At a dinner with reporters last night in New Delhi, Andy Halford, the chief financial officer of Vodafone, the British mobile phone giant, said that Vodafone “could potentially get an annual dividend of as much as $5.5 billion from its 45 percent stake in U.S. venture Verizon Wireless.” Here’s the Bloomberg story, which sent the …
India
Kabul Terror Strike: The Taliban Warns That it’s Not Negotiating From a Position of Weakness
Tuesday’s deadly attack on the Intercontinental Hotel in Kabul was a painful reminder that the U.S. drawdown from Afghanistan will not occur under conditions of Washington’s choosing. The Obama Administration strategy has been to escalate its offensive against the Afghan insurgents, particularly targeting their leaders, in order to …
Lessons from Mumbai in Kabul Hotel Attack
On its surface, it reads like a replay of Mumbai 2008: a nighttime raid by a bevy of heavily-armed fighters who target a luxury hotel frequented by foreigners and the local elite. That’s what happened at the Intercontinental Hotel in Kabul early Wednesday morning, leaving at least seven people dead, among them the six suicide …
Indian Army Raises the Stakes in Its War Against the Maoists
June has been a deadly month in the central Indian state of Chhattisgarh, the heart of the Naxal movement, India’s raging Maoist insurgency. Six security forces were killed on Sunday, bringing the total number of police and paramilitary fatalities to 43 in the month of June alone. That represents almost half of the fatalities among …
India’s Top Outsourcing Firms Under Fire
Allegations of visa fraud have been a constant complaint by critics of the outsourcing industry, who say that firms misuse complex U.S. immigration laws to get their Indian employees to work in the United States. That’s the subject of the investigation underway now against Infosys. It started with an Alabama lawsuit filed in February …
What Do Pakistanis Really Think About the U.S. and India?
The Pew Center has a fascinating new poll out this week measuring public opinion in Pakistan. Among the most surprising results is the degree to which Pakistanis’ view of India have deteriorated over the last several years:
“Pakistani views of traditional rival India have grown increasingly negative in recent years.
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Has Ban Ki-Moon Lived Up to His Goals as UN Chief?
Ban Ki-Moon won a second term as United Nations Secretary General yesterday, affirmed by applause as he was the only candidate. Ban pitched himself as a mediator and bridge-builder, so it’s not surprising that he has been a less visible, less controversial and, his critics would say, less charismatic Secretary General than his …
The U.S. Is Spinning Its Wheels in Afghanistan, No Matter What Troop Levels Obama Maintains
President Obama will announce on Wednesday the size of the troop withdrawal from Afghanistan that he will order in July in keeping with the symbolic drawdown he has promised. His top military men appear to want to keep most combat troops in the field for at least another two years; other advisers want the withdrawal to involve …
M.F. Husain, India’s Picasso, Dies in Exile
It’s a great tragedy that a man whose life’s work seemed such a direct reflection of India’s diversity and vibrancy died far from his homeland, made a pariah by narrow-minded religious bigots. On June 9, Maqbool Fida Husain, India’s most famous modern artist, dubbed the South Asian nation’s “Picasso,” succumbed to a heart attack in a …
Celebrity Yoga Guru Has Indian Politics Knotted Up in Twists
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Hunger strikes in India — a country, incidentally, where millions go hungry every day — are time-tested political tactics to get attention. They’re nothing new in the world’s largest democracy and remain frequently effective. But no fast in recent memory has been quite as …
As Pakistan’s ISI Gets Linked to Terror Groups, Can India Push for a Showdown?
Reports of Saleem Shahzad’s horrible death made the front pages of some of the newspapers in India today. Like the other alarming news from Pakistan lately, the murder of this prominent journalist only confirms India’s longstanding criticism of the ISI as a source of treachery. Anita Joshua, writing on the front page of the Hindu today, …
Burma’s Suu Kyi Announces High Stakes Political Tour
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Pro-democracy campaigner Aung San Suu Kyi confirmed Monday that she’s planning a visit to Burma’s provinces this summer. “I hope to be able to travel out of Rangoon in the month of June, as soon as I have got rid of all the work that has piled up,” she said in a video …
Why the G-8 Should Never Meet Again
The G-8 wraps up its 37th conclave May 27 at the French seaside resort of Deauville. By now, you may have seen some of the gathering’s glitzy snaps. Two seem to define the occasion: one of President Obama and Europe’s top potentates taking a chummy stroll along the Normandy coast, the other of pregnant French first lady Carla …