India Archive

India has reportedly drafted plans to increase its military presence along its border with China. In an email interview, Jabin T. Jacob, assistant director of the Institute of Chinese Studies in Delhi, India, and the assistant editor of China Report, discussed the state of the India-China border conflict. WPR: What are the core unresolved issues regarding the India-China border? Jabin T. Jacob: The main point of contention in the Sino-Indian boundary dispute was originally the Aksai Chin area in the Indian northwest. China had built a road to Lhasa through the area, setting off the Sino-Indian conflict of 1962. This […]

The recent agreement by India and Pakistan to move toward normalization of trade ties and liberalize visa restrictions on business travellers represented the first time in more than a decade that talks between the two countries have resulted in a concrete positive outcome. A new era of bilateral trade could well be afoot. But the development is best framed as “a logical consequence to a gradual rapprochement that has been occurring between India and Pakistan,” says Arif Rafiq, the editor of Pakistan Policy Blog and president of Vizier Consulting, a Middle East and South Asia strategy company. Rafiq, also a […]

Indian Vice President Hamid Ansari paid a six-day visit to Turkey last month. In an email interview, Michael B. Bishku, a professor of history at Augusta State University, discussed India-Turkey relations. WPR: What is the recent history of India-Turkey relations? Michael B. Bishku: Bilateral relations between Turkey and India experienced a renaissance after the 2002 Turkish parliamentary elections that brought the mildly Islamist Justice and Development Party (AKP) to power. This is in part due to Turkey’s “zero-problems” foreign policy — initiated by Ahmet Davutoglu, first as Ankara’s chief foreign policy adviser and more recently as foreign minister — which […]

If the phenomenon of nuclear renaissance has a true believer, it is India. In the next decade, India envisages monumental growth in its nuclear energy production. Today, nuclear energy contributes only 3 percent of the country’s total energy mix — a meager 4,200 megawatts. By 2020, India plans to increase nuclear energy production tenfold, to 40,000 MW. But the question now facing New Delhi is whether hostile public opinion will scuttle India’s nuclear energy expansion. Massive anti-nuclear protests in India have brought progress on the Koodankulam nuclear power plant to a grinding halt. Before that, the Jaitapur nuclear project ran […]

An Indo-Japanese entente in Asia has been a much-discussed, but somewhat amorphous proposition — till now. China’s increasingly belligerent posture in the South China Sea and the perceived decline of overall U.S. influence has managed to focus minds in both Tokyo and New Delhi. Japan, in particular, is now quite keen to greatly expand maritime and defense cooperation as a part of a much deeper relationship. The emerging security partnership between the two Asian powers is underpinned by a larger geo-economic convergence of interests. Japan and India are both moving to put in place a strategic economic structure that can […]