Southern Asia

Cancellation on August 5 this year of the fundamental provisions of Article 370 of the Indian Constitution became one of the most important recent political events in the Indo-Pacific Region. It de facto means the elimination of the special status of the State of Jammu and Kashmir with mainly Muslim population (about 70%). From now on, the state is divided into two allied territories under the full control of the central government.

India began carrying out space research immediately after gaining full independence from British rule in 1947, and became the seventh country in the world to launch its own satellite – Aryabhata – in 1980, which was launched into orbit with the help of a Soviet space launch vehicle, Kosmos-3M.

The Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan’s visit to the US took place on July 21-23, 2019 and the general public probably mainly remembered it due to the two passages the US President D. Trump said during his meeting with the distinguished foreign guest. One of them concerned Afghanistan, and the other one had to do with Kashmir. The latter has been an apple of discord between Pakistan and India since their independence.

Much is being said of US activities aimed at China. Recent protests in Hong Kong together with a US-led propaganda campaign aimed at Beijing’s attempts to quell a growing terrorist threat in Xinjiang are aimed at pressuring the nation to fall back into line within Washington’s enduring unipolar international order.

On May 25-26 this year, the US Secretary of State Michael Richard Pompeo visited India. En route to New Delhi, he briefly stopped in the capital cities of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Afghanistan.