“At once familiar and little known, the Khyber Pass provides a valuable lens for observing history where empires continue to rise and fall, allowing us to look upon the invaders that marched through it to create kingdoms or to destroy them.“
- Paddy Docherty (2008)
What is The Khyber?
The Khyber is a student-reviewed biweekly newsletter focusing on South Asian policy and regional affairs. The body of the newsletter consists of a collation of news-related op-eds from leading national, regional and international sources. The Khyber was launched to bring oft-neglected policy discussions into mainstream academic discourse, and hopes, like the Pass from which its name is borrowed, to provide easy access for the information-thirsty traveller into this strange, misunderstood, frustrating but important part of the world.
Why?
The goal of encouraging policy discourse comes at a time when Indian Universities are qualitatively deficit (in terms of faculty/experts and research centres) in International Relations and Foreign Policy. The news streams, available (at least) on a biweekly basis on The Khyber, provide much-needed views and insights into contemporaneous affairs in South Asia.
So its basically a compilation – What’s New?
Pretty much everything. In our preparations to create such a collation, we found that no such model for South Asian Affairs exists in India, either at the academic or professional level. We continue to labour under the impression that a JNU could quench the thirst of a up-and-coming generation getting increasingly connected to a global network. MATRIX, the e-journal from the JNU School of International Studies, had its last publication in September 2000. The era of Cold Wars and Ideological Battlefields is passe -nor does Ancient India’s prowess in Foreign Policy excite anyone – rather than generic analyses of antediluvian power structures, the Khyber aims to bring the latest to your attention.
How do we propose to go about it?
Well, the Khyber is designed to be an interactive feature, symbolic of Web 2.0, where your suggestions/findings of an interesting news or op-ed/analysis could be fuel to the newsletter. Consequently, we have dedicated pages on Facebook and Twitter, and aim to increase its outreach beyond lawschools.
Do subscribe, and contribute.
