Prof. K.S. Bhagavan, 73, is a well-known Kannada litterateur based in Mysuru. He taught English at the University of Mysore for 37 years before retiring in 2005 and is known for his translations of William Shakespeare’s plays... More
Anuradha Roy is a fearless media commentator who views her country’s political situation with dismay. “Who among us does not have friends – men and women thought to be moral and humane – that have closed their... More
Ever since Pradeep Kumar Gyawali took charge as Nepal’s Foreign Minister in March 2018, the country has been in overdrive to stabilise its relations with the two Asian giants, India and China, and a variety of actors on... More
Never before have person to person relations or man’s relations with nature, reached such a low level, says Serajul Islam Chowdhury, professor emeritus of English department at Dhaka University.
The prolific writer is also appaled to see the... More
After the fall of the Taliban in 2001 and as a country recovering from conflict, Afghanistan had some of the worst health indicators in the world. More than one-in-two (54%) children under five were stunted and around... More
In You Can’t Go Home Again, Sarvat Hasin strings together stories of Pakistan’s urban young – shuttling between Karachi and London, the past and the present, as the characters grapple with love, friendship, and their deepest fears... More
One of Singapore’s best known diplomats and now an academic, Kishore Mahbubani’s latest book The ASEAN miracle advocates a Nobel peace prize for the regional grouping. Ahead of the ASEAN-India 25th year commemorative summit to be held... More
Pakistan Air Force (PAF), in a landmark event in its history, inaugurated a newly established main operating base – PAF Base Bholari – earlier on Monday, said a statement by the PAF.
The establishment of PAF's new operational... More
The Indian missile development programme has encountered a setback with two successive failures within a week, including a worrying development in which a submarine-launched nuclear-capable missile got stuck in its testing canister following an unsuccessful test.
Sources told... More
India's ambitious mission-ready deployment of naval assets in the Indian Ocean has hit a hurdle with Russia and Ukraine delaying the supply of critical equipment to be fitted on to four destroyers that the Indian Navy intended... More
Despite announcements almost every month, not one big project has taken off. With just about a year left, Modi govt unlikely to have much to showcase in 2019.
It is time to call a spade a spade. For... More
The Indian armed forces have lost as many as 35 aircraft, including 11 helicopters, and 14 pilots in crashes just since 2014-2015, the government told Parliament on Wednesday.
If figures from 2011 onwards are taken into account, the... More
The dipping numbers of the Indian Air Force (IAF) fighter fleet has alarmed the security establishment as it will be operating with half of its current strength in a little over a decade.
The Indian Air Force is... More
The Bangladesh Air Force (BAF) has released a request-for-proposals (RFP) for an unmanned aerial system (UAS) for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) operations.
The UAS is to comprise of a medium-altitude long-endurance (MALE) unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), ground... More
Last week, a Russian Pacific Fleet ship detachment paid a visit to Myanmar in a little-noticed development. Though the interaction was just one activity within the broader bilateral relationship, it also highlighted the interactions underway between the... More
Indian navy is preparing a fresh case for buying new multi-role helicopters (MRH) after failed attempts to fill a key area of deficiency in its capabilities, a senior navy officer said.
The MRH is expected to be the... More
Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) has noted a number of developments for its Kfir fighter, including the conclusion of an upgrade programme for Colombia, plans to upgrade and return to service aircraft for Sri Lanka, and ongoing efforts... More
Almost 18 years after India cleared an ambitious submarine-building programme to scale up its undersea warfare capabilities, Prime Minister Narendra Modi commissioned India-built INS Kalvari into the navy in Mumbai on Thursday (Dec 14).
It is the first... More
India has lost a valuable troop scanning unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), along with its payload of sensors and intelligence systems, to a cross-border crash in Tibet, raising concerns that the wreckage may reveal some well-kept secrets to... More
Pakistan’s Chief of the Naval Staff Admiral Zafar Mahmood Abbasi on Tuesday (Dec. 12) arrived in Turkey of on an official visit.
During the visit, the Naval Chief called on Commander Turkish Fleet, Vice Admiral Ercument Tatlioglu and... More
The U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) awarded a $9.06 m U.S. contract to General Dynamics-OTS Inc. (GD-OTS) to supply 41 A/A49E-7(v4) gun turrets for U.S. Marine Corps (USMC) and Pakistan Army AH-1Z Viper attack helicopters. The Pakistani... More
While many political pundits in Pakistan are trying to tie the up-coming billion-dollar Saudi investment in Pakistan with Riyadh’s need to have Islamabad as an ally in its wars in Yemen and Syria, there has been little appreciation of the former’s own growing needs for diversifying its economy. It is also not recognised that Pakistan, with China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) running through it in the form of... More
While a globalised world was a cherished goal to bring people together, globalisation is increasingly used by one or the other country or group of countries to dominate the rest of the world by a violent process. Looking around we see wars in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and Yemen where the powers that be are trying to bend the power game towards themselves. Conventional wars are now more often not... More
A rapist was killed and his body was left with a note that said the death meted out to him was punishment for his crime. It was signed Hercules. A couple of other reports have appeared with such declarations and they have aroused considerable interest in media, particularly social media, the motherland of speculations. Who could be the possible vigilante killer?
Long history
Extra-judicial killings are nothing new and last... More
“This has less to do with geography than with history,” Macaes writes in his insightful book Belt and Road: A Chinese World Order.
“As two rising giants, China and India will play a disproportionate role in shaping the new world political and economic order, but like every claim on the future, their role remain ambiguous. In China's case, the question is whether it will eventually measure up to the task... More
Political realities have temporarily halted the BJP’s brazen attempt to communalise Indian citizenship requirements to the advantage of the majority Hindus and to the detriment of the minority Muslims.
Evidently, there is also a bias in favour of the north Indian majority and against the Tamil minority in the matter of giving citizenship. But this has not been brought to light in a major and sustained way yet, because the... More
The fourth summit of the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC), held in Kathmandu on August 30 and 31, was “not fruitful” because of the inherent “weakness” of the regional inter-state institution,... More