defence of Jihad’; ‘The Mujahid’s Call’; ‘We the Mothers of the Lashkar’
Former Indian High Commissioner to Pakistan (2017-20), Ajay Bisaria has written an engaging book, an easy read, despite 500+ pages of text.
Policing in postcolonial South Asian countries has been a complex mix of legacies from the colonial era, local traditions and the freedom struggle. Post Independence, they had to deal with the mammoth task of reforming and transforming their policing institutions.
The book explores the dynamics of Indo-US relationship in the post-Cold War context. In this endeavour, it has a detailed discussion of the core issues, the major challenges and the mutual perceptions the two countries possess towards each another.
Mukarji gives a lot of space to the role of Commander Ahmad Shah Massoud, a man of Tajik descent, a minority group in a country of Pashtun majority, who led the Northern Alliance consisting of other minority groups in fighting the Soviet occupation. As he claims: ‘If you want to know the best part of Afghanistan’s recent history
In the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, Salgado and Anand have attempted to craft a digitalized and green route for resilient growth by identifying the potential demographic dividend in South Asia and pushing for more significant trade and financial openness.
‘Developing states, and particularly those in Africa, Southeast Asia, and parts of Eastern Europe, are some of the most vulnerable to the growing influence of Xinhua, since they have few restrictions on content-sharing deals,
Despite being at the helm of affairs in China for more than 12 years now, Xi Jinping is still somewhat of an enigma for the world and may be even for a large number of people within China.
Keyu Jin attempts to dispel notions that China’s functioning resembles some form of state Capitalism. She brings out that while ‘Public Sector type of companies’ undoubtedly dominate several sectors of the economy, they are not necessarily in themselves the principal growth engines.
China’s growing assertiveness in the last two decades, its ‘wolf warrior’ diplomacy under Xi Jinping’s leadership, rapidly expanding coercive power
‘In the dark times, will there also be singing? Yes, there will also be singing. About the dark times.’ These famous lines by Bertolt Brecht aptly fit Scott Ezell’s epic Journey to the End of the Empire: On the Road in Eastern Tibet.
The book is an epic work of forty chapters each with its own quintessence. ‘The Ghost of Chamdo’, ‘March Winds’, ‘Wind and Wildfire’, ‘Memory Songs of Lhasa’, ‘Four Rivers Six Ranges’, ‘Silent Struggle’ and many more are worthy of mention.
The central argument that Professor Madhav Das Nalapat makes in his timely book is that the new Cold War, which he terms as Cold War 2.0 is different from the earlier Cold War and that it would be a mistake to assume that the Soviet Union has been replaced with the Russian Federation.
As foreign policy cum security experts, academicians and politicians try to understand the current international order and what shape it may take, Sanjaya Baru and Rahul Sharma have brought together 19 essays in their first edition (2021) to coincide with the 50th anniversary of US President Nixon’s historic visit to China in 1971.
We are living in the post-pandemic era having fresh memories of evacuation, lockdown, information, and disinformation—overall a situation of panic.
The Ramayana and the Mahabharata are not just two great epics but also great treasures of our civilizational heritage that have inspired generations over many centuries.
Prasad adopts an orthodox Eurocentric framing of the dawn of enlightenment and the coming of the age of rationality wherein he treats it as an endogenous phenomenon starting from the Renaissance down to the Industrial Revolution.
The very first sentence of the ‘Preface’ in the book under review is crafted to grab readers by the scruff of their necks—‘To be a Muslim is to be an orphan’—and then keep them glued to each page.
There are several books and articles that have been published on the state of Hindu minorities in Bangladesh, the role of Hindus in the 1971 liberation war and the Vested Property Act that disposed off their property. While the status of minorities in Pakistan is accepted as fait accompli in India
Boundaries and Belonging: Rehabilitating Refugees in India, 1947-1971 by Pallavi Chakravarty provides a critical analysis of the Indian state’s post-Partition programmes for rehabilitating refugees.
‘Migration-Development Regimes’ (MDR) and painstakingly traces the history of emigration in India. She thus reframes the emigration practices of sending states as a regime to help capture the sending state’s ‘ideological, economic
However, human beings differ in their interpretation of laws and that becomes a reason for conflict within government circles and in the society, and non-compliance by those whose interests are not tantamount with them. The other point made by the author is that there are certain bureaucrats or judges who have the legal knowledge and ensure their enforcement.
That conjunctive moment galvanized a spontaneous popular people’s uprising, Jana Andolan II (April 2006) which gave the democratic imprimatur to the demand for a systemic overhaul of the old unequal power structure. The Maoists fused class ideology with identity politics which tapped into the discontent of the institutionally excluded.
The stories of Manipur that this book tells are violent, cruel and infused with unadulterated savagery. The hate and rage in them is tangible and there is no way to make the stories any less brutal