The Quad-China rivalry and the ‘scramble’ for the Indo-Pacific region have made the region, especially South Asia, geopolitically significant in a matter of a few years. For the last two decades, the region had the least priority in US foreign policy as it was busy with its costly Middle East policy. But after the rise […]
“It is enough that the people know there was an election. The people who cast the votes decide nothing. The people who count the vote decide everything.” –Joseph Stalin The US sanctions on a few former and present key officials of the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) of Bangladesh in December 2021 created some ripples in […]
“…That in its essence is fascism: ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or any controlling private power.”—President Franklin D Roosevelt Following the US imposed limited sanctions on a few law enforcement officials of Bangladesh, many pundits and soothsayers gave its Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina only months, if not weeks, to survive. […]
Haider Ali Khan is a little-known Indian politician. Hailing from an erstwhile royal family in Uttar Pradesh, not many – either in his home state or elsewhere in the country – had heard of him until about a week ago when he decided to participate in the upcoming polls in five states. Khan’s presence in […]
“Illegal or legal, I am the Prime Minister.” ~Sheikh Hasina, September 25, 2021, New York. Strange but true. “Illegal” and “Mother of Mafia,” the two terms seem to have established themselves in the political parlance of contemporary Bangladesh. One needs not be an Archimedes to understand who the terms refer to. They are openly talked […]
January 30 this year will mark the 74th anniversary of the assassination of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. It was in the evening of that day in 1948 that Gandhi – better known as the Mahatma – was felled by the bullets of an assassin, as the unrivalled global icon of non-violence walked towards a prayer meeting. […]
India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi is not up for re-election for at least another two years as the country’s next parliamentary elections are due in 2024. Yet, his popularity and that of his ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) are in for a tough test with a clutch of crucial regional elections slated over February and […]
It snowed late last night in Washington: perhaps a fitting end, in some metaphoric sense, to the day that marked one year since the January 6, 2020 attack on the US Capitol by the Trumpian mob trying violently – if ineptly – to overturn the 2020 election of Joe Biden. That attack desecrated the Capitol […]
The Bangladesh government is fascist in nature and has tactfully removed democracy from the country. There have not been one or two instances, but hundreds or thousands of incidents have derail democracy. Opposition leaders are jailed with a series of cases only to protect PM Sheikh Hasina’s grip on power. Foreigners, journalists, the opposition and […]
Growing up, I would hear my relatives saying aloud how there would come a day when we would get kicked out of ‘their country’. We just didn’t know when it would happen. That phrase is likely familiar to many people of color, particularly so to Muslims. This idea emerges from the notion that our sense […]