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PUBLISHER’S NOTE/EDITORIAL |
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We welcome all to our
October edition. The month of October
brings a hope – a hope of the end of
long scorching months of summer and
humid monsoon. It brings the first feel
of much awaited winter season in our
part of the world, and suddenly we all
start becoming excited in the
anticipation of the forthcoming winter.
Interestingly, the world of diplomacy
also gets affected with this infectious
anticipation, and international
diplomatic activities intensify.
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News |
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> International News
> Corporate News |
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Focus |
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India Dares to
fill Strategic Void in Post NATO
Afghanistan |
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India seeks presence
in the Afghanistan owing to its
civilizational links with the region,
and more importantly in its capacity of
regional power which demands
participation in regional peace building
efforts.
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South China Sea
Dispute |
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Comprising an area of
3,500,000 square kilometres, and
containing over 250 small islands,
atolls, cays, shoals and sandbars, the
South China Sea is the second most used
sea lane in the world with about 50
percent of world annual merchant fleet
tonnage passing through it. Coupled with
the geopolitical importance, it has also
unproven oil reserves of around 28
billion barrels and natural gas reserves
of around 266 trillion cubic feet. |
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India should
Re-think its Nuclear Energy Option:
FICCI Secretary General |
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FICCI Secretary
General Dr. Rajeev Kumar shares his
experiences of first four months at
office, and steps initiated to shape
FICCI as a “process based organisation’’,
in a candid interview with Mr. Sandeep
Singh Editor-in-Chief, Diplomatist. |
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Read an
Interview |
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Will
India-Pakistan Trade Pave the Way for
Peace? |
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In 64 years of
bilateral relations severely marred by
three conventional wars, followed by
three decades of insurgency and low
intensity conflict being waged in
Kashmir, added with an erratic
diplomatic engagement between India and
Pakistan, the recently held meeting of
commerce ministers and industrialists of
both countries offers much promise. This
meeting between the two commerce
ministers was held after a gap of 35
long years. |
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Spotlight |
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BRICS Bailout
to Europe
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The emerging economy
nation group of Brazil, Russia, India,
China, and South Africa, which has
coalesced into a new political group
BRICS, with an ambition to enhance their
global clout and seek more power within
international system, has squandered a
second opportunity in the year to
establish an authority on global
financial system. While the world
grapples with another bout of financial
recession, the BRICS finance minister’s
meeting in September was hyped to offer
a bailout package. |
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Cover Story |
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Japan’s New
Found Interest in India |
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The year 2011 is
witnessing a resurgent interest of Japan
in India. The two countries signed the
Comprehensive Economic Partnership
Agreement (CEPA) Feb 16 in Tokyo and
diplomatic notes were exchanged June 30.
On 1st August the agreement came into
force with ambitious aims of greater
accessibility to each other’s market and
doubling the bilateral trade by 2014. |
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Japan Needs to Look for New Markets |
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Prof. Justing Paul, Nagoya University of
Commerce & Business, Japan, speaks with
Mr. Sandeep Singh, Editor-in-Chief,
Diplomatist, about the anxieties related
to Japanese Economy. Expressing his full
confidence in the inherrent strength of
Japanese Economy he says that Japanese
Companies are doing well: rather it is
Japanese Government which is facing the
problem. |
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Former Prime Minister of Japan
addressed ICWA |
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Remarks of Shinzo Abe, Former Prime
Minister of Japan, at the Indian Council
of World Affairs (ICWA) and Japan
Institute for National Fundamentals (JINF)
joint seminar, 20 September 2011, New
Delhi. |
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Perspective |
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Multi-Track
Diplomacy |
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The actual concept of
the modern state emanated from the Peace
of Westphalia in 1648, in which the
concept of sovereignty and sovereign
power was defined for the first time.
