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The
Khyber is a
weekly newsletter from NALSAR University, focusing
on South
Asian affairs. This not-for-profit venture consists
of a collation of news from national, regional
and international streams.
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.
May
14,
2010 | A South Asian Affairs Brief
Will there be an Indian Harvard?
India is currently
confronting a dilemma that threatens to stop the
country's impressive economic expansion in its tracks: an acute
shortage of
trained manpower. To provide the country with a much-needed injection
of
skilled engineers and managers, India's leaders have embarked on an
ambitious effort
to encourage
foreign
higher educational institutions to open campuses on their
soil.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's government has proposed legislation,
which
the Indian Parliament is expected to enact into law, paving the way for
foreign
universities to set up branches in India. They will have a vast pool of
aspirants to choose from: 88 out of every 100 Indian students who
graduate
from high school don't go on to higher education.
"We go to the toilet on the street.I know other people have to walk in
it. But you don't have much choice if you have to go."
Nuclear Gamesmanship:
Clinton vs.
Ahmadinejad:- Walking
out on Monday's (May 3, 2010) U.N. speech by Iranian President Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad may have been good domestic politics for the Obama
Administration and its closest European allies, but it won't
necessarily
help
them prevail at the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty
(NPT) review conference that began on the same day. In fact, the move
by delegates from the U.S., Britain and France among others, may have
perversely played
to Ahmadinejad's advantage.
Saving the Right to Information
Miracle:- The
RTI juggernaut has begun to roll over Indian babudom. Let
us
not turn
the clock back. Over the past
week, there have been reports that
the Prime
Minister's Office, responding to Sonia Gandhi's muscular intervention,
is backing off on the dreaded amendments to the Right to Information
Act, 2005.On the other hand, it is worth remembering that the
amendments scare
has never been too far away. It resurfaced as recently as April 30,
2010 — this time in the benign form of a friendly letter to an RTI
applicant.
Taliban
Hand
In Failed Bombing In NY Times Square :- Interrogation
of the Times Square bomb suspect Faisal Shahzad and the
subsequent investigation has unearthed that the Tehrik-e-Taliban
Pakistan (TTP) was
very deeply involved in the
planning and execution
of the failed plot, the US said today."They (federal
investigating agencies) know now that the TTP, the Taliban in Pakistan
were involved in this (Times Square bombing attempt) in a very deep and
involved way.And that came in part from those interrogations; in part
from work that's being done in Pakistan," senior White House advisor
David Axelrod, told CNN in an interview.
US-China
human
rights dialogue resumes:- The
United States and China are holding
talks on human rights for the first time in two years. Senior officials
are meeting behind closed doors for two days in Washington.The
US has said it will raise longstanding
concerns
over freedom of
expression and religion in
China, as well as the treatment of
dissidents. Disagreements
over human rights have for years been an irritant in US-China relations.
Daunting
task ahead for Krishna,
Qureshi :- Bridging
the
trust deficit — the task handed
down to Foreign Ministers
S.M. Krishna and S.M. Qureshi by their Prime Ministers is indeed a
daunting if not an impossible one. Yet, it is a task the two sides
would better prepare for if they come closer in their understanding of
the terms involved: primarily, terror. It's no secret that the trust
deficit both sides refer to is euphemism for India's belief that
Pakistan supports and nurtures the very terrorist groups that seek to
destroy India.
In India, Hitching
Hopes on a Subway:- The
trains arrive with a whisper. The doors slide open and a puff of
refrigerated air confronts the city’s summertime miasma. A bell dings,
the doors close and the train whisks its passengers to the next
stop.This
sequence of events might seem utterly ordinary on train platforms
in Berlin or Singapore. But here in the sweaty
heart of India’s
northernmost megacity, the runaway success of the city’s almost
complete subway system, known as the Metro, is a feat bordering on
miraculous, and it offers new hope that India’s
perpetually
decrepit
urban infrastructure can be
dragged into the 21st century.
Q&A With Robert Kaplan:- We've
been reading a lot about China, about China
holding
so much of
our debt, about -- you know --
all these problems the U.S. has in
their
bilateral relations with China over global warming, over China's
support of authoritarian regimes in Burma, in Sudan, and all that. But
one thing that's the most obvious thing that nobody writes about is
Chinese geography; in other words, what does the map say about China?
That's what this piece is all about. And it's got several themes.
