Resource-rich Balochistan province has high rates of poverty, unemployment, illiteracy and infant and maternal mortality.

• Arvind Gupta
• October 05, 2009
• IDSA Comments

If Karzai were to become President again in the election seen as marked by fraud, his lack of legitimacy will only feed into the insurgent propaganda.

• Shanthie Mariet D’Souza
• September 29, 2009
• IDSA Comments

Pakistan’s ability to press home a multidimensional campaign against the radical forces, and contain domestic instability and economic downturn, is suspect.

• Harinder Singh
• September 23, 2009
• IDSA Comments

The aggressive posture that the Chinese have adopted along the otherwise relatively tranquil Line of Actual Control (LOAC) has come under a lot of analytical examination by Indian Sinologists. They have advanced a number of explanations for the Chinese actions, all of which have a ring of truth about them.

• P. K. Upadhyay
• September 23, 2009
• IDSA Comments

Pakistan has yet again shown its proclivity to raise tensions with India. This time, the Pakistan Army or its proxies have fired three rockets across the International Border (IB) near Wagha in Punjab. Although no injuries were reported, such attacks pose a major danger to the people living in areas adjacent to the border, and some 150 farmers of the area indeed protested. This is the second time that rockets have been fired from Pakistan in the recent past.

• Ramesh Phadke
• September 14, 2009
• IDSA Comments

The month of May 2009 was the most violent month in Pakistan in the last five years. As the security forces launched a concerted operation against the Taliban in Malakand Division, the casualties shot up almost five times. The month recorded 504 violent incidents against 332 in April, which resulted in the loss of 2,585 lives. Most of the casualties were due to Operation Rah-e-Rast launched by the security forces in Swat and adjacent districts.

• T. Khurshchev Singh , Alok Bansal
• September 02, 2009
• IDSA Comments

Though tensions between India and Nepal over a few disputed pockets along the border have persisted for more than three decades, the first half of 2009 witnessed an increase in the frequency of border disputes. An obvious fallout of the disputes was the drumming up of anti-India feelings in Nepal and tension in bilateral relations.

• Pushpita Das
• August 31, 2009
• IDSA Comments

Nepal Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal, who heads a twenty-two party coalition government, chose India for his first official foreign visit after assuming office two months back. This ‘goodwill’ visit was undertaken against the background of Nepal’s increasingly fragile peace process. The bilateral agenda was just a pretext. What brought him to New Delhi were several domestic factors. While this is not to say that there are no urgent bilateral issues between the two countries, the most crucial factor today is India’s support for Nepal’s coalition government.

• Smruti S. Pattanaik
• August 24, 2009
• IDSA Comments

As a harbinger of change in a conflict ridden country, the Afghan presidential elections being held on August 20 are important for both the people of Afghanistan and the international community. Hamid Karzai’s government is seen as weak, ineffective and corrupt. During the last eight years, progress has not been commensurate with the people’s expectations. With rising insecurity and instability, the international community views a credible election as a key plank in the stabilisation of Afghanistan.

• Shanthie Mariet D’Souza
• August 19, 2009
• IDSA Comments

The liberation of Turtuk block and Siachen glacier in 1971 and 1984 respectively eliminated any threats that could have come from Pakistan having a contiguous border with China along the crest of the Karakoram Range and endangering India’s sovereignty over Jammu & Kashmir. Today, they form part of the Nubra sub-division of Leh district.

• Senge H. Sering
• August 17, 2009
• IDSA Comments

Eight winters since the launch of Enduring Freedom, the turmoil in Afghanistan continues. When contrasted with the progress in Iraqi Freedom, the gloom only deepens. Having applied the necessary mid- course corrections to the ‘ wrong war ’ (Iraq), there is hope on the horizon; despite the Obama administration’s shift of gaze and focus to the ‘ right war ’ (Afghanistan) to include a renewed and reworked military thrust, the initiative continues to rest with the Taliban.

