Comment & Briefs

BRICS is not challenging the existing world order. It is seeking a place in the sun for developing countries. It is looking at alternative approaches but there is no desire to seek confrontation with the West.

Like all its predecessors, the government that just completed its tenure miserably failed to promote what a democratic state is supposed to first and foremost, namely, foster the multi-faceted development of all its citizens.

Unless the leaders of varying political hue and institutional oligarchs, including the military and, above all, Su Kyi, show political wisdom, incidents such as those in Meikhtila, Yamethin, and state military action against the Karens and Kachins will continue to recur.

FY 2013-14 has transited into the annals of the MoD but picking up a few messages from it and carrying forward the unfinished agenda to the next year would be the greatest tribute to the year gone by.

The Tibetan issue is primarily a political one and less an economic one as China projects it to be. China should talk to the Tibetan diaspora and India for a final solution. That would be in the true interests of the peoples, bilateral relations and regional stability.

While it is too early to predict the outcome of the national dialogue process, at present it looks like that the national dialogue, which is endeavouring to bring all the political parties and other factions under one umbrella, is the last chance for peace in Yemen.

The US may have provided the support and platform for the apology, but it was something Israel had to do desperately as it was finding the developing regional situation difficult to handle with every passing day.

Now that NAM is defunct and very little wealth is left in the Commonwealth, and given that the G-20 has a set parameter and doesn’t encompass the aggregate of the hopes and aspirations of the developing world, India should use the BRICS forum to project its global profile.

State Assembly Elections held in Meghalaya, Nagaland and Tripura in February 2013 threw up a clear mandate in favour of the ruling (coalition) parties in Tripura and Nagaland, although a fractured one in Meghalaya. Political analysts suggest that these results stand testimony to the people’s desire to maintain the status quo.

The war crime trials should be taken to their logical conclusion to create a precedent that will discourage the extremist and radical elements. But the government must also act swiftly to maintain law and order so that the situation is not used by extra-constitutional forces to thwart the whole exercise.