In The News

A Future Scenario for Asia

Philip Bowring May 12, 2011
Asia accounts for 27 percent of the global economy and nearly 60 percent of the world’s population. Analysts anticipate growth and influence, but labels of an Asian Century could be premature, warns an Asian Development Bank report, analyzed by Philip Bowring for the Asia Sentinel. Asia has capacity for economic supremacy, the report maintains, but not certainty. Countries tend to fall into a “...

The Double Game

May 11, 2011
After World War II amid a scramble for allies, the US chose Pakistan over India. Pakistan’s economy was more promising than India’s in the 1960s, but there’s been a reversal of fortunes since, suggests Lawrence Wright in an essay for The New Yorker. India emerged with a strong economy and democracy, and Pakistan is troubled, insecure and anti-American. Economic aid requiring matching grants was...

Pakistan’s Not So Sleight of Hand

Sumit Ganguly May 4, 2011
Osama bin Laden, killed by US Navy SEALs, was not so hidden in Pakistan. The fugitive’s conspicuously large home in Abbottabad, a resort town that’s also home to many retired Pakistani military, is an embarrassment for the US ally, recipient of more than billions in US security-related aid since 2002. Pakistan, a nuclear power, controls a key supply route into Afghanistan, but the security...

A Pair of Clean Hands Can Save Lives

May 4, 2011
Accustomed to great advances in medicine, staff and patients often overlook simple life-saving rules. Unclean hands are a major source of hospital infections around the globe. Studies in the US have shown compliance rates of less than 50 percent. The global health problem has an easy fix, reports the Times of India, as the World Health Organization observes World Hand Hygiene Day on 5 May. About...

The Arab Spring’s Chill Winds

April 27, 2011
The uprisings in the Arab world – especially in Libya – are slowing economic growth in Bangladesh. Remittances sent from the Arab world represent 12 percent of Bangladesh’s GDP. “Bangladesh depends on remittances from the Middle East more than any other large country,” explains this article in the Economist. Bangladesh, a severely impoverished nation of 156 million, is a parliamentary democracy....

A Tahrir Square Moment in India

Sadanand Dhume April 18, 2011
Government corruption reinforces income inequality, wastes scarce resources and destroys the public trust. After a series of high-profile corruption scandals in India – padded contracts associated with the Commonwealth Games, telecom spectrum distributed to favored bidders at a loss of $40 billion for taxpayers, and investments in plush apartments on land set aside for war widows – outrage ensued...

The Indian Exception

April 12, 2011
Economic growth and malnutrition are often inversely correlated. India enjoys impressive economic growth, yet the malnutrition rate in many states remains stubbornly high, even among middle-income families. Government attempts to feed the hungry, including a “right to food,” have been unsuccessful. An essay in the Economist suggests that expansive handouts, like free meals for many schools,...