More than a decade after the opening of India, the Special Economic Zone (SEZ) probably has become the most controversial economic reform announced recently. While some consider it India’s supersonic engine of growth, others severely criticize it as the latest land grab instrument in the hands of the industrialists. Serious discourses on development models, displacement and rehabilitation, employment generation, foreign investment, and the primacy of industry over agriculture are being raised in justification and against the whole concept of SEZ.
The recent Havana initiative by the Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh depicts a marked shift in India’s Pakistan policy. Manmohan Singh at Havana had announced on the sidelines of the NAM (Non-Aligned Movement) summit that India and Pakistan are proposing to handle the threat of terrorism jointly. This novel concept of resuming formal peace negotiations with Pakistan (frozen after 11 July Mumbai train blasts) and setting up of a joint agency to tackle terrorism appears to be an ‘atypical’ step as compared to the earlier ‘cautious’ approach.
Amid mixed reports of a rebel withdrawal and relative calm, there continue to be fierce and bloody clashes on the island nation of Sri Lanka between military forces of the Sri Lankan government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), commonly known as the Tamil Tigers.
The recent illegal drug hauls in various parts of India and a couple of high-profile drug abuse cases involving people in power brought the spotlight back onto illegal drug issues in the country. India’s Anti Narcotics Bureau and the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence have seized drugs ranging from cocaine to heroin and other opiates worth millions of dollars in the international market within the last few months. The fact is drug trafficking and illegal drug abuse have been taking place in the subcontinent for a very long but have been relatively ignored.
Wrapping up his three-day India sojourn, US President George W. Bush reiterated that the relationship between India and the United States was 'closer than ever before' and that India was a natural ally for the US. Ally or not, after months of intense deliberations and hard bargaining, India and the US have inked a landmark civilian nuclear cooperation agreement in New Delhi in early March, allowing India to access U.S. nuclear fuel and technology to meet its growing energy requirements.