2018

by Purusottam Bhattacharya
The following is an edited, revised and updated version of a paper presented at a national seminar on “Regionalism in International Relations: Contours and Trends” organised by the Department of International Relations, Jadavpur University, Kolkata (March 14-15, 2017).
Introduction
On March 25, 2017 27 leaders of the European Union (EU) gathered in the Italian capital Rome to celebrate 60 years of the European integration project which was literally born from (…)

by Rajaram Panda
Following his successful re-election as the President of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party on September 20, 2018, a historic third term, thereby securing continuance as the Prime Minister of Japan for three more years, the first task for Abe Shinzo was to revamp his Cabinet. In this exercise, prioritising stability was the main focus and in doing so, Abe retained key Ministers in the reshuffle while rewarding allies. Abe retained linchpins of his administration, which he (…)

by Ram Puniyani
Politics in the name of religion has been playing a major role in the post-colonial states, particularly those of South Asia. Pakistan became an Islamic Republic in 1956, and this term resurfaced time and over again. Subsequently it was turned into the Republic of Pakistan under a new Constitution. Then again, as the newspaper Dawn reported on February 4, 1963, “A constitutional amendment renaming the State of Pakistan as the ‘Islamic Republic of Pakistan’, is expected to (…)

BOOK REVIEW
Fragments of Time: Memoirs of a Romantic Revolutionary by Subrata Banerjee; published by the Centre for Research in Rural and Industrial Development (CRRID), Chandigarh; 2017; pages i-xx and 494; Price: Rs 875, US $ 35.
In popular image of Indian Communists, the names of Jyoti Basu, Hiren Mukherjee, Bhupesh Gupta or E.M.S. Namboodiripad generally surface. Subrata Banerjee did not belong to that category; yet he was a unique and distinct Communist. He has done a yeoman’s (…)

by V. Bijukumar
The astounding victory of the Mizo National Front (MNF) and humbling defeat of the Congress in the recent Mizoram Assembly elections have signified the return of ethno-regional politics not only in the State but also in the North-East region as a whole. For the MNF it was really a daunting task to unseat the LalThanhawla-led Congress Government (in power for two consecutive terms) and for the Congress it was a fight to keep intact its last bastion in the North-East. Since (…)

The brief deployment of two Russian Tupolev Tu-160 ‘Blackjack’ strategic bombers to Venezuela last week became a sensational event. Indeed, it is a display of the growing Russian military prowess that has been restored under President Vladimir Putin’s watch. Blackjack has appeared on the Syrian skies more than once and lately flew past Alaska. Now it crosses the Pacific.
The two nuclear-capable bombers landed in Venezuela on December 10. The Tu-160 Blackjack is a supersonic, (…)

by A.K. Biswas
In a massive exercise by the Registrar General of India (RGI), monitored by the Supreme Court of India, 28,983,677 out of 32,991,384 applicants were found eligible for inclusion in the National Register of Citizens (NRC). He declared 40,07,707 to be ineligible. According to him, the draft was published under “supervision, monitoring and directions of the Supreme Court. It is a legal process and has been conducted in a transparent, fair, objective and meticulous manner.”1 (…)

The abrupt resignation of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor, Urjit Patel, and the appointment of Shaktikanta Das, who served as Secretary in the Department of Economic Affairs, Ministry of Finance, upto May 2017, has brought into the public sphere the clash of two paradigms of governance. Patel’s resignation “came after over a month-long tussle over policy with the government that raised concerns about the central bank’s independence”. Reportedly, the areas of disagreement between the (…)

by Madhuri Santanam Sondhi
Historical and Strategic Background
About the significance of Tibet in India-China Territorial Disputes, perhaps I can start by reminding ourselves of a few familiar facts—
1. In contemporary times, and I stress this because it was not always so, Tibet, China and India constitute a strategic triangle—a triangularity dictated by recent history and a geography that has endowed Tibet with immense natural wealth including water and mineral resources.
2. For (…)

IMPRESSIONS
What exactly is a Maoist? Or a Naxalite? Or an Activist? Or an Anti-national? Or an Urban Naxal? (Is there a Village Naxal?) Obviously there is something bad about them, though we don’t know what. In the old days of binary values, if you were a communist you were bad; if you were anti-communist you were good. Now communism and Marx don’t matter. Note that the Communist Party of India (Maoist) was banned in 2004 while the Communist Party of India-Marxist was considered so (…)