By James M Dorsey There’s a potential silver lining in Hindu nationalism’s endorsement of Indonesia’s Humanitarian Islam. That is if the approval produces a Hindu equivalent. At first glance, Hindu nationalist Ram Madhav’s call on Indian Muslims to embrace one, if not the world’s most moderate expression of Islam, seems patronising and out of step. […]
The post Can Indonesia’s Humanitarian Islam Inspire A Hindu Equivalent? first appeared on IPA Newspack.
James M Dorsey Malaysia has emerged as a potential external operations base for Hamas, the Islamist group that controls the Gaza Strip if Turkey expels or restricts the group’s movements as a part of its rapprochement with Israel. Turkey has in recent months deported Hamas activists or refused them entry into the country as it sought to improve its troubled relations with Israel, according to Israeli press reports. […]
By Manish Rai The Taliban now has firm control over Afghanistan. At this point in time, the Taliban have no opponents capable of undermining their positions in terms of military, political, or even economic resources. Also, there have been no meaningful changes in the radical ideology of the Taliban. It is still a militant group ruling over a UN member state. During the 2021 summer offensive, the […]
By K Raveendran The ‘freeze’ ordered by Prime Minister Narendra Modi as a response to the outbreak of Covid pandemic had gone terribly wrong in terms of its timing. Millions of lives and livelihoods were lost as everything ground to a halt, a mistake for which the nation continues to pay a heavy price. Now […]
The post Two Lockdowns In Asia’s Two Biggest Countries Offer Many Lessons first appeared on IPA Newspack.
Matein Khalid The mini crash in crude oil in Asia was triggered by the rumour that China’s zero Covid policy means that Beijing will join Shanghai, the world’s largest port and the PRC’s financial capital, in a draconian lockdown that will gut demand for petroleum products in the world’s second largest oil importer. Brent has fallen almost $40 from its post-Ukraine invasion high and it’s evident that […]
By Jacob Chacko Gargantuan advancements have been made over the last couple of years to tackle the pandemic. But COVID-19 is still casting a long shadow of uncertainty across the globe. Businesses in almost every sector have had to quickly adapt to a digital-first world and, as economies start to fully reopen, many are finding that the challenges faced so far were just the tip of the […]
By Nantoo Banerjee Prices are bubbling up. Food, fuel and fertiliser costs are surging almost daily. Inflation seems to have got a free pass in India. The country’s wholesale price index, which tracks goods at factory gates, rose almost 13 percent from a year earlier in January. The gauge has recorded double-digit increases for 10 […]
The post RBI Has Failed To Check Surging Inflation first appeared on IPA Newspack.
By Arun Kumar Shrivastav After an economic crisis, Sri Lanka has plunged into a political crisis now. On Monday morning, news reports said that the entire Sri Lankan Cabinet has resigned. There were also rumors that Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa had resigned or would resign soon but his office denied the rumours. Another rumor that […]
The post Economic Crisis In Sri Lanka Turns Into A Major Political Imbroglio first appeared on IPA Newspack.
James M Dorsey A straightforward message emerged from this week’s meeting in the Negev desert of the foreign ministers of four Arab countries, Israel and the United States: Israel is key to the security of Gulf autocracies and continued US engagement in the Middle East. It may be a message that on the surface holds out the promise of reduced regional tension, the beginning of a rejiggering […]
By K Raveendran The currency stand-off in the global gas market, triggered by Russian president Vladimir Putin’s announcement that Russian gas will henceforth have to be paid in roubles instead of dollar and euro is keeping the market on tenterhooks. It has upset the calculations of all important stake holders, including India, which has been […]
The post Putin’s Gambit In Demanding Rouble Payments Takes Issues Beyond Pricing first appeared on IPA Newspack.
By Prabhat Patnaik The juggling which US imperialism has to do to maintain its hegemony becomes more bizarre by the day. First, it kept needling Russia (“provoking the bear”) “on behalf of the western alliance” by expanding NATO to its very borders, knowing full well that Ukraine’s joining NATO would be totally unacceptable to Russia. […]
The post The Bizarre Case Of United States Imposing Sanctions Against Russia first appeared on IPA Newspack.
By Arun Kumar Shrivastav Earlier this month, China announced a 7.1% increase in its defence budget to about $230 billion. The news generated concerns in relevant quarters in India. China maintains the highest number of active military personnel in the world and its defence budget is the 2nd largest in the world for many years […]
The post Rising Defence Budget Is Making The World A More Dangerous Place first appeared on IPA Newspack.
By Nantoo Banerjee There were writings on the wall. Only India’s official economists seemed to have failed to read and report to the government. Oil rally was expected to continue through 2022 as demand outstripped supply. By January 29, this year, oil posted its sixth straight weekly gain as a growing global chorus predicted the […]
The post Surging Inflation Can Upset India’s Economy first appeared on IPA Newspack.
