by Rajan Philips Last week saw a spate of summits underscoring the global economic and geopolitical headwinds that governments and countries have to cope with and navigate through. First, there was the visit to China by the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken. This was followed by a state visit to Washington by India’s Prime […]

WASHINGTON —  Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi told U.S. lawmakers Thursday the United States-India partnership is bound by the shared values of respecting debate and equality in a democracy. “The U.S. is the oldest and India the largest democracy,” Modi said, addressing a joint meeting of the U.S. Congress. “Our partnership augurs well for the […]

CNN- Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi basked in the most lavish honors that the US can bestow on a visiting leader. But for much of his state visit, the specter of an uninvited guest hovered over Washington and the future of US-India relations. China – and the growing belief that the US is on a collision course with […]

WASHINGTON, June 22 (Reuters) – U.S. President Joe Biden and Narendra Modi hailed a new era in their countries’ relationship after the White House rolled out the red carpet for the Indian prime minister on Thursday, touting deals on defense and commerce aimed at countering China’s global influence. “Two great nations, two great friends, and […]

By Vikas Pandey Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to the US has assumed huge significance amid global economic and geopolitical headwinds. The White House is pulling out all the stops to welcome Mr Modi – it’s a state visit, the highest level of diplomatic protocol the US accords to visiting leaders. Mr Modi will […]

By Prabhat Patnaik After Sri Lanka and Pakistan, Bangladesh has become the third country in our neighbourhood to become afflicted by a serious economic crisis. It has asked for a $4.5 billion loan from the IMF, apart from $1 billion from the World Bank and $2.5-3 billion from multilateral agencies and donor nations. Though the […]

From the viewpoint of the South, the recent visit by a delegation of African political leaders to Russia for the primary purpose of impressing on President Vladimir Putin the need to end the conflict in Ukraine is welcome news. The visit is doubly important for at least two main reasons

After much delay, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken travels to China this weekend, hoping to prevent U.S.-China tensions from spiraling further. The bilateral relationship remains the focus of intense attention, but multilateral organizations have long been sites of U.S.-China conflict. The latest arena is UNESCO, which the United States just announced plans to rejoin, largely […]

Mali’s foreign minister has called on the UN to withdraw its peacekeeping force from his country “without delay”. Addressing the UN Security Council Minster Abdoulaye Diop accused the force ‘Minusma’ of having “become a part of the problem in fuelling communal tension”. Minusma has more than 13,000 troops. Its decade-old mission has failed to stop […...

By Y P Prakash The growth of regional industries is crucial for India to realize its ambitions of becoming a global manufacturing hub, and India’s potential in this regard is undeniable. The International Monetary Fund predicts that India’s GDP will grow by 6.1% in 2023, surpassing China’s projected growth of 4.4%. Furthermore, India is expected […]

Some 110 million people have had to flee their homes because of conflict, persecution, or human rights violations, the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees says.

In the recent Group of Seven or G7 Summit, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s interactions with several countries’ leaders shows a shift in India’s international diplomacy and also its proactive approach towards its relations with foreign nations, foreign affairs expert Maheep wrote. Maheep is a leading expert of India’s Foreign Affairs and He is the Principal […]

India has done more for Sri Lanka than the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Union Minister for External Affairs Dr S Jaishankar, has told the Indian Express. The IE story, filed from Ahmedabad, said: The Modi government, he [Jaishankar] underlined, is working on developing an “extended neighbourhood” that involves islands in the Indian Ocean, Gulf countries and […]

By Natalia Antonova The fact that authoritarian societies are more brutal seems intuitive. Why shouldn’t a coercive state create coercive relationships between its citizens? Yet the mechanisms of how authoritarianism breeds intimate partner violence in particular are rarely considered—even though authoritarian regimes tend also to be reactionary and patriarchal ones. For many years, domestic viole...

China sought to forge closer economic and security ties with its Central Asian neighbours on Friday as the US and its allies met next door to build a common strategy to curb Beijing’s challenge to the Washington-led world order. Chinese President Xi Jinping rolled out the red carpet for his counterparts from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan in […]

In a vital sense history could be considered as having come full circle in the Ukraine theatre. For those sections of international opinion that began to look upon military invasions of one country by another as things of the past, the brutal invasion of Ukraine by Russia came as a rude awakening

CPC, CEB need to recover costs until end of Fund’s loan package By Rathindra Kuruwita The Ceylon Petroleum Corporation (CPC) and Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB) had to recover costs until the end of the IMF programme, Sarwat Jahan, IMF Resident Representative in Sri Lanka, told a press conference in Colombo yesterday. The IMF also wanted the […]

Pope Francis has told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky he is constantly praying for peace after the two met privately at the Vatican. The pontiff also stressed on the urgent need to help “the most fragile people, innocent victims” of the full-scale invasion launched by Russia last year. Zelensky earlier met Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni […]

AP photographers Eranga Jayawardena and Rafiq Maqbool were named finalists for the Pulitzer Prize for breaking news photography for images capturing anger over economic collapse in Sri Lanka. The AP images from Sri Lanka captured the full range of human emotion with protesters pumping their fists in the air shouting anti-government slogans, and also shielding […]