• Raj Shukla
• August 17, 2009
• IDSA Comments

April saw the foot soldiers of Taliban moving to Buner and Dir, after consolidating their position in Swat. The march of Taliban to Buner, which is separated from Islamabad just by the district of Haripur created a fear psychosis in the minds of the ruling elites in Islamabad. The shock and awe that Taliban had managed to create was clearly evident as the Pakistani parliament pushed through Nizam-e-Adl resolution, without refering it to any parliamentary committee on April 13.

• T. Khurshchev Singh , Alok Bansal
• August 07, 2009
• IDSA Comments

As the din and the dust raised by the Sharm al-Sheikh document settles down, it seems to be opening new possibilities for India to effectively deal with the emerging situation in Pakistan by finally being able to encourage and back ideas of democratic federalism and non sectarian polity in that country. The reference to Baluchistan in the Sharm al-Sheikh Joint Statement has invited the sharpest reactions. But, has not that reference elevated the issue of continuing Pakistani persecution of the Baluchs to an international level?

• P. K. Upadhyay
• August 07, 2009
• IDSA Comments

In a reality check to the wild celebrations that broke out in Pakistan after the Supreme Court declared ‘illegal and unconstitutional’ the emergency that was imposed by General Pervez Musharraf on 3rd November 2007, former Prime Minister Shujaat Hussain reminded his compatriots that “two trucks and a jeep” rolling out of the military headquarters in Rawalpindi is all it takes to disrupt democratic rule in the country.

• Sushant Sareen
• August 05, 2009
• IDSA Comments

India is taking its time to reopen the dialogue process with Pakistan that has been suspended since 26/11. The meeting between Indian Prime Minister, Mr. Manmohan Singh and Pakistan’s President, Mr. Asif Ali Zardari, on the sidelines of the SCO meeting in Yekaterinburg in June had opened up possibilities of resumption. However, the joint statement following the one-on-one session between the two prime ministers at Sharm-el-Sheikh ran into rough weather.

• Ali Ahmed
• August 04, 2009
• IDSA Comments

Pakistan’s Prime Minister Gilani and Indian Prime Minster Manmohan Singh signed a joint statement on July 16, 2009 at Sharm el-Sheikh inEgypt on the margins of theNAM summit. In India the statement has been seen as a softening of India’s stand towards Pakistan. In Pakistan it has been seen as a “victory” for Pakistani diplomacy.

• Arvind Gupta
• July 20, 2009
• IDSA Comments

Due to the long and porous border between Pakistan and Afghanistan, the situation in the region could worsen with Taliban groups from both sides joining hands to fight the US and Pakistani forces

• Harinder Singh
• July 20, 2009
• Issue Brief

Diplomatic and political naivety, coupled with enormous pressure from a clueless America helplessly flailing its superpower muscle in the Af-Pak region, and of course that old disease that all Indian Prime Ministers’ suffer from – a sense of manifest destiny to normalise relations with Pakistan – have led to a Joint Statement by the Indian and Pakistani prime ministers in Sharm-el-Sheikh which is full of concessions, compromises and climb-downs by India.

• Sushant Sareen
• July 20, 2009
• IDSA Comments

Taliban represent a present and clear danger to Pakistan. This is because, firstly, they seem to have finally lost faith in Pakistani commitment towards their cause and are not willing to accommodate any more its policy of running with the Talibani hare and hunting with the American hound.

• P. K. Upadhyay
• July 02, 2009
• IDSA Comments

In recent months the international media has focused on the issue of Pakistan becoming a failed state soon. A top US counter terrorism expert David Kilcullen who advised David Petreaus in Iraq on counter terrorism strategy has opined that Pakistan may fail within six months. Concerns about stability in Pakistan became more acute when Taliban began their advance out of Swat towards Punjab earlier this year. The media highlighted the fragility of Pakistan by pointing out that the Taliban had come within 100 miles of Islamabad.

• Arvind Gupta
• June 16, 2009
• IDSA Comments