COMMENTARIES
  • Japan: Defense White Paper 2013
    Rajaram Panda    ·   16 Jul, 2013    ·    #4036    ·    Commentary    
    On July 9, 2013, the Ministry of Defence of Japan released its Annual White Paper 2013 (AWP-2013). This is the first Defence White Paper released under the administration of Prime Minister Abe Shinzo. The major highlight of the AWP-2013 is the d...
  • Myanmar: Implications of Suu Kyi’s Realpolitik
    Yves-Marie Rault    ·   15 Jul, 2013    ·    #4035    ·    Commentary    
    "I want to be president and I'm quite frank about it", Aung San Suu Kyi said on 6 June, during the World Economic Forum on East Asia. The rumours about her presidential ambitions thus turned out to be true, which can explain the re...
  • IPCS Debate
    Sri Lanka and the 13th Amendment: What is '13 Plus'?
    Sugeeswara Senadhira    ·   11 Jul, 2013    ·    #4034    ·    Commentary    
    The Parliamentary Select Committee (PSC) on constitutional reform focused on devolution of powers met for the first time on July 9 without the participation of opposition parties including the Tamil National Alliance TNA). On the same day, the I...
  • The New Silk Route: Linking J&K and Central Asia
    D Suba Chandran    ·   11 Jul, 2013    ·    #4033    ·    Commentary    
    Rising Kashmir recently reported the Chief Minister of J&K addressing a conference in Kashmir University speaking on linking J&K and Central Asia. He was also quoted referring to Silk Route 2.0 as a part of this strategy to link Kashmir ...
  • Kashmir falls off the Global Radar
    Shujaat Bukhari    ·   10 Jul, 2013    ·    #4032    ·    Commentary    
    When German Ambassador to India Michael Steiner made his country...
  • China and Russia: The Joint Sea 2013 Exercise
    Vijay Sakhuja    ·   10 Jul, 2013    ·    #4031    ·    Commentary    
    The ongoing China-Russia naval exercises code-named Joint Sea 2013, dubbed by the PLA Navy as the ‘single biggest deployment of military force in any joint foreign exercise’, merits attention. The Chinese flotilla comprising of seven...
  • Myanmar: FDI, Local Economy and the Rohingya Conflict
    Asma Masood    ·   10 Jul, 2013    ·    #4030    ·    Commentary    
    On June 27, Myanmar announced that the government awarded a telecommunications contract to Qatari company Ooredo. It sparked a social media backlash in Myanmar. Citizens threatened boycott of its services. The Buddhist community was surprised by...
  • Myanmar: Profiling the 969 Movement
    Bibhu Prasad Routray    ·   10 Jul, 2013    ·    #4029    ·    Commentary    
    Is it an economic nationalist movement, an awakening of sorts, a rabid anti-Muslim movement, or a hate revolution that would eventually consume its own children? Local Myanmarese accounts on the radical 969 Buddhist movement have diverged so ...
  • Myanmar: New Challenges of Economic Transition
    Yves-Marie Rault    ·   09 Jul, 2013    ·    #4028    ·    Commentary    
    Until a few years ago, as roaming services were inexistent, a foreign visitor who wanted to use a cell phone in Myanmar had to buy a local SIM card for the sum of USD1500. However, there are now around 500,000 tourists each year - symbol of the ...
  • IPCS Review
    Pakistan: The Abbottabad Commission of Enquiry
    Rana Banerji    ·   09 Jul, 2013    ·    #4027    ·    Commentary    
    It is hardly surprising that the Abbottabad Commission of Enquiry report on the May 02, 2011 attack successfully eliminating Osama bin Laden (OBL) should finally have surfaced through an Al Jazeera leak, a good six months after it had been submi...
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