The good old days
Nostalgia finds its origins in the Greek words ‘nostos’ (return) and ‘algos’ (pain). It is the longing for bygone days. Coined by Swiss physician Johannes Hofer in 1688, the word…
Is Europe different from America? Listen
On a number of occasions in the last few decades, Europe has projected itself as a separate political entity with its own norms, principles and political agenda which are different…
Is a Sino-Russian world order possible?
The recent Shanghai Cooperation Organisation has triggered a debate among several Western circles claiming that Moscow and China are trying to create a new world order reflecting the interests of…
Arab Spring 2.0
Abdelaziz Bouteflika, the long-time ruler of Algeria has been ousted by a mass movement. Millions of students, peasants, workers, women and impoverished showed courage, determination and revolutionary zeal to face…
The holy-cow factory
Somewhere in this land of ours, there must be a prodigious factory dedicated to manufacturing holy cows. How else do you explain the endless supply of this product throughout our…
The superpower acts out
The decision by the US president to recognise Jerusalem as capital of Israel and to shift the US embassy there has effectively forestalled the two-state solution that the international community…
Obscurantism in the Muslim world
The heart-wrenching picture of a Yemeni child drinking water from a leaked pipeline in the war-raged country has shamed humanity. The picture recently went viral on social media but failed…
If time could stand still
My idea of happiness is the Moscow of the 1970s when I served there as a diplomat. Not a very successful diplomat and I left the service soon after but…
Poisoned gifts and unmet expectations
Pakistan could have handled this mess better, with slightly more finesse and subtlety. But the quality of decision-making in Islamabad is what it is. So there is no point in…
The perils of protest politics
As we busy ourselves with the tasks of engineering a national front against terrorism, it would do us well to also reflect on the political unrest of the passing year.…
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