The Indian budget every year has always been an eagerly awaited event. For many decades, the best minds in economics, finance, tax, business and industry throng the media house to analyze the provisions shared by the Financial Minister.
Sometimes major events completely disconnected may be data points for the plans of the different powers around the world. The challenge is to discern what purpose they serve? More critically, what are we moving towards?
When the US Ambassador threatened India's "Strategic Autonomy" policy over India's friendship with Russia - much more than meets the eye was at stake. Let us unpack how the Ukraine war has fundamentally changed the US and the world. And why are we here anyway?
The suicide bomb attacks in Sri Lanka, followed by the release of a video of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, raises questions of whether we are seeing the resurgence of ISIS. Speaking to SNI Opinion Editor Ashwin Ahmad, Dr Adil Rasheed, Research Fellow, IDSA and counter-terrorism expert believes the attacks were a bid by ISIS to rally ‘demoralised crusaders’. On why ISIS has not yet formed a base in India, Dr Rasheed believes India’s more liberal forms of Islam – Barelvis and Deobandi – is at odds with the hardline Salafi/Wahabi brands of Islam practiced by ISIS and Al-Qaeda ensuring these groups have so far ignored India. However, ISIS’s growing desperation and the migration of fighters to the Af-Pak region is a threat. Finally, speaking about the rise of affluent, educated Muslims turning to jihad, Dr Rasheed believes jihadis see themselves as ‘revolutionaries’ and history shows that ‘generally revolutionaries think and read a lot.’ To commit to jihad is not possible without some understanding of geopolitics however twisted that understanding may be. #India #Srilanka #Terrorism
Attack by Hamas took a lot to accomplish. The sudden Chinese bonhomie with Syria and the bringing together of Arab - Sunni and Shia countries and actors by Xi Jinping's regime raises some questions .
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