But the underlying notion of the state
as a form of political organization with
a defined territory, population, and the
capability to exercise political power
over its people, has been with us as
long as recorded history. |
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CMS National
Lecture ‘Sustainable Development: 20
Years After Rio’ |
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I have been asked to share thoughts on
what has happened during the last 20
years since Rio de Janeiro’s focus on
the Earth Summit which happened in 1992;
next year we will complete two decades
of the same. We will also complete forty
years of the Stockholm conference on the
human environment and ten years of the
meeting in South Africa. I would like to
briefly take up three or four areas
which were agreed upon at Rio and say
what has happened in the last 20 years. |
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Economy |
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Evolution of
the Global Financial System |
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In the Hall of Fame
of the most-hated-jobs for the ones who
don’t do it, traders have successfully
managed the amazing feat to supplant the
‘renters’, who were accused for decades
– both by ordinary people and by famous
economists – of being unproductive
players within the economic system. It
must be said that the rentiers’ profile
of idle, slightly profiteer is
definitively nothing compared to both
the exorbitant profits earned by traders
and all the potential risks they
generate for the global economy. |
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Global Center
Stage |
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Nepal Impact on
SAARC and India
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Nepal has undergone a
radical political transformation since
2006, when a 10-year armed struggle by
Maoist insurgents officially came to an
end. The country’s king stepped down the
same year, and two years later Nepal
became a republic. It elected a
Constituent Assembly in 2008 to write a
new constitution, which is currently
being drafted. |
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Denmark ‘Time to Move On’ |
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The two distinct
characteristics of Danish society in the
first half of the 20th century can be
narrowed down to an increase in
affluence and the growth of its ‘welfare
state’. In the post-World War II era,
Denmark’s Social Democratic Party
understood the progressive mood of the
Danish population and designed a midway
political solution — between the
extremes of local Nazi sympathizers and
strong pro-socialist sentiments within
the working class. |
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TUNISIA
Starting Point of the Arab Revolution? |
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The Tunisian
‘Revolution’, started on December 17,
2010, in an innocuous manner. Twenty-
six year old Tarek al Tayyib Muhammad
Bouazizi, an insignificant street fruit
vendor in Sidi Bouzid, the capital of
the Upper Tunisian Governorate by the
same name, had his cart ‘confiscated’ by
the police. He allegedly did not have a
permit to sell fruit and in addition to
having his cart confiscated, Bouazizi
was also roughed up by the police. |
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India & Indonesia Emerging Strategic
Convergence |
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The increasing
influence of Asian countries at the high
table of international politics has been
one of the most persistent themes in the
21st century. No doubt, the United
States of America will still dominate
across a wide range of issue areas, but
at the same time, there is no denying
that the rise of Asian giants like India
and China and their increasing leverages
in vital strategic issues will be the
cover story of the 21st century. And
Indonesia, by dint of its geostrategic
position, demographics, economic
vitality and its increasing democratic
credentials occupies a key part of this
story. |
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Sri Lanka ‘A
Delightful Destination’
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Our Sri Lankan
Airlines flight arrived at Bandaranaike
International Airport in the early
evening of 27 July, from where we
commenced a 35 km drive into Colombo.
Our hotel was located on Galle Road
facing Galle Face Green and the open
waters of the Indian Ocean beyond. |
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Cultural
Diplomacy |
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“We have
Calcutta Blood…”
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In the fabric of
South-east Asian history, the Indian
Spice Route of Bali Sumatra and Java
remained the most prominent statement.
It paved not only the path for growth of
commerce and trade, but ushered in a
unique cultural amalgamation and even
forged celebrated regal diplomatic ties
for several millennia. From language to
belief system, from customs to
creativity, Indian Diaspora left its
mark which still thrives silently in
Bali. |
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an Article |
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Celebrating
Swami Vivekananda
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Great men are seldom
born. It is sheer good fortune of ours
that in one decade of the 19th century,
three great’ men were born in India:
Swami Vivekananda on the 12th of January
1863; Rabindranath Tagore on the 4th of
May 1861; and, Mahatma Gandhi on 2nd of
October 1869. Each one of them became a
formidable figure in his sphere of work:
Swami Vivekananda in religion and
spirituality; Gurudev Tagore in
literature; and, Mahatma Gandhi in
freedom movement and public life. Swami
Vivekananda was the first leader among
these three outstanding persons to make
a major impact on the Indian
consciousness both in his time and
thereafter. |
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an Article |
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Indian States
On a Platter |
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Gujarat:
The Textile Hub
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The Textile Industry
has been one of the oldest and most
important sectors of the Indian Economy.
It is the second largest employment
provider in the country, next to
agriculture; it contributes to almost
one third of foreign exchange earnings;
contributing to 3 percent of the GDP.
India has also been a significant player
in the Global Textile markets. |
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Read an
Interview |
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Book Review |
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Microfinance and its Discontents:
Women in Debt in Bangladesh a Review
Paper |
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A report by the
Government of Bengal in the 1930s
revealed that a poor peasant from
Mymensingh district in eastern Bengal
(Bangladesh since 1971) had told a land
revenue official in 1929: “My father,
Sir, was born in debt, grew in debt and
died in debt. I have inherited my
father’s debt and my son will inherit
mine.” Following the introduction of
microcredit, glorified as microfinance
by its local and international
promoters, if the situation has improved
with regard to the lot of the rural
masses in Bangladesh, especially poor
women, is an important question today. |
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Read the Review |