As Bhutan gets on the highway of diplomacy with China, is India being side-lined or waylaid, Ravi Nair muses.
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READING tea leaves in the best of circumstances is hazardous. More so when there are so many varieties on offer.
Indian Darjeeling, one of the best teas, is exquisite in all its varieties, it is also the easiest to classify. Oolong, one of the finer Chinese teas, with its many varieties, is much more difficult. Suja, Bhutanese butter tea, is difficult to read due to the infusion of generous dollops of extraneous butter.
The Sino-Bhutan talks
From a careful reading of the tea leaves from all three countries, it is evident that a border agreement between the People’s Republic of China and the Kingdom of Bhutan is ready to be signed. It is not known if the exact details have been shown to India but it would defy comprehension if Thimpu has not shared the contours with New Delhi.
The ICJ decision on interim measures was carefully crafted. It is as political as it is legal. Pointedly, it did not call for an immediate ceasefire ap
By Ravi Nair - 18/02/2024
On February 27, or a few days earlier, Israel will hopefully submit its response report to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) interim order of January 26, 2024. The final decision in the South African plaint, now supported by other countries, is in the distant future. Soon, the registrar of the ICJ will call in South African and Israeli lawyers to outline the time frame for filing papers on the merits of the case. South Africa has hoped that it would take no more than six months for both sides to file papers. This would just be the first step in a very long process.
The ICJ decision on interim measures was carefully crafted. It is as political as it is legal. Pointedly, it did not call for an immediate ceasefire. All countries that are party to the genocide convention, including India, have to ensure that these interim measures are implemented. The United States (US), the United Kingdom (UK), the European Union (EU), Germany and many other European States are doing are doing everything but that. The continuance of armament shipments and economic bailouts to a beleaguered Israeli economy is evidently not furthering their legal obligations to prevent genocide.
As the Maldives deadline for withdrawal of Indian armed forces comes close, Ravi Nair traces the historical and contemporary dynamics of the geopolitics in the ‘Indian’ Ocean that have led to this crucial juncture.
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MOST Indians, including those who should know better, think the Indian Ocean belongs to India.
In this era, when official history is only issued in denominations of 500 and 1,000 years, they would do well to remember that prior to 1515, it was called the Eastern Ocean.
But when those in power and in proximity to it believe that, in 2024, the Indian Ocean is Indian in the geopolitical sense, it is delusional.
The Maldives is a sovereign nation
The contretemps with the Maldives is a recent example.
The air of injured innocence on the part of many in India at the request of the Maldives for the withdrawal of Indian armed forces personnel borders on the ludicrous. The Akhand Bharat (Greater India) groupies conveniently forget the Maldives is a sovereign nation.
The air of injured innocence on the part of many in India at the request of the Maldives for the withdrawal of Indian armed forces personnel borders on the ludicrous.
The Indian media is replete with all the benefits that accrue to the Maldives thanks to the Indian connection. The Maldivian media, on the other hand, has chosen to downplay the assistance rendered by India in 1988.
Ghar mein ghus kar marenge is a great movie dialogue. It is an even better election slogan. But can the demands of democracy and the delicate balance of international relations afford India such bravado, asks Ravi Nair.
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NEW Delhi Chatterati loves to play Chinese Whispers. The most popular one presently is, “If the US can do targeted killings outside their country, why can’t we do it?”
Targeted killings internally, within India by official agencies, or by using proxies, are an age-old practice. Too well documented to need reiteration here. Euphemistically called ‘encounter deaths’, they are endemic.
Targeted killings of non-Indian nationals
There is credible information in the public domain about the killing of a pro-Chinese Marxist tribal leader in Bangladesh in 1983 by a pro-Indian tribal leader now living in India.
Operation Leech
On February 11, 1998, an Indian tri-services detachment gunned down in cold blood six of the leadership of the nascent Arakan-based Rakhine armed group fighting the Myanmar junta. They were gunned down on Landfall Island of the Andaman group of islands.
The Rakhine now have the Arakan Army (AA), one of the more formidable armed groups fighting the Myanmar junta.
As the ragtag Myanmar army starts crumbling, many more from the Myanmar army will cross the Indian border from the Chin state and the Sagaing division. Does the government of India have a policy for the intrusion of armed soldiers of a neighbouring State into India which is cognisant of international humanitarian law?
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THE recent return by India of Burmese soldiers who had crossed the international border into Mizoram to seek shelter during fighting in the Chin State in Myanmar is troubling.
Initially, 44 personnel from the Myanmar army and police had fled across the international border into Mizoram amidst fierce fighting between Chin National Army fighters and the military junta soldiers in Myanmar’s Chin state since the evening of November 13, 2023.
The fighting was adjacent to the Zokhawthar border crossing in Mizoram. The Myanmar soldiers took shelter at the local Mizoram police station. The local police handed them over to the Assam Rifles.
The Assam Rifles, which controls the international border on the Indian side in this sector, is under the administrative control of the Union home ministry. However, all its officers are drawn from the Indian army.