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Opinion

Ocean will make this India’s maritime century

The 21st century is increasingly b eing described as the Indian Ocean Century. As the global economic centre of gravity shifts from the Atlantic to Asia, the vast maritime region stretching from the eastern coast of Africa to the western Pacific has emerged as the world's busiest and most strategically important sea space.

The Four-Pillar Warning

When Home Minister Amit Shah directed the commission formed on “Demographic Change” to study the phenomenon in India’s borderlands, he did not speak in the cautious language of policy briefs.

Strait Lessons

The reopening of shipping lanes through the Strait of Hormuz may have calmed oil markets, but it would be a mistake to confuse the return of traffic with the return of certainty.

Honey On The Tongue

A file sits on a clerk’s desk. It is complete, stamped, in order ~ and it will not move. The applicant, a farmer or a small contractor or a widow chasing a pension, learns the unwritten tariff: a little cash to the right hand, and the file walks.

Traumatic Tales

Although the sweet dream was cherished for a long time, the master storyteller, popularly known as “the Canadian Chekov,” was never fully convinced that one day she would become the first from her country to bag the prestigious Nobel Prize for Literature.

Managing ties with US, signing deal with Iran

Recently India and Iran signed a ten-year contract to develop and operate the Iranian port of Chabahar. For India the port offers access to landlocked Central Asian republics as also Afghanistan, bypassing Pakistan which denies India use of its land routes.

Contrasting views

The conflict in Gaza has not only strained Israel’s military and economic resources but has also exposed deep rifts within its government.

Politicians, Plutocrats

I n a poor country like India, public representatives had to appear poor to garner sympathy from their constituents. It was no accident that Mahatma Gandhi, a barrister from Inner Temple, after coming to India from South Africa, always wore only a dhoti.