Category: Asia-Pacific

By Kalinga Seneviratne | IDN-InDepth NewsReport

SINGAPORE (IDN) – “I’m making a claim that we have to discover our own heritage and not just learn about the West, at the cost of leaving behind your own culture and forgetting your own roots,” Dr. Madanmohan Rao told IDN after launching his latest book of proverbs which focuses on Singapore, perhaps the most multicultural and cosmopolitan nation in Asia.

The book captures over 1,000 proverbs translated into English from Chinese (mostly from Mandarin and the Hakka, Hokkien, Cantonese and Teochew dialects), Malay and Tamil. Singapore has four official languages – English, Malay, Mandarin and Tamil – which reflects the migrant background of its 4 million population.

Singapore’s linguistic foundations are influenced by its local Malay roots, and its position as a trade settlement that has attracted foreigners from Asia and beyond, bringing in new languages and dialects and creating new mixes in the process. The local Chinese dialects have now been absorbed by Mandarin, which many older Chinese, who speak Hakka or Hokkien for example, have resented. Thus, one of the book’s aims is to preserve some of the proverbs from these dialects.

By Martin Khor*  | IDN-InDepth NewsAnalysis

The successful East Asian model of “state-driven capitalism” is being threatened by proposals in the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA) to remove possible advantages of state-owned enterprises.

GENEVA (IDN) – Many articles and books have been published on the contrast and competition between the present Western and the Asian-style economic models.

By Shastri Ramachandran* | IDN-InDepth NewsAnalysis

NEW DELHI (IDN) – The 16th round of talks between the Special Representatives (SRs) of India and China on the boundary issue, which was held in Beijing on June 28 and 29, was not just another round of jaw-jaw towards resolving the border dispute. The meeting had acquired greater significance because it is the first after the April 15 incursion by Chinese troops in Depsang in eastern Ladakh, and was held less than a week before defence minister AK Antony’s visit to China.

In the view of some observers, the Chinese incursion had strained bilateral relations to a level unprecedented since the 1962 conflict. So much so that there were calls for cancellation of not only external affairs minister Salman Khurshid’s visit to China in May but also Chinese premier Li Keqiang’s visit to Delhi the same month. However, with China making amends and India not pushing for a confrontation, both visits went as scheduled although Premier Li’s visit – his first foreign stop since assuming office in the decadal power shift – did not evoke the expected enthusiasm.

By Qureish Raghib* | IDN-InDepth NewsFeature

MUMBAI (IDN) – From being an irrigation tract in its early days to being developed by the British to resettle communities – affected by the Great Mumbai Fire that broke in 1803 at the Fort area – and then eventually mushroom into a bustling business district, Bhendi Bazaar in India’s South Mumbai, has come a long way in terms of socio-economic evolution.

The market area derives its name from a plantation of thespesia populnia or bhendi in the north-west of Dongri as mentioned in the Maharashtra State Gazette. Surprisingly, even with its 200-year-history of characteristic entrepreneurial resilience, Bhendi Bazaar gradually sunk in an abyss of civic neglect and infrastructural despair leading it to be seriously challenged in a liberal Indian economy.

By Richard Johnson | IDN-InDepth NewsAnalysis

BRUSSELS (IDN) – A tentative peace agreement in Burma’s Kachin conflict – one of the longest-running ethnic insurgencies in the country and in fact in the world – signifies a major opportunity to secure lasting peace in what is officially known as Myanmar as a whole. Yet, there will be significant challenges in doing so, says an eminent think-tank.

The peace accord was signed on May 30, 2013 by the Kachin Independence Organisation (KIO) with the Myanmar government – the last of the eleven major ethnic armed groups to do so since 2011.

By Sushetha Gopallawa* | IDN-InDepth NewsReport

WASHINGTON DC (IDN) – While in Myanmar’s Kachin State in May, I visited a number of displacement camps around and I also met with Kachin community-based organizations (CBOs) who deliver aid in both government and non-government controlled areas.

Over 100,000 people have been displaced since conflict between the Myanmar military and the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) resumed in June 2011. While about 35,000 of these individuals are living in government-controlled areas, more than half of the displaced are located behind rebel lines, in areas controlled by the Kachin Independence Organisation (KIO), the KIA’s political wing.

By Shastri Ramachandran* | IDN-InDepth NewsAnalysis

NEW DELHI (IDN) – Even as most Indians continue to rue that, in recent months, the government has achieved little on the foreign front, New Delhi has scored a diplomatic victory by joining the Arctic Council as an observer.

India’s accomplishment came at May 15 meeting of the Arctic Council in Kiruna, Sweden. This is a rare instance of diplomatic alertness and activism paying off, thanks to proactive pursuit of a prospect that could have gone awry had the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) taken things for granted. If the MEA been laid back and assumed that India’s entry in to the Arctic Council would happen as a matter of course, the outcome at Kiruna could have been different.

By Coonoor Kripalani* | IDN-InDepth NewsAnalysis

SINGAPORE (IDN | Yale Global) – The activities of Indian and Chinese troops along the line of actual control, the undemarcated border between the two nations known as LAC, may recall memories of 1962. That year marked a border conflict between the two Asian giants that remains etched in the Indian psyche – reinforced by the 1964 film Haqeeqat, written and directed by Chetan Anand. The same dispute goes unmentioned in China’s history books.

By Kasturi Moitra* | IDN-InDepth NewsAnalysis

NEW DELHI (IDN | IDSA) – “Deception is an integral element of Chinese strategic culture”, noted Shyam Saran (former Foreign Secretary with the Government of India) at the second K. Subrahmanyam lecture series held in August 2012 at New Delhi.

At the same event, he also underscored the importance of being more conversant with the Chinese thought process for improving Indo-China relations. His counsel becomes even more relevant in the light of the recent friction between India and China over difference in interpretation of the border, resulting, recently, in a 19-km incursion in the Daulat Beg Oldi sector of the Depsang Valley in Ladakh.

By Eric Walberg* | IDN-InDepth NewsAnalysis

The parliamentary elections in Pakistan on May 12 may be described as historic in many ways. But what do the tea leaves tell us? Sharif is a logical heir to Pakistan’s tragic history, which continues to unfold, regardless of who sits on top. But if he can strike a peace accord with India and work with regional players – including Iran – and the US in Afghanistan, peace will break out, creating an economic boom across the region.