Stunned China Looks Inward After School Attack:- In the wake of a fourth horrific attackon
Chinese schoolchildren —
this time by a crazed man who on Friday beat five toddlers with a
hammer, then set himself on fire with two other children in his arms —
this shocked and bruised nation was of two distinctly different minds.On
the Internet and in newspapers, people
agonized over whether their
tightly regimented society, a boiling caldron of change with no
pressure valve to let off steam, was
blowing
its lid.
Terrorism
Down,
But Not Out:- Almost ten years into
a full-on war on
terrorism in Afghanistan and
al-Qaeda has been dispersed. Indeed, the US is now confident
enough that it has dealt a significant enough blow to militants that it
has shifted its focus to transferring the burden of confrontation and
development into local hands under an Af-Pak policy expected to pave
the way for a NATO pull-out from active conflict.are
far
from
destroyed—a fact that raises
troubling questions about
Afghanistan’s
ability to meet its objectives.
Iran's
Revolutionary
Guard Corps expands role in sanctions-hit oil sector:- Taking
advantage of the very sanctions directed against it, Iran's
Revolutionary
Guard Corps is assuming a leading role in developing the
country's lucrative petroleum sector, Western oil executives and
Iranian analysts say.
The Guard's engineering companies, replacing European oil firms that
have largely abandoned Iran, have been rewarded
with
huge no-bid
contracts.
China Set for Naval Hegemony:-On the night of March 26 the Cheonan, a
South Korean Navy
corvette patrolling in the Yellow Sea, mysteriously erupted in a cataclysmic
explosion and sank to the
bottom. The ship was just off
Baengnyeong Island, near the Northern Limit Line, which is the
armistice separation line between North and South Korea. Of the 104
crew on board, only 58 survived. Salvage operations confirm the ship
was struck by a North Korean heavy torpedo armed with a 200 kg warhead.
‘Cancer'
of
terror, not India, a threat to Pakistan: Obama:- United States President Barack Obama has
warned that extremists pose a
serious threat to Pakistan's sovereignty and pointed out that Islamabad
had realised that it was not India but the
“cancer”
of terrorism
emanating from its own territory that was its primary concern. “I think
there has been in the past a view on the
part of Pakistan that their primary rival, India, was their only
concern,” he said at a joint press conference with visiting Afghan
President Hamid Karzai here on Wednesday night.
India “saved” China from
isolation at Copenhagen: Jairam:- China would have been left completely
isolated at last December's
climate summit in Copenhagen, if it had not been for India's backing,
Minister of State for Environment and Forests Jairam Ramesh has
said.Recognition
from China's “top leadership” that Indian
support
was
“absolutely essential” for China at the talks, following an
“ambush” by
the West, had now even led to an improvement in bilateral relations
after a year of hostilities, Mr. Ramesh told journalists on Sunday.
How
India
and China Sabotaged the UN Climate Summit:- What really went on at the UN climate
conference in Copenhagen? Secret
recordings obtained by SPIEGEL
reveal
how China and India prevented an agreement on tackling climate change
at the crucial meeting. The powerless Europeans were forced to look on
as the agreement failed.
The
myth
of missile defense as a deterrent:- The Obama administration's long-awaited Nuclear Posture Review
(NPR) "establishes U.S. nuclear policy, strategy, capabilities and
force posture for the next five to ten years." The review signals a
fresh approach to nuclear doctrine; however, its reliance on missile
defense as an element of nuclear deterrence is wrong. Such systems are
useless, dangerous, and destabilizing, and ramping up reliance on
missile defenses because of planned reductions to the U.S. operational
nuclear stockpile is deeply misguided.
"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)
The Khyber is a student-run initiative focusing on South Asian policy and development. We bring you a collation of news and opinion from leading national, regional and international sources. Aimed at bringing oft-neglected policy discussions into mainstream academic discourse, we hope The Khyber would be your gateway to South Asian affairs, much like the pass itself.
The initiative is meant solely as an academic, not-for-profit venture, and we appreciate your comments and feedback.
Cras purus. Nunc rhoncus. Pellentesque semper. Donec imperdiet accumsan felis. Proin eget mi. Sed at est. Nunc a purus eu sapien–lacinia fermentum.
Stunned China Looks Inward After School Attack:- 
Terrorism
Down,
But Not Out:- 
China Set for Naval Hegemony:-
)