If the East India Company used complex mechanisms and took 100 years to seize control and loot a subcontinent, the tech imperialists of today have the power to replay that story with nothing more than code, clicks, and clips that can divide people, break institutions and incite violence.
Seeing humans as the earth’s primary inhabitant has led to policies and practices that prioritize short-term economic gains over long-term ecological sustainability. Recognizing our role within a broader ecological system is key to developing strategies that respect the Earth's carrying capacity. Johan Rockström’s concept of 'planetary boundaries' outlines nine thresholds, like climate change and biodiversity loss, that shouldn't be crossed to maintain a 'safe space for humanity’.
India sent full details of Nijjar’s terrorist activities to Canada in 2014 but Canada simply sat on it. Canada also didn’t hand over Bangladeshi Noor Chowdhury who admitted being one of the killers of Sheikh Mujibur Rehman, Bangladesh's founder president, in 1975. Stewart Bell wrote in his book ‘Cold Terror’’ that Canada became an operational base of international terrorism long ago and by 1998 every terrorist group in the world was operating in Canada.
If Israel fails to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities now, it will be doing an ‘INDIA’, which too failed to allow Israel to strike Kahuta in Pakistan. Pakistan today is a formidable nuclear power. Had India allowed staging facility to Israeli fighters at Jamnagar, Kahuta might have met the same fate as Osirak in Iraq.
On the one hand, India sees itself as the rising global power, the head of G20 today, and with an economy that is the fifth largest in the world by GDP. On the other hand, India is the story of flourishing gangsters who when they get too big must be taken to a secluded spot and shot.
Bangladesh's zero-tolerance policy against militancy is bearing fruit. So far, eight militant organizations, namely JMB, Shahadat-e-al-Hikma, JMJB, Hizbut Tahrir, Huji-B, ABT, Ansar Al Islam, and Allahr Dal, have been banned by the government. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's tough stance has made it possible to virtually dismantle the militant network in Bangladesh.
Herman Kumara, the national convener of the National Fisheries Solidarity Organization (NAFSO) in Sri Lanka, strongly opposes the practice of keeping arrested fishermen in jail even after their punishment has been served.
Today, what is needed is a genuine assessment of the population of different marginalized sections and to modify the country's policies so that the uneven growth of society is brought on the path of equality. The deaths of the likes of Rohith Vemula and Darshan Solanki should awaken India to the need to combat the biases constructed against the socially marginalized sections and strive for a future where ‘annihilation of caste’ is the central credo of our society.
This is surely not the first or the last of the fake encounters (extra-judicial killing) in our country. Are people, including the police, losing faith in constitutional methods so earnestly championed by Dr. Ambedkar? What would he have said, had he been alive today?
Four years after the passage of the law, the promised Arbitration Council of India to authorise and regulate arbitration institutions has yet to be operationalised. Save for a small number of arbitration institutions established and funded by well-known law firms, some state governments do not support professionally established arbitration institutions.
This transit agreement will pave the way for energy imports from Bhutan. A Free Trade Agreement (FTA) was signed between the two countries in 2009. After last month's agreement, the FTA will gain momentum. The agreement will enable Bhutan to use Bangladesh's air, railways, river ports, land and sea ports since Bhutan is a landlocked country and has no river or sea ports of its own.
India, Pakistan, Nepal, and the Maldives are the four countries from South Asia among 120 countries at this year's Democracy Summit. Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and Afghanistan were not invited, but Pakistan, one of the most authoritarian and corrupt countries in South Asia with scant respect for human rights, was invited.
India has some deep soul-searching to do as we explore the question: Are we truly a democratic nation? Or is democracy the story we sell to ourselves and the world when the nation and its people know that we are not what we think or claim to be?
Bangladesh still has a terrorism problem and cross-border drug cartels pose a significant threat to its national security. And the elite force remains one of the important agencies to curb terrorism and narcotics control.
The reason we are losing nature boils down, in my mind, to one basic problem: our inability to perceive the difference between public benefits and private profits.
Pakistan will never catch up with Bangladesh in the race for economic development. The GDP growth rate of Bangladesh increased gradually to 8.13 percent in the fiscal year 2018-19. In 2020-22, the impact of the novel coronavirus pandemic and the Russia-Ukraine war slowed down the growth rate of Bangladesh, but it was much higher than that of Pakistan and the growth rate is estimated to exceed 6.5 percent in the fiscal year 2022-23.
Another result of Jaishankar’s active advocacy for the Global South is the recently held “Voices of Global South Summit” which was hosted by India. Jaishankar led the summit with participation from 120 developing countries.
I believe that the increased regulation of cryptocurrencies is a necessary step to ensure the stability of the financial system and protect consumers, and can be achieved through collaboration between governments and industry participants.
There is a culture that refuses to understand the pain of an entire class of population subjugated over the centuries, a harshness that translates in general to every other aspect of Indian life, superimposed on which is the ever-present threat of violence (State and non-State) that makes the claim of a nation that stands for non-violence hollow.
