In The News

Threat for India: Islamic State, Al Qaeda and Taliban

Saroj Kumar Rath November 20, 2014
India's Muslims represent 15 percent of the nation's population, the world's third largest group in any nation after Indonesia and Pakistan. Extremist groups like the Islamic State, Al Qaeda, the Taliban and the Haqqani network increasingly view India as a target, notes author and professor Saroj Kumar Rath. Several trends explain the rise: Terrorism threats in South Asia are...

Life in Indonesia's Sinking Capital

Jack Hewson November 18, 2014
Cities have long flourished along coastlines due to maritime trade, transportation and physical beauty as well as access to fish and other resources. But rising seas and climate change threaten cities with shrinking boundaries, uncertain property values and reduced freshwater supplies. “North Jakarta suffers subsidence rates of up to 17cm a year in some areas – caused by the excessive extraction...

Teaching Them Young: Tots Learn to Say “Ni Hao” to Mandarin

Neha Bhayana November 13, 2014
Children have a knack for learning foreign languages in early childhood and those who master an extra language can even gain some cognitive advantages, suggests the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages. Parents in India are enrolling children as young as 3 years old in after-preschool language programs, and many were pleased when the founder of Facebook surprised the globe by...

Seeds of a Modern Economic Empire

Nayan Chanda November 12, 2014
China is the world’s second largest economic power but lacks comparable voting power in the International Monetary Fund, which bases quotas mostly on GDP but also on openness, economic variability and international reserves. So China is throwing support behind another institution: The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, or AIIB, could “place China at the hub of a gigantic trade and economic web...

EU Politics Could Look to Multiethnic India for Strategies

Pallavi Aiyar November 11, 2014
Visions of a united Europe are under strain as anti-EU parties have made political gains in France, Sweden, the UK and other nations. Although the European Union is often thought of as a “United States of Europe,” journalist Pallavi Aiyar argues that the EU more resembles chaotic India. “India, like the European Union, is the antithesis of the 19th-century European conception of the ‘nation state...

Chinese Submarine Docking in Sri Lanka “Inimical” to India’s Interests: Government

Sachin Parashar November 10, 2014
Sri Lanka has allowed a Chinese submarine to dock at its Colombo port days after the visit of Vietnam’s prime minister to India. This follows another Chinese submarine docking in Sri Lanka in September, reports Sachin Parashar for the Times of India. India views the docking as a violation of a 1987 agreement declaring that “ports in Sri Lanka will not be made available for military use by any...

Specter of Islamic State Looms Over Pakistan

Farhan Bokhari October 30, 2014
After conquering towns in Iraq and Syria, and now under air attack in those same places, the Islamic State, also known as ISIS, is no doubt searching for additional recruits and countries in chaos. Sunnis represent about 90 percent of Muslims, and the Islamic State promotes an extreme version. The terrorist group could turn to Sunni extremists in Pakistan next – perhaps part of an effort to...