Pakistan's prime ministers have always been removed through external intervention. What used to be a system where power was shared uneasily between army and civil society now has a third force. An energized judiciary.
If transparency and trust have to grow between India and the US, a more honest exchange of views is necessary. The US needs to keep India informed in detail about its plans, intentions, and predictions for Afghanistan, which hasn’t always been the case.
Israel now wants a public acknowledgement the India-Israel friendship. It would like India to invite President Shimon Peres for a visit to put a seal on the relationship and take it to a higher level. But here's why India will be reluctant over such a visit.
One child dying is too many, and 20 is surely reason enough to take baby steps forward, even if we don't yet know the end result.
The story of the nurse who died after being a victim of the prank call from two Australian DJs is now almost a week old, but the media won't let it die. . .or more accurately, won't let the nurse rest in peace.
It's the Twitter and social media reaction that's scary. Because the nurse and mum of two was one of the two "victims" of the prank call, the bile thrown at the radio DJs was aggressive and some even implied they should kill themselves.
India has always thought of itself as something of a moral nation in the rough and tumble of international politics. But its behaviour has not been consistent.
Without going into the compelling but competing narratives of why and how Israel landed in what seems a perpetually hostile dynamic, it is easy to see that it is surrounded by hostile neighbors and there is no strategic depth of geography.
Almost all the bad practices put on display during the Leveson inquiry are already illegal. Regulating the press inherently means providing an additional deterrent to choice, and a prior restraint on publication.
You can be a reporter just with Twitter now, so what do you do with journalists who are not part of newspapers? Are they beyond new regulations? Are the websites belonging to newspapers held to the same standard of reporting?
On the Indian subcontinent, regional trouble is blamed on the foreign hand. Such stupidity is commonplace among the state, the people and the media.
A series of incidents in several countries, and involving several organisations, have further highlighted the need for us to think before we tweet, and read before we retweet.
Pakistan's nuclear frenzy, and its move to acquire smaller and more readily usable nuclear weapons, is disquieting because such weapons make sense only when distributed near the borders for quick and early use.
This "crisis" engulfing the world's largest broadcasting organisation needs to be dealt with properly and comprehensively, not hysterically.
He focused on regular Americans — the middle class and the poor — while Romney dissed them as the 47 percent who didn’t matter. His cool, non-fussy way of governing won him more support than Romney had imagined.
Republicans are set to oppose everything Obama does if he gets re-elected. Democrats are poised to oppose everything Romney does if he gets elected.
The principle difference between India's political signage and hoardings and America's, is this. In America, it's pure text. In India, as we can observe, it's photographs and names of people.
Just five days before the vote the race is too close to call, partly because of the Obama campaign’s slightly arrogant, slightly complacent and overly confident methods. On the other hand, Romney’s team has run a better, tighter campaign in the last phase.
It took a while and a disastrous first debate performance to wake and shake Obama up. A little more than two weeks before the vote and all guns blazing he is firing up the crowds.
Reading the other stories of America, or even visiting the country in person, can offer a far greater, and more useful, perspective. Even using social media, such as Twitter, to connect to Americans watching debates or attack ads, will be more beneficial.
If vice president Joe Biden can't mop the floor with his opponent Paul Ryan in their one debate on Thursday night, it will add to the sense that Team Obama is on the way out.
It is sad that both men seem content merely to convince the undecided Americans, rather than all of America that they should be the leader for the next four years.
I was reading Salman Rushdie's memoir, Joseph Anton, when it struck me that Pakistan's Mohd Ali Jinnah, the Muslim hero, and India's Rushdie, the Muslim villain, share quite a few things in common...
The two faces of Pakistan were on stark display last week, one with a good make over showing signs of a somewhat healthy diet and the other darkened with twisted logic spouting old falsehoods.
What is a private moment? What is a public one? How do you define dignity? No easy questions, and no easy answers.
Free speech absolutists want the US govt to assert First Amendment rights and not compromise this most sacred principle. But they don’t explain how a government is to protect its citizens – a task more sacred.
While in India, the people’s faith in the judiciary was restored with the Naroda Patiya verdict, in America, two cases under investigation related to the use of torture by the CIA, which had ended in the deaths of two prisoners, were shut down.
Aakar Patel feels it is strong religious sentiment that is the reason why so many Pakistanis are accused of being blasphemers.
Firstpost blogger Seema Sirohi defends her views on why she found Al Jazeera's show on the flight of North Eastern Indians from various cities uninformed. She's also confused as to why the channel calls a terror group as merely violent.
Al Jazeera journalist defends channel's show on the flight of North Eastern Indians from various cities and their larger approach to coverage in conflict areas