The India-Thailand relationship built over the centuries has become stronger in recent years. Both the countries acknowledge that India’s ‘Act East’ Policy (AEP) (2014) and Thailand’s ‘Look West Policy’ (1996) will help raise their relationship to a strategic partnership, besides contributing to trade expansion, development, and peace in Southeast Asia.
Despite a deliberate drum-beating to weaken nuclear deterrence in the subcontinent, the likelihood of the failure of nuclear deterrence is very bleak. Pakistan’s threat of use of nuclear weapons against India is only a propaganda and a gimmick to attract international attention and keep its fading Kashmir claims alive.
While the US lead negotiator Zalmay Khalilzad has been busy opening different channels of communication with a number of stakeholders, there have been concerns of conceding too much to the Taliban, even before the peace talks among the Afghans have commenced. At this juncture, all stakeholders seem to want some kind of a settlement to put an end to the violence and ambiguity regarding power-sharing in Afghanistan.
Contrary to Pakistan’s expectations, Indian government’s decision to revoke special status of the state of Jammu & Kashmir, accorded under Art 370 and 35A of the constitution, did not elicit ‘angry’ reactions from the international community. While Russia and France came out openly in support of India’s stand, the Trump administration that had offered to mediate to resolve the Kashmir issue washed off its hands calling the decision ‘strictly internal matter’ of India.
The changed status of Kashmir has been opposed by Pakistan’s government, whereas it is purely India’s internal matter. India has clarified that it can resume talks with Pakistan only if it abandons cross border terrorism in Kashmir. Most importantly, India has said that any talk with Pakistan on Kashmir will be about PoK.
A peep into Vietnam through Kautilya’s theory seems to provide an answer to its recent troubled past. Chanakya enunciated Rajmandala Theory in 3rd Century BCE. Why are Vietnam and China adversaries and why Vietnam is a close ally of India has an answer in theory known as Circle of States or Rajmandala Theory.
Security has no neutral and single definition. Forced migration has spillover effects and leads to insecurities, such as providing safe havens to combatants and arms trafficking.
India-Russia strategic partnership and more than seventy-years of the establishment of diplomatic relations since 1947 have served as a historical benchmark and time-tested partnership in global peace and security. India and Russia, as strategic and special partners, have reaffirmed their commitment to cooperate bilaterally and also at various multilateral forums.
Though Kuril Islands dispute is merely a “territorial dispute” between Russia and Japan, but in recent years it has more significant geopolitical ramifications. This is happening mostly because of the involvement of external powers like the United States, which want to fish in the troubled waters of Indo-Pacific through this dispute.
The future is likely to see fiercer hurricanes, and more torrential rainfalls amid realities of rising sea levels, and sinking coastal ground. This makes cities like New Orleans, Osaka, Chennai, Mumbai, Shanghai, Rio de Janeiro, etc. quite vulnerable. From refining research to know how a natural disaster will shape up to improving infrastructure, to creating deepwater drainage systems, making cities better planned and strengthening disaster management infrastructure are ways to beat a disaster.