Thinking about a majestic river like the Indus River in South Asia attracts more perspective and situation room strategies than a possible benefit-sharing solution. From countless war strategies to suing each other in legal battles, from instigating to investigation, from hydro-phobia to hydro-politics, from misinformation to deliberately uninformed, India and Pakistan have been engaged in myriad exchanges and wasting time and opportunity. The exception could have been only during the ancient Indus Civilisation when settlements on both sides of the river respected the Indus as one.
On August 30, 2012, the Lower House (Lok Sabha) of the Indian Parliament passed a bill to amend the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) Act (2002).
As leaders from about 50 countries arrive with their caravans in Tehran for what now seems to be settling into a triennial ritual, a question that has intrigued everyone for the past two decades is - what does NAM mean in a post-cold War context? Moreover, somewhat, if not equally, intriguing, a question that historians have struggled to find answers to is the origins of the term itself.
While India has been witnessing terrorism ever since its independence, the vicious influence and reach of contemporary terrorism are unique and cleave out potent problems for India. Many of the terrorist attacks against cities in India, like the German Bakery blast in Pune (Maharashtra) on February 13, 2010, had been conceptualized and planned by Indian Muslims who sought to attack their own country.
Non-alignment is backed by a recent report prepared and published by the Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi, in February 2012. Reminiscent of a movie sequel, it is refreshed, repackaged, updated and delivered in a 2.0 form, titled “Non-Alignment 2.0: A Foreign and Strategic Policy for India in the Twenty-First Century”. And like most movie sequels today, it also runs on an altogether new script with only an imaginary connection to the first. Why stick to the name, then?