Sparsh

Let me answer a question on Pakistan from Indian point of view:  How geography, military dominance, ideological transformation and dependence on external powers shaped Pakistan’s history, its rivalry with India and its continuing search for a stable national identity?  Pakistan’s geopolitical history is marked by a recurring contradiction. It seeks strategic autonomy and regional influence, yet much of its security architecture has depended on relationships with larger external powers, principally the United States and China. Pakistan became important not primarily because of what its economy produced, but because of where it was located, whom it bordered and what strategic services it could provide to larger powers. Its geography repeatedly brought military assistance, financial support and diplomatic relevance. Yet this external importance often reduced the pressure to build autonomous political, economic and civilian institutions. Pakistan consequently achieved strategic re...

The Blood Telegram: Nixon, Kissinger, and a Forgotten Genocide by Gary J. Bass | Goodreads ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Highly Recommended Gary J. Bass’s The Blood Telegram tells the story of 1971 not merely as a war between India and Pakistan, but as a moral failure inside the highest offices of the United States government. It shows India standing as a democratic bulwark, bearing nearly millions of refugees while the Nixon administration ignored, minimized, and at times enabled the crisis. For American readers, this is an uncomfortable book. It challenges the familiar portrayal of Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger as hard-headed strategists guided by America’s larger interests. Bass reveals geopolitical calculation mixed with personal prejudice, institutional cowardice, and a willingness to disregard mass suffering. The crisis began with the Pakistani military establishment’s refusal to accept the democratic mandate delivered by the people of East Pakistan (now Bangladesh). It then attempted to solve a dem...

  1 971 – A Global History of the Creation of Bangladesh by Srinath Raghavan ⭐⭐⭐⭐✰ Worth Reading Srinath Raghavan’s 1971 reframes the creation of Bangladesh not simply as an inevitable regional conflict, but as a complex geopolitical event shaped by global trends, diplomatic isolation, and intense personal dynamics among world leaders. The book has a wide canvas, goes deep into history, and uses diplomatic records, political developments and military events to construct a coherent narrative. The author places the creation of Bangladesh within a wider global context, showing that regional wars are rarely shaped by regional actors alone.  When history is so often viewed through a narrow national lens, this book compels the reader to examine 1971 from multiple and sometimes conflicting perspectives. What emerges is not merely a military history, but an illuminating account of diplomacy, power, national interest and human suffering.  A Globalized Conflict Raghavan broadens t...

Among the Believers: An Islamic Journey  by  V. S. Naipaul Among the Believers: An Islamic Journey | Goodreads ⭐⭐⭐⭐✰ Worth Reading History bears out the proposition that political revolutions have always been preceded by social and religious revolutions.    In Bangladesh, a significant number of people have converted to Islam over centuries, particularly during the medieval period when the region was influenced by conquest of Muslim rulers and proselytization by Sufi saints. Today, there has been t he rapid rise of radicalism in Bangladesh with the ouster of ex- Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina  in the student protest.  The protest has now been hijacked by Islamic extremists. Over the years, there was  a surge in madrasas, and  this has led to growing religious fanaticism, with zealots aggressively pushing an Islamist agenda.  With Islamist influence in power, Bangladesh is modifying national identity by erasing symbols of its secular past, ...

1- Smokers’ Corner: Real revolutions by Nadeem F. Paracha. 2- The Night Shastri Died And Other Stories by Kuldip Nayar. 3- Why Elites Fail by Christopher Hayes. 4- The real wealth of nations - The Economist 5- Children of the Taliban - PBS Frontline 6- The wedges between productivity and median compensation growth By Lawrence Mishel 7- 'A Perfect and Beautiful Machine': What Darwin's Theory of Evolution Reveals About Artificial Intelligence by Daniel C. Dennett. 8- Why so many communist philosophers? by Santiago Zabala 9- Destroying the commons by Noam Chomsky. 10 - Theories of Oppression and Another Dialogue of Cultures by Ashis Nandy Perspectives Jonathan Haidt: The moral roots of liberals and conservatives Psychologist Jonathan Haidt studies the five moral values that form the basis of our political choices, whether we're left, right or center. In this eye-opening talk, he pinpoints the moral values that liberals and conservatives tend...

Harvard professor Larry Lessig is one of our foremost authorities on copyright issues, with a vision for reconciling creative freedom with marketplace competition. 1- The Indian state of Bihar has long been a byword for bad governance. It was however governed particularly badly between 1990 and 2005, and has since experienced something of a ‘governance miracle’. How can we account for the 1990–2005 deterioration? Through this working paper - State Incapacity by Design: Understanding the Bihar Story , we will understand that the low state capacity is often a political choice . 2- La Grande Revolution, Encore? A comparison between France of 1787 with present USA as both had financed an overseas war with borrowed money. 3- The War Dogma : This article appears in the July issue of Agenda/Infochange for the theme on the ‘Limits of Freedom’. An insight on Dantewada and Operation Green Hunt. 4- Playing fast and loose by Pratap Bhanu Mehta : A overview of tussle on Janlokpal Bill ...

1- Why Pandits aren't returning to roots ? : The Pandits, though, will tell you another story: of murders and village loudspeakers issuing threats. Jagmohan is rarely the central figure that Kashmiri Muslim makes him out to be. 2- Will Pakistanis put their national interest first? by Harini Calamur :If there is any country in the world that is a poster child for dictatorship, it is Pakistan. Over the last two and half decades at least, Pakistan seems to have been more stable and more prosperous under its military dictators than its “democratically” elected leaders. 3- Islamic Banking System: Threats and Opportunities --- The Islamic banking system is an important component of Islamic finance. Islamic finance has unique features because its foundation is laid on the principles and rules of Islamic law (sharia), which states that everything is owned by Allah and man has only been permitted to use it. 4- The predicament of the Islamic Republic by Hamid Dabashi. Green Movement...