South Asia

It is high time the Indo/Ceylon accord of 1987 is fully implemented

India’s Minister of State for External Affairs Shri V. Muralidharans’s following statement on July 31, 2021 in the Rajya Sabha is timely, fitting and correct which also alludes to the nagging and continuing unsolved problems being faced by the Tamils in Sri Lanka. “India believes that delivering the legitimate aspirations of the Tamil community is in the best interest of[Read More...]

Sri Lanka: Activating the dormant 13th amendment of 1987

The 1987 13th Amendment, a conceived and delivered baby of India under the Indo/Sri Lanka Accord of 1987 for adoption by Sri Lanka has been lying in the constitution of Sri Lanka partly implemented and mostly ignored by the Sri Lankan Governments since then. This 13th Amendment is now activated and given new life and blood by the Tamil leaders[Read More...]

Birth Defects and Stunted Development: Role of the Students Movement

Pakistan, ostensibly created to safeguard the interest of the Muslims of India, but in actual fact to save the Muslim landowners of West Pakistan from land reforms which were on the plank of Indian National Congress platform, had a large impact of the more reactionary of the Muslim clerics. Main-stream Maulanas, not recognizing nationalism as a driving force in Islam,[Read More...]

British Colonialism and How India and Pakistan Lost Freedom

Irony of Historic National Freedom and Unspoken Tyranny of Imperialism Do nations and civilizations grow out of the moral mire of military conquests, killings of innocent people, political cruelty and subjugation by imperialism? For more than 800 years, India as a Moghul Empire was an economically well integrated and politically viable entity and west European had strong trade and political[Read More...]

Bangladesh: Two Million Lives That Could Have Been Saved, but Were Not

How Nixon and Kissinger failed to respond to urgent need for course-correction from their own senior diplomats This year events relating to the liberation of Bangladesh have been recalled time and again as Bangladesh has completed 50 years as a nation. On March 26 Bangladesh celebrated its 50th freedom day as the first announcement of its freedom was made on[Read More...]

Sri Lanka: Unfulfilled Commitments And Unending Promises

  There is no dearth of promises and undertakings dished out by the successive Sri Lankan Governments and their opportunistic political leaders since 1948 whose sole intention and aim is to capture the political power at any cost to the interests of the nation and its people. Former President J.R. Jayawardene heralded this practice and habit with the slogan and[Read More...]

Bangladesh @50 — Why Hide So Many Things?

Some facts for some ‘secular protestors’ Bangladesh is so near and so far, and the border, though we hear it is very porous, is also very opaque or even illusive or hallucinating, thanks to the almighty media, especially the ‘social’ media like Meta-FB, WhatsApp-University, etc. If asked what happened there most will perhaps reply attack on Hindus, on Durga Puja[Read More...]

Bangladesh – A victory and questions unresolved

Within hours, Bangladesh will begin celebrating that hour of victory – December 16, 1971 – that marks one of the glorious moments in the Bangladesh people’s history of bravery, struggle, sacrifice, setbacks, torment and triumphs. Half a century has passed since that victory of defeating a neo-colonial state – Pakistan. On December 16, 1971, The Bangladesh people heroically compelled the[Read More...]

United Kingdom Owes Remedial Justice To The Eelam Tamils

 Before the colonial rule by the Portuguese, Dutch and British there were  three sovereign regions in Sri Lanka [Ceylon] The Kingdom of Jaffna in the North [Tamil Kingdom] Kingdom of Kandy in the central highlands and Kotte in the Southwest [Sinhalese Kingdoms.] The Portuguese and Dutch ruled these regions as separate units, the British in 1833 for their easy administration[Read More...]

India-Bangladesh ties at inflection point

In the life of a nation, perhaps, the first fifty years ought to be regarded as marking the rites of passage through adolescence. India can congratulate itself for helping navigate Bangladesh through a difficult childhood. Parentage of a precocious child isn’t easy and Bangladesh can be opinionated, while figuring out its own pathway. India hasn’t always been an indulgent guardian,[Read More...]