Current Affairs

Olipath, Centrality and Trust Issues: India-Nepal Muddled Neighbourhood Friendship

Olipath, Centrality and Trust Issues: India-Nepal Muddled Neighbourhood Friendship

Written by : Dr. Anup Shekhar Chakraborty. Photo credit : Shutterstock.com Comrades in Alliance: House of Cards The Left-wing politics in Nepal has obliterated Rajshahi (Monarchy) and associated caste-class social hierarchies, yet Samajwad (Socialism) remained a statist utopia. Nepal’s uniqueness is that it tends to present trends in deviation from global experience. While globally communists and communist ideology are in life-support, and communist parties have dwindled, let alone be in determining political positions, Nepal post-2018 presents a case in contradistinction. In 2018 the electoral alliance of the two main communist parties in Nepal won a nearly two-thirds majority in Parliament.…
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From Kabul to Quad: In Which Way World Politics is Heading?

From Kabul to Quad: In Which Way World Politics is Heading?

Written by : Dr. Pratip Chattopadhyay Abstract: The year 2021 began with renewed enthusiasm of the United States of America and its strategic partners in the Indo-Pacific viz. Indian, Japan and Australia to reenergise the Quad forum with the first meeting (virtually) of member countries’ political head taking place in March 2021. However since July the focus of attention of US and India in particular and of world politics in general shifted to Afghanistan where usurpation of power by Taliban is underway to fill up the vacuum created by withdrawal of US troops after two decades from the country. The…
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West Bengal Assembly Elections 2021: Footprints of United Coalition Era in India?

West Bengal Assembly Elections 2021: Footprints of United Coalition Era in India?

Written by : Pratip Chattopadhyay The assembly election of West Bengal in 2021 turned out to be a great deception for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its supporters. The Trinamul Congress (TMC), the ruling party recorded a thumping victory with 213 seats out of 292 seats in which polls were conducted. The result of the election came out as a replay of the Delhi assembly election last year. In the immediate post-election phase, we witnessed a spate of violence among the rival party members at the grass root level, then conundrum over arrest, re-arrest and finally bail of two…
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The U.S. withdrawal and the uncertain future of Afghanistan

The U.S. withdrawal and the uncertain future of Afghanistan

Written by : : Mohammad Qais Rahmani Photo : Shutterstock.com On April 14, 2021, the U.S. President Joe Biden announced the withdrawal of the remaining 2,500 American troops from Afghanistan by 11 September. The date is very significant as it will mark twenty years of the al-Qaeda attacks that triggered America's invasion in Afghanistan. However, things are happening more rapidly than expected. By now It is clear that the American administration wants to get out of Afghanistan as soon as possible. The departure of the US troops from Bagram Airbase on July 2 in the darkness of the night without…
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Can genetic manipulation of plants combat climate changes?

Can genetic manipulation of plants combat climate changes?

Written by : Dr. Ananya Mukherjee Photo : Shutterstock.com With the global population set to increase to nearly 10 billion by 2050, climate change has become a major global crisis. If you have been paying attention to the news, the Pacific North West in USA, such as Seattle and Oregon areas, has been experiencing temperatures as high as 104-112 degrees last weekend alone. Such events of extreme weather are becoming more and more common with a likely trend projected to continue as per the Oregon Climate Office. In recent years climate change has played an undeniable role in catastrophes like…
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Can China Act as an Antidote for SAARC?

Can China Act as an Antidote for SAARC?

Written by : Pratip Chattopadhyay Photo : shutterstock.com Snippet: SAARC is a dead organisation for mainstream analysis in geopolitical and regional studies which is mostly inspired by realist and liberal approach to international politics. For realists the regional body doesn’t have any regional interest vis-a-vis other regions to knit them together and for the liberals the index of conflict among SAARC member-states exceeds that of cooperation and solidarity. From a constructivist perspective however SAARC still has enough reasons to carve out an identity for itself, particularly at a time when China is behaving as the continental power with its BRI…
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Silence Please! Developmental Democracy is Parading in India

Silence Please! Developmental Democracy is Parading in India

Written by : Pratip Chattopadhyay Photo : Shutterstock.com Summary: Democracy in India has seen many twists and turns in its evolution but under the present dispensation of Narendra Modi led NDA government, democracy in India has taken a distinct developmental turn, rhetorically in slogans like ‘development for all, development with all for trust of all’, and practically through reform measures in economic sector. As against the ‘swadeshi’ and ‘nationalist’ sentiment that BJP manifests, the present developmental turn is modelled on neoliberal paradigm of development. Quite naturally because of rootedness of Indians, farmers and commoners stages protest firmly against such developmental…
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Let’s Make History: Appropriating Histories to Make Newer Histories

Let’s Make History: Appropriating Histories to Make Newer Histories

Written by : Dr. Anup Shekhar Chakraborty Photo : Shutterstock.com Vexed Histories History writing, its interpretation, and conception of any event as history are markedly selective and involve ‘political’ choices and decisions. The methodology infused into the engagement and resource collection and documentation is strongly marked by familiarising and de-familiarising select events. Thereby the event is perceived through what Foucault calls a gaze. In many senses, the gaze of history which fills our knowledge/information for the common is marked by the statist enterprise (governance, governmentality). In short, history is a political engagement in many senses not merely because of the…
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Is The Anti-Separatism Bill Of France Anti-Islam? – A Brief Report

Is The Anti-Separatism Bill Of France Anti-Islam? – A Brief Report

Compiled by : Rabbani Khan Photo : Shutterstock.com On 16 February 2021, the National Assembly, the lower house of the French Parliament, adopted the controversial anti-separatism bill by 347 votes in favour, 151 against and 65 abstaining, thus facilitating the way for it to be passed into law in coming months. The text was presented to the Council of Ministers on 9 December 2020 by Gérald Darmanin, the Home Minister, and by Marlène Schiappa, Minister Delegate to the Home Minister in charge of Citizenship, exactly 115 years after the law on the separation of churches and state came into force.…
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Defecting Democracy: The New Normal of Party-politics in India

Defecting Democracy: The New Normal of Party-politics in India

Written by : Pratip Chattopadhyay Illustration : Avijit Ghosh Summary: Presently defection in party-politics is becoming the new norm to smoothen the rise of Bharatiya Janata Party(BJP) in the era of second coming of one-party system in Indian democracy. Defection as a practice is as old as party system in a democracy. However the new normaility of defection in Indian context is that defection is not resulting in new party formation or apolitical position but resulting in joining the bandwagon of BJP-ism thereby distorting the very essence of democracy itself, i.e. pluralism. In this context, this article claims that Indian…
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