The view from Pakistan: India is a bigger threat than the Taliban, al Qaeda
India may have a bigger problem in Pakistan than previously thought. More than half of Pakistanis surveyed in a Pew poll say India is a bigger threat than al Qaeda or the Taliban.
It’s not just the Pakistani military that believes a bigger, richer India is an existential threat. A majority of ordinary people share that perception as well. That ought to worry Indian policy planners. Of the Pakistanis polled, 23 percent think the Taliban is the greatest threat to their country, and 3 percent think al Qaeda is, despite the rising tide of militant violence in Pakistan’s turbulent northwest region on the Afghan border, and also in the heartland cities.
India adjusts Afghan strategy as endgame quickens
SINGAPORE (Reuters) – With Pakistan set to play a central role in any political settlement of the Afghan war due to its sway over the Taliban, India has few options to counter its bitter rival’s influence in the country.
Any deal that ends up with Pakistan in a dominant position in Afghanistan, while India is left smarting and worrying about its security, could foment tensions between the nuclear-armed neighbours, who already accuse each other of militant attacks and whose peace process has been deadlocked since the 2008 bombings in Mumbai.
Anand Sharma forecasts 9 pct-plus GDP growth
SINGAPORE (Reuters) – India’s gross domestic product growth is expected to return to “9 percent plus” this year, Trade Minister Anand Sharma said on Friday, led by strong corporate performance and rising savings levels.
Sharma also said he expected inflation, which is fuelled by food demand, to be brought under control.
Trade minister forecasts 9 pct-plus GDP growth
SINGAPORE (Reuters) – India’s gross domestic product growth is expected to return to “9 percent plus” this year, Trade Minister Anand Sharma said on Friday, led by strong corporate performance and rising savings levels.
Sharma also said he expected inflation, which is fuelled by food demand, to be brought under control.
Pakistan’s Zardari in China; nuclear deal in grasp
(File picture of President Zardari in China)
Pakistan’s President Asif Ali Zardari is in China this week, making good his promise to visit the “all weather ally” every three months. During his previous trips, his hosts have sent him off to the provinces to see for himself the booming growth there, but this trip may turn out be a lot more productive.
Zardari may well return with a firm plan by China to build two reactors at Pakistan’s Chashma nuclear plant, as my colleague in Beijing reports in this article, overriding concern in Washington, New Delhi and other capitals that this undermined global non-proliferation objectives.
India’s nuclear ambition runs up against China’s
SINGAPORE (Reuters) – A 2008 civilian nuclear energy pact between the United States and India was meant to lift a 34-year-old embargo on nuclear trade despite New Delhi’s longstanding weapons programme, a move seen as bolstering it as a counterweight to China.
It was also aimed at unlocking the energy-starved country’s nuclear industry market, estimated at $150 billion, at a time when nuclear power is undergoing a nascent renaissance worldwide as a more environment-friendly alternative to fossil fuels.
Analysis: India’s nuclear ambition runs up against China’s
SINGAPORE (Reuters) – A 2008 civilian nuclear energy pact between the United States and India was meant to lift a 34-year-old embargo on nuclear trade despite New Delhi’s longstanding weapons programme, a move seen as bolstering it as a counterweight to China.
It was also aimed at unlocking the energy-starved country’s nuclear industry market, estimated at $150 billion, at a time when nuclear power is undergoing a nascent renaissance worldwide as a more environment-friendly alternative to fossil fuels.
Afghanistan’s $2 bln gravy train
File picture of fuel tanker that exploded following an attack in Jalalabad)
The United States cannot win a fight for hearts and minds if it outsources critical missions to unaccountable contractors, U.S. President Barack Obama said during a speech he made as a senator back in 2007. It hasn’t changed much in Afghanistan since then as a U.S. Congressional investigation into a $2.16 billion supply chain that provides soldiers everything from muffins to mine-resistant vehicles shows.
Security for the supply chain running through remote and hostile terrain has been outsourced to contractors, “an arrangement that has fuelled a vast protection racket run by a shadowy network of warlords, strongmen, commanders, corrupt Afghan officials, and perhaps others,” according to John F.Tierney, chairman of the
subcommittee on National Security And Foreign Affairs.
Afghan mining roadshow opens; temptation, trepidation for India, China
Afghan authorities have organised a roadshow in London that opens on Friday aimed at drumming up interest in the country’s mineral wealth variously estimated at anything from $1 trillion to $3 trillion.
India and China, the regional heavyweights, are the top candidates to fight for a piece of the action in their immediate neighbourhood. If there are such large reserves of copper, iron ore and key industrial metals such as lithium lying untapped in their neighbourhood you would expect them to invest heavily in Afghanistan to feed their supercharged economies.
Afghan wealth tempts India, China but hurdles remain
SINGAPORE (Reuters) – For all the lure of the mineral wealth believed to be lying untapped beneath war-ravaged Afghanistan, Asia’s two major economies, India and China, are not rushing in with pick axes and shovels just yet.
Both resource-hungry nations, jockeying for influence in Afghanistan as the United States prepares to pull out its troops next year, are hungrily eyeing the deposits of iron ore, copper and key industrial metals such as lithium, estimated to be worth more than $1 trillion.
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