By James M Dorsey The Ukraine crisis may constitute a more impactful, historic watershed than the 1989 fall of the Berlin wall in the mind of Singapore Foreign Affairs Minister Vivian Balakrishnan. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is “perhaps even a bigger moment than the fall of the Berlin Wall,” Balakrishnan said. “We believe we are at an inflection point,” he added. “Little Singapore is standing up for principles and […]
By James M Dorsey What did Russian President Vladimir Putin think when he ordered his troops into Ukraine? Ray Charles’ ‘Georgia on mind’ must have been humming in his head. A slightly altered version, ‘Palestine on my mind,’ was undoubtedly on Egyptian athlete Ali Farag’s mind when he condemned the Russian invasion of Ukraine on Sunday as he won Britain’s Optacia squash championship. “We’ve never been allowed […]
By Sushil Kutty The Karnataka hijab row now goes to the Supreme Court after the Karnataka High Court ruled that the hijab is not essential religious practice in Islam, and there’s clear and present danger that the row will escalate to the “national stage”, which was what the high court had feared would happen when […]
The post Hijab Row Gets National Dimension After Ruling By Karnataka High Court first appeared on IPA Newspack.
By Nantoo Banerjee The Russian attack on Ukraine seems to have given a wakeup call to countries in Europe and Asia to substantially step up their annual defence expenditure to protect themselves from possible external assault. Given the ominous security situation in Europe, a number of countries, including Germany, Sweden, Romania, Latvia, Finland, the Netherlands […]
The post Several Countries Plan To Step Up Military Spending first appeared on IPA Newspack.
James M Dorsey Struggling to remain on the sidelines of the 21st century’s watershed war in Ukraine, Middle Eastern nations are discovering that they may be fighting their battles with an outdated toolkit. As a result, the Ukraine war could saw off the legs from under the table of Middle Eastern détente that already are built on shaky ground. For the past 18 months, Middle Eastern rivals – Saudi […]
James M Dorsey Two diametrically opposed visions of moderate Islam have emerged as major Muslim powers battle to define the soul of their faith in the 21st century in a struggle that is as much about geopolitics as it is about autocratic survival and visualisations of a future civilisation and world order. Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Yahya Cholil Staquf, the newly elected chairman of […]
James M Dorsey Emiratis celebrated their decision not to condemn the Russian invasion of Ukraine in the United Nations Security Council as the end of an era in which the Gulf state took its foreign policy cues from the United States. However, the Emiratis may be celebrating prematurely. As the UAE took over from Russia this month as chairman of the Council, Abdulkhaleq Abdulla, a political scientist […]
Matein Khalid The Russian invasion of Ukraine is both a humanitarian tragedy and an economic disaster. Something is dangerously wrong in a world where its second largest oil producer is now a pariah state that makes a mockery of international law and will soon be crippled once its banks are ejected from SWIFT. Russia and Ukraine are also the source of almost one third the world’s wheat/corn […]
By James M Dorsey It may be only a matter of time before Russian troops control the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv and topple President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. However, that may not be the end of the story. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s troops could find themselves in Ukraine for the long haul depending on whether Ukrainians have the stomach to launch an insurgency. If so, Mr. Putin knows the […]
By James M Dorsey Israel and Gulf states struggle not to fall off the tightrope they walk as a Russian attack on Ukraine makes hedging bets increasingly tricky. Unlike Israel, the Gulf states may feel that they have more flexibility than the Jewish state that depends on the United States for its regional military superiority and political support in an international community critical of its 54-year-long occupation […]
By K Raveendran With the Russian invasion of Ukraine already playing out, it is clear that the war between US and allies on one side and Russia on the other would be fought not just at the military and economic levels, as already manifested by the western sanctions, but with another strategic weapon as well: […]
The post Energy Is A Strategic Weapon In Russia’s War Against Ukraine first appeared on IPA Newspack.
Arabian Post Staff Dubai International (DXB) continues to be the world’s busiest airport by international passenger numbers for the eighth consecutive year after clocking 29.1 million in annual traffic in 2021. DXB’s annual traffic exceeded forecasts for the year by more than half a million passengers, on the back of a strong last quarter. Paul Griffiths, CEO of Dubai Airports, described an eventful year which, despite the […]
Bjørnar Tonhaugen According to prices in the market, and numerous market observers, the world is not producing enough oil to keep up with near-term demand. Are we facing the start of a major supply crunch in the upstream world of oil like for natural gas? As global demand recovers from the pandemic, could we be near exhaustion of short-term production capacity, which means that the drop in […]
