The scheduled general election to decide who sits in India’s lower house of parliament (the Lok Sabha) ended on 23 May of this year. The Bharatiya Janata Party (the BJP) and its leader Narendra Modi, who will retain his post as Prime Minister, emerged victorious once again. This time around the BJP’s win (and its scale) even surpassed their previous record, i.e. the outcomes of the 2014 election.
The word “perestroika” (rejigging) is at the core of a recent story, published by the popular media outlet The Indian Express, on India’s foreign policy strategy in relation to its ties with leading world powers. In addition, this newspaper article is worthy of note because its author, C. Raja Mohan, is one of the most influential experts on India.
Many firsts, much tradition and a great deal left out on the official agenda for the Iran-Pakistan talks. Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan, who took office in August 2018, paid his first visit to Tehran on April 21-22, 2019 after receiving an invitation from Iranian President Hassan Rouhani.
For the first time in history, the head of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan:
Elections in India don’t happen in a day. They are rather a month-long affair. The world’s largest democracy, with a 900 million electorate (more than the entire population of Europe) is in the process of electing the 543 members of the 17th Lok Sabha (lower house of parliament), in an election which began on 11th April and is due to end on 19th May. But the statement made by those 900 million is often as obscure as it is loud.
Pakistan’s enigmatic Prime Minister Imran Khan, charismatic and outspoken, has, it seems, tasked himself with rewriting the rule book on relations inside the Islamic world.
His trips to Saudi Arabia and now Iran confuse watchers and pundits. With $20 billion in Saudi financial backing on the table for Pakistan, money needed since Trump cut off military aid, Khan’s subsequent visit to Iran is seemingly inexplicable.
Military and technical cooperation (MTC) between the Russian Federation and the Republic of India is developing at a powerfully rapid pace. Many experts are saying that India’s purchase of a Russian-made S-400 air defense system last year marks a real turning point in relations, and the two countries have taken several major steps to strengthen their cooperation within the very short space of time which has passed since then.
