India

Why I Don't Envy Hillary

Cecille Isidro — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 08:17:00 -0400

There's something very poignant about the photographs of a beaming Hillary Clinton in India. Having fractured her elbow last month, the secretary of State has been undergoing a grueling regime of physical therapy, and until recently she was wearing a stylish sling. One has to assume that Clinton is still in pain, yet she's managed to put on a valiant show for the Indian throngs who've greeted her. When Clinton first visited India in 1995, she was festooned with garlands at every stop. As a country with its own tradition of formidable

The Faded Roadmap to India-Pakistan Peace | Reuters

Cecille Isidro — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 00:02:00 -0400

"Politically it would be very difficult to accept this was Musharraf's achievement," said journalist and analyst Steve Coll, who was the first to write in ...

The Back Channel

Cecille Isidro — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 14:23:00 -0500

Two years ago, Pervez Musharraf, who was then Pakistan’s President and Army chief, summoned his most senior generals and two Foreign Ministry officials to a series of meetings at his military office in Rawalpindi. There, they reviewed the progress of a secret, sensitive negotiation with India, known to its participants as “the back channel.” For several years, special envoys from Pakistan and India had been holding talks in hotel rooms in Bangkok, Dubai, and London. Musharraf and Manmohan Singh, the Prime Minister of India, had encouraged the negotiators to seek what

The Secret Plans For Kashmir | NPR

Cecille Isidro — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 12:06:00 -0500

Journalist Steve Coll says that India and Pakistan held secret talks over the disputed region of Kashmir in 2006, but that tentative plans for peace have since been abandoned due in part to the political decline ...

Envoys to Nowhere

Cecille Isidro — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 12:02:00 -0500

I hope with all my heart that most of what I am going to write in this article will prove mistaken. President Obama’s appointment of George Mitchell as special envoy for the Middle East peace process, and of Richard Holbrooke as special representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan (and de facto American broker for the Kashmir issue), are both in themselves very positive moves. The Bush administration’s neglect of these two conflicts was among its more disgraceful foreign-policy omissions. The appointment of such senior, respected and impressive

Mumbai Wake-Up Call

Cecille Isidro — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 23:12:00 -0500

A few months ago, trucks loaded with goods crossed a border. All over the world, this kind of thing happens every day, but not here. October marked the first time in 60 years that Indian trucks loaded with apples and walnuts traveled to Pakistan. The trucks returned carrying a shipment of Pakistani rice and raisins.

Around the same time, India and Pakistan increased the number of goods the two nations could trade from just 13 to nearly 2,000. They opened new freight train lines and refurbished custom houses in anticipation of vigorous cross border trade.

The Indispensable Ally

Cecille Isidro — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 13:20:00 -0500

The most important questions concerning the terrorist attacks in Mumbai are also obvious ones, yet are not asked nearly often enough by Western analysts. They are: What goals did the terrorists hope to achieve by these attacks? And how to what degree did they achieve them? Regrettably, the terrorists so far seem to have achieved at least a qualified success.

Terrorist Group Moves Beyond Kashmir | Forward

Communications — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 17:40:00 -0500

“The closer Israel-India cooperation has given fodder to their belief in a big anti-Islamic conspiracy between Hindus and Jews,” said Rajan Menon, ...

Blame and Retribution | Economist

Communications — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 12:03:00 -0500

According to Steve Coll of the New Yorker, America’s ambassador in India looked into building a nuclear bunker in the embassy. With hindsight, it is not ...

What Should Obama Do on Kashmir?

Cecille Isidro — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 21:00:00 -0500