War clouds hovered again when the leaders of India and Pakistan, the South Asian adversaries that have failed over decades to end their perilous standoff over Kashmir, spoke on the same day at the United Nations, Sept. 27. India has been holding its Kashmiri Muslim population in a near-total communications lockdown since Aug. 5, when … Read more
As a communications shutdown is still depriving people in the predominantly Muslim Kashmir Valley contact with the outside world, five eminent international human-rights advocates say that the Indian military chokehold may be obscuring continuing abuses against civilians, nearly three weeks after stripping the region of its political autonomy. Information has been slowly emerging. “The blackout … Read more
A familiar refrain often heard when the burgeoning crisis in Kashmir rises to the top of the news is that this is an old story from long ago; we have moved on. The United Nations is discovering, however, that there is less tolerance for indifference since India’s decrees on Aug. 5-6 to singlehandedly remake the … Read more
Donald Trump will shake hands with Emmanuel Macron, Jair Bolsonaro and Abdel Fattah el-Sisi. But will Benjamin Netanyahu; Boris Johnson and Angela Merkel be there, too? The 74th opening debate of the United Nations General Assembly, which starts on Sept.17 and ends on Sept. 30; the general debate begins on Sept. 24. With most member … Read more
Every national election in India is numerically mind-boggling, and this year is no exception. More than 800 million registered voters are expected to participate in an election spanning 39 days from April 11 to May 19. In this huge exercise in democracy, simultaneously organized at national and state levels, the government’s election commission has identified … Read more
As many political analysts see democracy weakened by introverted, xenophobic parties and autocratic leaders, a glimmer of hope is offered by a new generation of candidates and voters. This year will test that optimism in a series of important elections around the world. Changes in the composition of national legislatures were already being recorded before … Read more
Now was supposed to be the first thaw in relations between Pakistan and India after talks have been stalled since 2016. But Prime Minister Imran Khan of Pakistan recently tweeted about India’s “arrogant and negative response . . . to my call for resumption of the peace dialogue,” hours after India retracted its position on … Read more
In Washington, there is no question that the State Department is in a weakened position, a situation that the Trump White House — and the Trump family — seem to relish. To some in the understaffed, stripped-down Foreign Service and to commentators on United States foreign policy, this is a disgrace linked directly to Secretary … Read more
Stephen Lewis is an outspoken and often impassioned Canadian diplomat and former United Nations official with a lot of experience in tracking health crises in Africa. Now he has turned his attention to tuberculosis in India, where he made a fact-finding trip in early October. He was shocked and disheartened by what he saw and … Read more
Whatever the real reason that led Donald Trump to name Nikki Haley as his ambassador to the United Nations — that she is a “deal-maker,” a woman from an ethnic minority and a moderate Republican voice he may want to remove from South Carolina — a wave of justifiable pride in many Indians and Indian-Americans … Read more
With barely two days left to reach an international agreement on reducing greenhouse gas emissions to slow global warming, a new version of the draft agreement was released Wednesday in Paris. But outstanding disputes remain over how much nations will be prepared to reduce the use of fossil fuels, which emit the most carbon dioxide, … Read more
The second and supposedly final week of negotiations on curbing greenhouse gas emissions, amid now-measurable climate change, began on Monday at the COP21 in Paris with a draft global accord on the table. It is, however, littered with hundreds of bracketed words indicating that hard bargaining, and no doubt compromises, lie ahead. Especially vexing, to … Read more
Not every prime minister, speaking for the first time at the United Nations General Assembly, gets to top that off with a sold-out rally in Madison Square Garden in New York. Narendra Modi, a relatively new face in Indian national politics who became prime minister in May, seems poised to make the most of his … Read more
Pamela Philipose was editor of the Women’s Feature Service, the only syndicated news service in India with a gender perspective, for nearly six years, until she stepped down this year as editor in chief and director. She wore other hats for the publication as well, writing and photographing. The service began operating in India when … Read more
In a direct challenge to Western control of two major international financial organizations, the five countries known as the BRICS — Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa — announced on July 15 the formation of a new development bank that they will control. The final plans to establish the bank, to be named the … Read more
India opened the polls on April 7 for another of its uniquely epic elections. In nine stages of staggered voting that stretch into mid-May, allowing election officials, observers and law enforcement teams to move from place to place, 814 million voters are registered to cast ballots across a country one-third the size of the United … Read more
A committee of the Inter-Parliamentary Union met in mid-January, as a busy year of elections globally was beginning, to confront the human-rights violations and sometimes lethal abuse suffered by 262 members of national legislatures in countries that often call themselves democracies. From Jan. 13 to 17, the Inter-Parliamentary Union’s committee on the human rights … Read more
