The Foreign Desk
Unexpected troop movements near Delhi in January cause alarm
Army intrigue and graft hits India’s defences
Concern about worsening relations between India’s army and government is graphically illustrated by a story that takes up the entire front page of The The Indian Express this morning about two key mechanised military units moving unexpectedly towards Delhi at night in mid-January. The government did not have the usual [...]
By John Elliott | The Foreign Desk | Wednesday, 4 April 2012 at 9:01 am
BREAKING: PR professionals to strike; UK news drought expected
Now, I’m not one to just cut and paste a press release, you understand, but this is quite simply the most delicious spoof.
With props to Paul Maher and Positive Marketing, please see the attached press release:
Embargoed until Sunday 1 April 2012, UK (NATIONWIDE) – The UK’s two largest Public Relations unions, the Federation of Online [...]
By Stephen Foley | The Foreign Desk, iPolitics | Saturday, 31 March 2012 at 8:15 pm
UK hedge fund challenges India public sector controls
MUMBAI: India’s coal problems are getting worse and are in the news for all the wrong reasons. The industry has been failing the country for years by not maximising the output of efficiently mined coal. As a result, power supplies have been crippled because of coal shortages, and the government has failed to act.
Now the [...]
By John Elliott | Notebook, Opinion, The Foreign Desk | Tuesday, 27 March 2012 at 7:20 pm
Salman Rushdie rubbishes ‘dim’ Imran Khan and much else besides
It’s been quite a weekend in New Delhi. India’s finance minister Pranab Mukherjee presented a desperately ineffectual and unimaginative Budget on Friday, and then failed to turn up at India Today magazine’s annual conclave yesterday (Saturday) morning, where he was billed to be the first speaker.
He withdrew not because he was too busy or had [...]
By John Elliott | The Foreign Desk | Sunday, 18 March 2012 at 7:41 pm
Kony 2012 did something right for Americans
You might complain about how well-informed the Kony 2012 video is, or criticise it for being condescending. You might ask, as the Indy’s Archie Bland does, whether collective outrage is the best way to call for change. You might focus, as Fox News has, on how the charity that produced the video about the notorious leader of [...]
By Anne Penketh | The Foreign Desk | Saturday, 10 March 2012 at 1:18 am
Rahul Gandhi and Congress do badly in India’s state elections
As India waited this morning for results of five state assembly elections, the most telling headlines in the day’s newspapers, along with Rahul Gandhi’s failure to galvanise votes in Uttar Pradesh (UP), were on share movements yesterday of leading companies – Jaiprakash (JP) group companies went down while Anil Ambani’s Reliance (ADAG) stocks went up, [...]
By John Elliott | The Foreign Desk | Tuesday, 6 March 2012 at 10:46 am
Netanyahu unbound
If President Barack Obama thought he had managed to restrain Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from ordering preemptive military strikes on Iran to prevent Tehran from developing a nuclear weapon, he might have to try again.
Judging from the prime minister’s speech to the pro-Israel lobby group AIPAC in Washington, an Israeli attack is coming sooner rather than later. Noting [...]
By Anne Penketh | The Foreign Desk | Tuesday, 6 March 2012 at 4:32 am
United Russia, dividing Russians
Putin’s United Russia cannot have become more divisive since December’s Parliamentary elections, which reminded the Kremlin in the rudest possible terms that Russia is indeed a Federation. Uniting Russia, whether Russia wants it or not, heavy-handed centralisation was the name of the game until the extent of the party’s dependence on country’s Republics – its autonomous, non-Russian regions – was revealed.
By Maxim Edwards | Notebook, Opinion, The Foreign Desk | Sunday, 4 March 2012 at 7:18 pm
India’s Maoist rebels need mainstream party politics
India’s Naxalite rebels need to be tackled with mainstream political activity, not just development projects and repression by security forces. This new approach for handling the country’s most serious internal security problem is being pushed by Jairam Ramesh, the minister for rural development. It is also being tacitly accepted by the state government of Orissa [...]
By John Elliott | The Foreign Desk | Thursday, 1 March 2012 at 7:26 pm
The forgotten plight of the Bedouin in the Holy Land
The Bedouin of Israel and the occupied territories are easy to pick on. Self-identifying as neither Israeli nor Palestinian, not often considered as such by either community in return, their plight is less attention-grabbing, less politically-infused than that of other communities in the Holy Land. Accordingly, when their rights are apparently under assault, their suffering can easily disappear under the radar.
By Emanuel Stoakes | Notebook, Opinion, The Foreign Desk | Thursday, 1 March 2012 at 12:00 am
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