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India As An Asia Pacific Power

India's rise as a regional and global power could potentially alter the geopolitical landscape of the Asia-Pacific. With its economic growth and concomitant investments in military modernisation, many see India as evolving into a strategic pole in Asia. David Brewster in this volume sets out to examine ‘the consequences of India's rise on the Asia Pacific strategic order’ (p. ix) and asks whether India will indeed join the ranks of major powers in the coming years.

FOREIGN POLICY AFTER TAHRIR REVOLUTION: (Re)-Defining the Role of Egypt in the Middle East

Recently, we have witnessed an unprecedented series of political events in the Middle East and North Africa after a young man from Tunisia had his vegetables confiscated by the police. In retaliation, the young man set himself on fire, which initiated inextinguishable flames of protests and demonstrations demanding a more humane world for everyone. Protests and strikes driven by everyday people continued to sweep across the tightly controlled North African states. However, not everybody treated these unrests as a deep, socially rooted problem in society.

From Hindi to Urdu: A Social and Political History

Hardly any language in the subcontinent has a history as contested as that of Urdu. The history of Urdu is not just a story of linguistic evolution, but of the evolution of culture, of societies and of communities. Thus, undertaking the task of narrating this journey is in itself an act of courage and Tariq Rehman does it wonderfully well.

AN ANTI-TALIBAN PASHTUN PERSPECTIVE ON THE TALIBAN

An old African proverb—‘Until lions have their historians, tales of the hunt shall always glorify the hunter’—comes to mind after reading Farhat Taj's combative, if also compelling, and to an extent controversial, description of what is actually happening on ground zero of the War on Terror, i.e. the Pashtun-dominated belt of the Afpak region. Often enough, the dominant narrative of any war drowns the voices of those living through and dying in the conflict. This is precisely what has happened in the Pashtun-populated areas that lie in the eye of the Islamist storm.

A Resurgent China: South Asian Perspective

AResurgent China: South Asian Perspective, edited by Tan Tai Yong and S.D. Muni, is a timely book. The simultaneous rise of India and China is a defining reality of the Asian and global order. The trajectory of Sino-Indian relations will have an impact on South Asia. Since the mid-1980s, the two countries have made efforts to unfreeze the relationship, and in the last 10 years the Sino-Indian bilateral relationship has been transformed politically and economically.

On Your Marx!

When the Berlin Wall was brought down in 1989, followed by the subsequent disintegration of the Soviet Union, one is unsure whether Francis Fukuyama was actually singing a ditty with the ‘End of History’ as the tag line (to the tune of ‘We Are the World …’, the famous Michael Jackson song). Fukuyama celebrated his ‘free at last!’ moment by writing a book called End of History, for which he has had to apologise a few times since.

China’s National Interests: Exploring the Domestic Discourse

China's emergence as a global actor has fuelled much speculation over its ‘intentions’ in the long term. Arguably, debates on the issue have centred around China's growing military and economic power and concurrent challenges to the maintenance of the existing status quo in the international system. This article seeks to understand China's foreign policy motivations by studying the conceptualisation of ‘national interest’ within China.

Bhutan–India Power Cooperation: Benefits Beyond Bilateralism

The article argues that as India and Bhutan have moved into the second phase of power cooperation, it is important that the two countries revisit their policies and identify approaches that will be sustainable in the long term. The article emphasises that a sub-regional energy grid between Bhutan, India and Bangladesh can become an effective conduit for strengthening sub-regional diplomacy and help in addressing the latent but underlying concerns of Bhutan, which have the potential to impact India–Bhutan bilateral relations in the long term.

Tedim Road—The Strategic Road on a Frontier: A Historical Analysis

The article is an attempt to study the history of the Tedim Road, a 265 km transborder road connecting Imphal (the capital of Manipur in India) with Tedim in the Chin Hills (Chin State) in western Burma (Myanmar). It was constructed by the British solely for the purpose of facilitating military movements along the India–Burma frontier during the Second World War.

UCPN (Maoist)’s Two-Line Struggle: A Critical Analysis

The objective of this article is to critically analyse the discourse within the Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) or known as UCPN (Maoist) since its evolution and find out whether the Maoists have adapted themselves to the democratic process well by using democracy as a tool to achieve their own revolutionary political objectives. The article argues that the internal Maoist discourse reflects that there is no change in the UCPN (Maoist) strategy or political goals. They have only changed their tactics to suit the situation.